Add the National Hockey League as among the next customers of the Sphere in Las Vegas. The league is reportedly expected to hold the 2024 NHL Draft at the said venue, per Darren Dreger if TSN.

“The NHL Draft will be held June 28/29 at the Sphere in Las Vegas. NHL Board just made it official. This will be the final draft before decentralizing.”

This would make the NHL the first major pro sports entity to have such an event there. The UFC has already struck a deal with The Sphere for a September 2024 event, but the NHL’s 2024 draft will be held months earlier in June.

Although there are still some papers that need to be signed to seal the deal between the NHL and The Sphere, it appears that the major issues have already been ironed out, with league commissioner Gary Bettman already having expressed his excitement about the event, per Dan Rosen of NHL.com.

“It will be the first sporting event in the Sphere and I think it’ll be a pretty well-viewed event both in terms of the draft itself and the viral use of the Sphere inside and outside using the globe,” Bettman shared. “We think it’ll be fun. We think it’ll be dramatic and compelling.”

As mentioned by Dreger, the 2024 NHL Draft will be the final time the league will hold the event before it becomes decentralized, starting in 2025 when up to a couple of team representatives from each team will be physically present in the draft venue while club personnel will stay in their respective home markets.