CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL’s newest franchise, will get take part in one of sports’ rarest and most intriguing exercises on Wednesday -- the expansion draft. It’s something that we don’t see often, as the appetite for pro sports expansion has dwindled.
Back in the mid-90s and early part of the 2000s, expansion across all sports was a big deal. The NBA added teams in Toronto, Vancouver and Charlotte between 1995 and 2004. Major League Baseball added the Rockies and Marlins in 1993 and the Diamondbacks in 1998. As for the NFL, after adding Jacksonville and Carolina in 1995, the league awarded teams to Cleveland and Houston in 1999 and 2002 respectively to replace departed franchises.