But could the move ultimately land the Stars with a new co-tenant? 

The move to a hockey-only building could pave the way for Dallas-Fort Worth to become a prime location for Professional Women’s Hockey League expansion in 2031. Stars President and CEO Brad Alberts told The Dallas Morning News the team has considered that possibility.  

“Yes. We’ll see about all that,” Alberts told The News in an exclusive interview. “We need content in that. Now, we are a real estate company. We’re 50% partners in real estate. It’s important that we drive traffic to the district and not just look at it as an arena business.  

“All that’s going to be important as we start to figure out, OK, do we own teams? Do we just have them play as tenants in this facility? That’ll be part of what we study over the next five years to add to this arena, and certainly, [the PWHL] is one of them.” 

The PWHL, the only professional women’s league in North America, launched in 2023 with six franchises — Boston, Minneapolis, Montreal, New York, Ottawa and Toronto. Since, the league has rapidly expanded, adding teams in Vancouver and Seattle in April 2025 before adding four more franchises — San Jose, Las Vegas, Hamilton (Ontario) and Detroit — in May of this year. 

The latest expansion to Vegas, in particular, shows the league’s willingness to play outside of traditional hockey markets, meaning Dallas could be a possibility. 

The PWHL did not respond to The News’ request for comment on a possible expansion to North Texas.  

The PWHL operates under the single-entity ownership of TWG Global, whose founder, Mark Walter, backed the league’s creation financially. The league’s championship trophy is called the Walter Cup. 

While Stars owner Tom Gaglardi could not purchase an expansion franchise at this time, he is familiar with operating teams across leagues. In addition to the Dallas Stars, Gaglardi also owns the Texas Stars of the American Hockey League and the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League. 

The Stars have also worked to expand the game for women and girls with over 40% of the participants in their in-house youth programs being girls.  

A PWHL co-tenant could help the Stars achieve their mission of growing the game, while also growing their business.  

“What we won’t do is just depend on music to support us,” Alberts said. “Music is a big business here, but we realize we’re not going to have the music business that you get at American Airlines Center now. The Mavericks are going to have a music business as part of their arena, so getting music is part of the equation, but it’s not going to be the only thing that we’re depending on here.”