People tend to not see things when they close their eyes, yeah. First of all, KRS has nothing to do with European expansion. Moreover, it is a stupid team which serves no purpose at all. They couldn't even pick a regular arena to play in and kept going between Shanghai and Beijing. How is a Chinese team with no arena and an average of what, 900 people maybe, attendance supposed to be an example of KHL expansion? For the sake of your argument, I'd honestly keep them out. If anything, they are a failure.
If a sports organization is heavily affected by the political climate in the country, then just maybe it is too deeply involved with the politics, huh? If KHL is self-sustainable league where team owners make money and fans are willing to spend for their teams, then why would anyone care about political climate?
Even if we go through your path... What exactly makes you believe political climate will be ready? When? Let's say, it somehow is ready and everyone is in love with Russia and every rich man dreams of having a KHL club. They'll probably make around 2-3 million € a year but will spend around 10 million €. What does exactly make KHL profitable or interesting for any sports organization or sugar daddy? Especially when it is obvious that nobody in the west other than CSKA or SKA is allowed to make it to the conference finals?
There is one very simple fact: KHL clubs consistently register losses for very basic reasons. They make little money, they give too much to their players. Without significant amount of outside help, clubs can't survive. For the Russian teams, this is not a huge problem. Some companies or sponsors would always be willing to give a hand to their local club. But literally every expansion candidate from Europe is already doing fine in their own leagues and nobody is willing to spend five times more money to play in Siberia against some team most locals can't even pronounce. Do you have any solid argument? Let's assume that I can easily afford spending 20M € on a hockey club every year. I am the owner of Sparta Prague. If I keep my team in Czechia, my expenditure will be significantly less. Who knows, I might even make some profit. Even if I don't, the losses are minimal - it is nothing big when compared to the joy of giving the capital of the country a decent hockey team to cheer for. Moreover, with Sparta, I can always have a champion team. I always know we can play for the title if we make the right moves. In this case, for what reason would I like the idea of moving to KHL? Income will maybe increase like %10-15 but expenditures only to be a mid-table western conference team will spike up by at least %100. Why would switch over?
I'd be more than happy to see Czechia, Germany, Austria, Poland etc. (hopefully, all of them) in KHL. For most, it is not interesting but I would be soooo in love with a Sparta-Amur game. It is exotic. Spans the whole continent. Brings really good teams together. Really cool. The problem is that there is no incentive for this. This is like, "I want to have a great house with a pool. Oh and I also want a Ferrari."
Sure, that sounds very cool but why in the earth would anyone in power work to achieve that for you? People have different ideas, different wills and the ones who have money do not share the same ideas as we do. Simple as that. And if we take rich guys out of the equation and have a self-sustainable KHL spanning across two continents... We probably need 100 years for all countries in the league to have similar financial positions. Hockey clubs in Germany and Russia work in totally different ways.
