Seattle Hockey: 25,000 People Put Down Season Ticket Deposits

SEATTLE, WA – Well, that didn't take long. The NHL requires organizations looking to land an expansion team to stage a season-ticket drive as a way of measuring interest in the market.

Thursday morning left no doubt that there's an interest. A really big interest.

Season tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. and with 12 minutes 10,000 people had put down deposits.

To do that they either had to pay $500 or $1,000 depending on what kind of tickets they wanted.

One hour later, the would-be team had sold 25,000 deposits.

To put those numbers in context, the last city to receive an expansion team was Las Vegas. There, the owners of the team that would become the Golden Knights needed two days to sell 5,000 deposits and six weeks to sell 10,000 deposits.

Seattle is saying they are interested.

"Thank you," the ownership group tweeted on Thursday. "You're mking history!"

The group behind the move to land an expansion team include Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of many Hollywood blockbusters, billionaire David Bonderman, and the chief executive of the Oak View Group, Tim Leiweke.

In interviews Wednesday, they pointed out that a previous Seattle NHL team – the Metropolitans – won the Stanley Cup in 1917.

They say it's been long enough.

The group added that they would also try to bring NBA back to the city.

Photo via NHL Seattle/Oak View