The ECHL, a hockey league that sits below both the American Hockey League (AHL) and National Hockey League (NHL) in the United States’ professional sports landscape, made a major announcement on Wednesday morning.
The league is set to expand to 32 teams by the 2027-28 season, during which a new franchise based in Augusta, Georgia, will take the ice for the first time.
When news of the announcement was first released on Wednesday morning, an interesting name drew headlines because of his ties to the new franchise: former football star Tim Tebow, who is a part of its ownership group.
Tebow is owning a hockey team?
Tebow, currently a college football analyst at the SEC Network, is best known for his exploits on the gridiron. He was a Heisman Trophy winner and two-time national champion as a student-athlete at Florida before going on to play professionally for the Denver Broncos and New York Jets (in addition to having non-active roster stints with the New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles and Jacksonville Jaguars).
Tebow has picked up a number of ownership roles, including multiple in hockey, since then.
In 2023, he became part of another ECHL expansion team’s ownership group — that of the Tahoe Knight Monsters, which became the league’s 29th team in 2024-25 — after being a limited partner with the Jacksonville Icemen and Savannah Ghost Pirates. He also has a minor ownership stake in Sporting Club Jacksonville, a professional soccer club that will soon have a men’s team in the USL Championship and a women’s team in the USL Super League.
And now, Tebow’s ownership portfolio will expand to Augusta, where he will bring a professional hockey team to the city for the first time since the Augusta RiverHawks of the Southern Professional Hockey League folded in 2013.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to bring hockey back to Augusta with our partnership group,” Tebow said in a statement. “We are excited to see this team bring people together from all over the country to enjoy camaraderie, competition, and community impact. Our desire is to make a positive impact both on and off the ice. We can’t wait for the puck drop in October of 2027!”
