Can the KHL survive now

[SoundAndFury]

What ever happened to the London-based and Gulf States KHL Team hype? "London Emperors" lol talk about propaganda!

You can't even call it legit propaganda, nobody took it seriously. Well, nobody but vorky.

 

[Exarz]

Read that Lada and Yugra will be back next season, I hope they got brand new 12k arenas to keep up with the requirements

 

[ozo]

Belarussian media is (yet again) reporting that Yunost Minsk could join KHL. Means nothing usually, but at times like these when Russian sport has few friends it might actually happen. This rumor also mentions potential Belarussian teams in VHL and MHL too.

 

[Albatros]

Perhaps ironically there are now many more Belarusian hockey players that are good enough for the KHL, so wouldn't be surprised to see it happening.

 

[alko]

What ever happened to the London-based and Gulf States KHL Team hype?

London is a no-go at this time. But i can see that KHL will make a push to Gulf states now. At least something. It would be crazy, no doubt, but that is usual in KHL.

 

[Albatros]

Who's going to pour tens of millions of dollars into a Gulf hockey team in this situation though? Yunost or Yugra you can pay in rubles, but that doesn't fly everywhere.

 

[SoundAndFury]

While KHL dreams about adding new teams it becomes obvious things as simple as quality skates or sticks might become an issue as early as next season. ozo talked about Russia becoming North Korea few weeks ago, I guess this is another thing that makes the sentiment so much more real.

 

[Exarz]

While KHL dreams about adding new teams it becomes obvious things as simple as quality skates or sticks might become an issue as early as next season. ozo talked about Russia becoming North Korea few weeks ago, I guess this is another thing that makes the sentiment so much more real.

I guess business in Kazakhstan and potentially Belarus (depending on sanctions) will be booming since they will probably act as an intermediate in importing Western products

 

[ozo]

While KHL dreams about adding new teams it becomes obvious things as simple as quality skates or sticks might become an issue as early as next season. ozo talked about Russia becoming North Korea few weeks ago, I guess this is another thing that makes the sentiment so much more real.

That probably will be a thing in longer term if this madness continues, but the short term problem looking forward to next season is the value of Ruble, there will be an exodus of players (even Russian ones) because most teams will struggle with financing and players won't risk earning vague amount of salary due to instability of currency. Guaranteed, lets say, 70-80K USD in AHL will look just as good as it did for Soviet players in early nineties.

Anyone who seriously ponders any foreign expansion plans is delusional to put it mildly. Next season, whatever the league is called eventually, is all about consolidation and seeing where pieces land if sanctions are not uplifted.

 

[Albatros]

Kazakhstan is definitely becoming that hub already, but it's perhaps more relevant for importing consumer electronics and alike. The volumes and profit margins for quality hockey equipment relative to iPhones aren't such that you're likely to have every stick flex available as easily as before if you do have to import everything over Kazakhstan.

 

[Caser]

That probably will be a thing in longer term if this madness continues, but the short term problem looking forward to next season is the value of Ruble, there will be an exodus of players (even Russian ones) because most teams will struggle with financing and players won't risk earning vague amount of salary due to instability of currency. Guaranteed, lets say, 70-80K USD in AHL will look just as good as it did for Soviet players in early nineties.

Anyone who seriously ponders any foreign expansion plans is delusional to put it mildly. Next season, whatever the league is called eventually, is all about consolidation and seeing where pieces land if sanctions are not uplifted.

Value of RUB isn't a big deal itself, as salaries and the cap can just be easily increased for the corresponding amount, but the fluctuations of it indeed is: first it has fallen rather dramatically. now it has regained like half of value lost - noone knows where it will be tomorrow. As for the 80k in the AHL, even the current rather usual 30m RUB salaries are equal for 285k USD by the today's exchange rate and I'm not even mentioning taxes, so there still is a notable difference.

Kazakhstan is definitely becoming that hub already, but it's perhaps more relevant for importing consumer electronics and alike. The volumes and profit margins for quality hockey equipment relative to iPhones aren't such that you're likely to have every stick flex available as easily as before if you do have to import everything over Kazakhstan.

Judging by what I've heard Kazakhstan has already started functioning that way, the variety of equipment isn't an issue (I guess since local hockey teams have generated enough demand before that), but the delay is, so everything has to be planned beforehand now.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

 

[Jussi]

I guess business in Kazakhstan and potentially Belarus (depending on sanctions) will be booming since they will probably act as an intermediate in importing Western products

Belarus is already on sanctions lists and it's likely there will be expansions to them.

 

[SaltNPeca]

Who's going to pour tens of millions of dollars into a Gulf hockey team in this situation though? Yunost or Yugra you can pay in rubles, but that doesn't fly everywhere.

I read KHL paid all players in Rubles. How did this work in Finland, Kazakhstan, and Latvia?

The other dumb things about the Gulf that are incomparable with NHL's Vegas success:

• Vegas is a getaway destination somewhat centrally located in N.A., they get huge attendance from visiting fans (e.g. MIN, DET, or Canadian fans go on a weekend vacation to see their team play somewhere warm and fun)
• TV Revenue in N.A. and European Market is very healthy, but who tf watches winter sports in Dubai?

All kind of seems like dumb rich guy ideas. Stuff could happen, but hard to see that these ideas will really float and make money.

 

[Rigafan]

Certainly some kind of Russian hockey league will survive, but it will drop far from #2. Hopefully young Russian players aren't forcibly stuck there earning Rubles.

What ever happened to the London-based and Gulf States KHL Team hype? "London Emperors" lol talk about propaganda!

London Emperors are now known as Wembley Emperors and are supposed to join the UK EIHL league.. this has been said for many years but nothing seems to happen. They had some social media accounts once, not sure if they still exist.

Neil Black owns them, whatever they are. He also owns Nottingham Panthers and Glasgow Clan so they should at least be a real entity somewhere.

 

[ozo]

Value of RUB isn't a big deal itself, as salaries and the cap can just be easily increased for the corresponding amount, but the fluctuations of it indeed is: first it has fallen rather dramatically. now it has regained like half of value lost - noone knows where it will be tomorrow. As for the 80k in the AHL, even the current rather usual 30m RUB salaries are equal for 285k USD by the today's exchange rate and I'm not even mentioning taxes, so there still is a notable difference.



Judging by what I've heard Kazakhstan has already started functioning that way, the variety of equipment isn't an issue (I guess since local hockey teams have generated enough demand before that), but the delay is, so everything has to be planned beforehand now.

I'll admit my lack of knowledge, but as far as I understand KHL salaries still depend on a strong (sponsor) industry intertwined in world economy. If sponsors don't have the income, the worry about the value of Ruble is secondary, no? If the car/steel/chemical products manufacturing plant is suffering the 285k salaries are a thing of past. I'm sure there are couple of teams that will be able to ignore the sanctions and continue as nothing has changed, but will teams like Severstal or potential substitutes like Lada still have teams at all?

 

[Caser]

I'll admit my lack of knowledge, but as far as I understand KHL salaries still depend on a strong (sponsor) industry intertwined in world economy. If sponsors don't have the income, the worry about the value of Ruble is secondary, no? If the car/steel/chemical products manufacturing plant is suffering the 285k salaries are a thing of past. I'm sure there are couple of teams that will be able to ignore the sanctions and continue as nothing has changed, but will teams like Severstal or potential substitutes like Lada still have teams at all?

It's a bit of a different thing not directly related to the RUB fluctuations and I'd say it might be more important, but here we need to be looking at the team by team basis.

Obviously the rich teams will still be doing fine, also the ones owned by oligarchs like Severstal, on the other hand teams like Admiral (or Lada if they will join, which I kind of doubt) will be pretty bad financially in any circumstances, they're just cursed . Looking at the team list I'd say Neftekhimik might be at risk, also the mostly region government financed ones: Traktor, Torpedo, Sibir. I'd put a question mark on Dynamo Moscow too due to the VTB bank being under sanctions, not to mention the strange things always ongoing in Dynamo's management, so you can never know. On the other hand, for obvious reasons a solid amount of money will be saved on foreigners, as not a lot of them will be signing.

All those things are hard to predict, but long story short: I'd expect an exodus of the majority of foreigners, but as for the local players I don't expect them to suffer much (if at all) in terms of salaries, so their exodus seems unlikely to me (not to mention that it will be harder to get work permits for them in a lot of countries).

 

[Jussi]

I'll admit my lack of knowledge, but as far as I understand KHL salaries still depend on a strong (sponsor) industry intertwined in world economy. If sponsors don't have the income, the worry about the value of Ruble is secondary, no? If the car/steel/chemical products manufacturing plant is suffering the 285k salaries are a thing of past. I'm sure there are couple of teams that will be able to ignore the sanctions and continue as nothing has changed, but will teams like Severstal or potential substitutes like Lada still have teams at all?

Lada had to shut down their plants so them being back in seems unlikely.

 

[Caser]

Lada had to shut down their plants so them being back in seems unlikely.

Lada (Avtovaz actually) isn't the owner of the team, just a sponsor, owner is the region's government. And btw they resumed the production yesterday.

 

[Jussi]

Now Fasel claimes that he doesn't have contract with the KHL nor that he will have a contract with KHL. He's only worried about the league.

Fasel ->>> KHL -> bus.

 

[eal]

There is also talk of Humo Tashkent returning to the lower leagues at least. I do believe Tashkent could be a good option for the KHL long term, it is a big city with a large Russian population.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Yes countries like Uzbekistan should absolutely foster the Russian culture, there is no way it backfires.

 

[Albatros]

Uzbekistan has a different geopolitical situation.

 

[Rcknrollkillnmachine]

Certainly some kind of Russian hockey league will survive, but it will drop far from #2. Hopefully young Russian players aren't forcibly stuck there earning Rubles.

What ever happened to the London-based and Gulf States KHL Team hype? "London Emperors" lol talk about propaganda!

London isn't a hot bed for hockey nor a lot of cities mentioned by folks for pan-European hockey leagues. The likes of Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham and so forth are England's hockey cities. The same in France where in the south east it is the main area where hockey is popular and not Paris.

Besides that almost all hockey federations wanted nothing to do with the KHL/Russia with the exceptions of Jokerit and Riga (Oligarch owned), and the either defunct clubs or teams that had to leave for financial reasons.

Best example of KHL expansion failure was the flop proposal of the Crowns team to play in different Nordic countries. Laughable.

KHL's focus will be allowing in the Gulf state teams and former Soviet nations in central Asia but how that is supposed to generate interest is beyond me apart from politically economical agreements.

 

[fredrikstad]

In the worlds best league NHL they've two teams in sunny Los Angeles, USA's second city and a team in the middle of dessert in Las Vegas. Not much snow and ice there. They've have developed their league emerging into new cities and markets since they started with their "original six" teams in cold areas.

I think if you want develop hockey in Norway you can't be som damn conservative and old fashioned as you are.

It would be huge for Norwegian hockey, to have at least two teams In both Bergen and Trondheim. Two big arenas in both city's too. It would have meant the world for our talent pool, to develop hockey in the second and third largest city's, due to population