I’d take that bet.
Las Vegas was a unique situation. It was a polity with no identity. To outsiders, Las Vegas wasn’t real. Then came the shooting and a wounded town found comfort in a hockey team that embraced them. Them became us. The Knights became the hottest ticket in the NHL and most of it is due to local enthusiasm.
I have to admit having studied socio-political interactions many moons ago, it was fun to watch.
While I think Las Vegas is secure, I’m not confident about Seattle. The NHL there will be just another sports team.
The biggest challenge an expansion team or relocated team faces isnt the first few years. Those are the years when the new team attracts a lot of interest simply because its a novelty no matter how good or bad the team is.
The real challenge comes a few years later after the novelty wears off and the team is just an ordinary franchise in a professional sports league. The team will still maintain a strong fan base if it is improving and building itself into a championship contender, but the potential for a loss of interest is highest once the fans have experienced a dominant season (especially a championship) and the team must rebuild for several years. This is the most vulnerable period for a new team.
Under normal circumstances a new team will build itself into a championship contender AFTER the novelty of the new team wears off. So the franchise could potentially get a decade-long run where fans start following the team as a novelty, then stay with the team as its performance peaks. In the case of the Golden Knights, they became a good team so quickly that this period of strong fan interest may end up lasting only a few seasons before mediocrity sets in and the casual fans disappear.
A perfect example of this was the Colorado Avalanche. They didnt enter the NHL as an expansion team. Instead, they relocated from Quebec City at a time when they were already one of the most dominant teams in the NHL. They won a Stanley Cup in their first season in Denver, won another one five years later, and remained a dominant team for the better part of a decade. They were a hot ticket through those years, for sure.
Once that dominant period ended their decline was rapid and alarming. Fans in Denver who never knew what it was like to see a losing team vanished as soon as the teams performance declined when the great players from their championship teams aged and moved on. They missed the playoffs for the first time around 2008, and within several years they were in such financial distress that they were regularly mentioned along with dismal franchises in weak hockey markets like Florida and Arizona as a strong candidate for a sale and relocation. It has taken them years to recover financially.