KHL Revenues/Attendance

[EbencoyE]

well, take Switzerland and Germany. They also have only 12 teams in the league, but they are not hockey countries like Russia, Sweden, or Finland, still they have these big numbers. And the most attended team in Europe is from Switzerland as well(SC Bern) having the average attendance of 12 000.

... how is Switzerland not a hockey country?

 

[cska78]

Vityaz' or maybe other tretyak's KS?

 

[VladNYC*]

I really hope its Vityaz. It will be interesting to see what kind of following they will get in a black sea resort town. Maybe a similar thing as a Vegas NHL team would? Tourist attraction? Then again Sochi has a bigger population then the city of Buffalo so who knows? I wonder if they will keep the name? They should change it to something sea themed. Sochi Sprut any one?

 

[Hockeynomad]

Interesting how KHL numbers compare to the old Soviet league.

There was so little information available in Canada on the Soviet elite league, but it may have had 12 teams. And 5 were based in Moscow.

 

[wjhl2009fan]

v-man
In fact a good number of chl teams get real good support in some cases equal to that of top support minor pro teams in the states in some cases higher.

 

[boris4c]

Just curious to how the KHL does in terms of attendance and revenues. I know that 55% of nhl revenue comes from season tickets. how much of khl would you say?
Also, are teams with smaller rinks going o get bigger ones soon. I noticed that most teams have around 7-10 thousand capacity. But some smaller arenas like vityaz can't even reach 2000 capacity. We get more people to our junior c playoff games than that here. will they get a bigger rink, and why do they not sell out. Must be poor marketing. also SKA has I believe the biggest with almost 14000 capacity. How often do they sell out?
NHL rinks have capacity of 20-23 thousand, so realistically khl rinks will have to get bigger although not that big, if they want a healthy financial structure right?

How do NHL arenas range from 20,000-23,000 when only two (2) teams in the league have an arena above 20,000 capacity (Detroit and Montreal)?

Here is the list of attendance figures for all major ice hockey domestic leagues.

1. NHL - 17,265

2. Elitserien - 6,255

3. DEL - 5,867

4. KHL - 5,781

5. Nationalliga A - 5,495

6. AHL - 5,472

7. Czech Extraliga - 5,018

8. SM-liiga - 4,957

9. Central Hockey League - 3,979

10. ECHL - 4,170

11. Canadian Hockey League - 4,102

----- WHL - 4,673
----- OHL - 3,933
----- QJMHL - 3,601

12. IHL - 3,396

13. Austrian Hockey League - 2,928

14. USHL - 2,921

The Slovak Extraliga finds itself in 16th position with 2,840 behind the SPHL (USA) and ahead of the HockeyAllsvenskan (SWE), Oddset Ligaen (DEN) and UPC Ligaen (NOR).

 

[Dynamo81]

OECD reports (2004 numbers) that the median Russian family income is about 6000 rubles per month - or approximately $170. Enough to buy 2 hockey tickets at the break-even price. Obviously there is tremendous income disparity between urban and rural wage earners and from the different regions of Russia, but I can't believe family incomes in Russia are this low. There must be a better source.

2004!mate, Russia's economy and living standards have sky rocketed between 2000-2009. Years under Putin/Medvedev.

The Average income for the entire country is now $16,100 USD (2008 est.) based on CIA World Factbook(One of the most respected organizations in the world)

This means the average income is $1341 per month. It was around $80 in 1998 if i recall correctly. Ofcourse it would range from city to city as Moscow,St.Petersburg and another 3 or 4 other cities earn above this. It is said by 2020 the average salary will be between 3,500-4,500 a month depending on the City.

 

[boris4c]

2004!mate, Russia's economy and living standards have sky rocketed between 2000-2009. Years under Putin/Medvedev.

The Average income for the entire country is now $16,100 USD (2008 est.) based on CIA World Factbook(One of the most respected organizations in the world)

This means the average income is $1341 per month. It was around $80 in 1998 if i recall correctly. Ofcourse it would range from city to city as Moscow,St.Petersburg and another 3 or 4 other cities earn above this. It is said by 2020 the average salary will be between 3,500-4,500 a month depending on the City.

You are confusing the annual income with the GDP per capita. These two things are completely different and have no relation whatsoever.

The GDP per capita is simply the GDP (purchasing power parity) divided by the total population. Therefore, a small country like Liechtenstein has a GDP per capita of $118,000 but that does not mean its citizens earn this money anually; it only means the GDP is high while the population is low, therefore giving us a very high GDP per capita. While your statistic is completely false, it still remains that the GDP per capita is usually the best economic indicator for a country and $16,100 figure is very respectable (comparable to many EU countries like Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.), especially because it was surely under $5,000 not so long ago. The Russian economy is back on track and has one of the highest growth rates in the entire world.

The situation is indeed very different from what it used to be and even statistics as recent as from 2004 cannot be used to reflect the situation in 2009, as it is changing rapidly, but always for the best.

Here you can have a look at the evolution of Russian wages in recent years, and it is guaranteed the numbers in 2009 are even higher and will continue to grow furthermore.

 

[Dynamo81]

You are confusing the annual income with the GDP per capita. These two things are completely different and have no relation whatsoever.

The GDP per capita is simply the GDP (purchasing power parity) divided by the total population. Therefore, a small country like Liechtenstein has a GDP per capita of $118,000 but that does not mean its citizens earn this money anually; it only means the GDP is high while the population is low, therefore giving us a very high GDP per capita. While your statistic is completely false, it still remains that the GDP per capita is usually the best economic indicator for a country and $16,100 figure is very respectable (comparable to many EU countries like Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.), especially because it was surely under $5,000 not so long ago. The Russian economy is back on track and has one of the highest growth rates in the entire world.

The situation is indeed very different from what it used to be and even statistics as recent as from 2004 cannot be used to reflect the situation in 2009, as it is changing rapidly, but always for the best.

Here you can have a look at the evolution of Russian wages in recent years, and it is guaranteed the numbers in 2009 are even higher and will continue to grow furthermore.

yep agree my mistake
Average income is now $606 per month but we know in Moscow it is a lot higher($800 just checked) also in the other major cities.

so end of 2009 it was $606 and in 2004 if the guy was correct it was $170. Like you said when people discuss Russian economics they must use the most recent statistics. A lot of people still think Russia is the ****hole it was in the 90's The poverty level in Russia is around the same as in UK if i recall correctly? and it has dropped around 25% in the past 10 years. Hopefully things continue to progress in this positive direction.

Good read if interested
http://www.kommersant.com/p-12476/r_500/Salary_Moscow/

Average Salary in Moscow to Grow to $4,500 by 2025

 

[wjhl2009fan]

Boris4c
Where did you get your stats from.

 

[boris4c]

Boris4c
Where did you get your stats from.

Which stats are you talking about? The GDP is from the CIA World Factbook while the average wages are from Rosstat, which is clearly indicated under the graph.

 

[wjhl2009fan]

Which stats are you talking about? The GDP is from the CIA World Factbook while the average wages are from Rosstat, which is clearly indicated under the graph.

No you said the ahl is avg 5,000 per game which seems kind of high from all reports.Yet you list the ohl at just over 3,000 which is a bit low.There are some chl teams that out draw some top support ahl teams.

 

[boris4c]

No you said the ahl is avg 5,000 per game which seems kind of high from all reports.Yet you list the ohl at just over 3,000 which is a bit low.There are some chl teams that out draw some top support ahl teams.

Oh, those are stats from the following website: http://www.mib.org/~lennier/hockey/leagueatt.cgi?league=AHL

You can select the season and the league which interests you. I have used the stats from 2008-09.

 

[malkinfan]

What's with the Kazan's attendance? Many games they are around 4000. They are the champions, where are all the fans from last years playoffs?

 

[LeftCoast]

Since my post has now been linked from another thread, I should update my analysis with more current numbers:

Assumptions:

• Average League Attendance: 5781 round it up to 6000 (from boris4c's post).
• Number of games - 28 home games.
• Salary Cap - $17.4M (down from $24M in 2009-10)
• Average Team Budget: From (1.) below, the 2009 average budget was $25M - of very close to the Salary Cap number. The median budget was about $20M. With the Salary Cap dropping to $17.4M, it is reasonable to assume that the average and median team budgets will drop proportionally (actually, since fixed expenses don't drop with salaries, budgets will probably not drop as much as the salary cap, but this is a conservative estimate). So let's use an average team budget of about $18M and a median of $15M.
• Budget includes all fixed and variable costs.
• Revenues sources: I don't have any better estimates - so let's stick with 60% from gates and 40% from TV, advertising, parking, concessions and other sources.
• Average ticket price: See (2. and 3. below). Premium tickets seem to go for about $35US while the cheap seats are as low as $5US. Considering good team and bad teams, good seats and bad seats, I'll use an average ticket price of $15US.
• Assume all seats are sold for the average price.

With an annual budget of $18M, and 28 home games per year, break even net revenues per game are: $642,000. Using the 60/40 gates to other revenues break down that means each game has to generate $386,000 in gates revenues and another $257,000 in television, advertising, parking, concessions, merchandise, etc.

With 6000 in average attendance, then on average each paid seat has to generate $64.30. So is $65.00 per average ticket affordable to the average Russian hockey fan? Using the updated monthly income of 19,000 Rubles per month or about $650US, I doubt the average fan is going to spend 10% of their monthly income for a single hockey ticket.

However with actual average ticket prices closer to $15/seat, actual gates revenues are only $90,000 per game or $2,520,000 per season out of a budget of $15M (median) to $18M (average).

So, even with the lower salary cap for 2010-11, to break even, the average KHL team either has to charge close to $65.00 per ticket or raise an additional $13M to $16M annually from TV, advertising, concession, parking and merchandise:

• TV revenues - let's be wildly optimistic and say on average a KHL team gets $2M per year in TV revenues (that is roughly equivalent to the NHL per team national TV revenues).
  
• Parking - 1000 cars x $5.00 each is not going to significantly alter the financial picture. That's only $140,000 per year.
  
• Concessions - lets assume every fan spends $10.00 at the concession. That's another $1.7M.

So to make up the short fall of over $10M per year, they are going to have to sell an awful lot of Sergei Mozyakin jerseys.

Simply put, even with a lowered, $17.4M salary cap, the conditions to sustain the cost structure of the KHL as a business do not exist in the current Russian economy.

1. http://www.dinamoriga.eu/en/news/view/season-budgets-of-khl-clubs-revealed
2. http://www.innshopping.ru/en/tickets/tickets/the-championship-of-continental-hockey-1031
3. http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/article/553524

 

[Tom Brady]

The KHL will never ever be as close as the NHL

 

[NMF78]

[*] Revenues sources: I don't have any better estimates - so let's stick with 60% from gates and 40% from TV, advertising, parking, concessions and other sources.

With an annual budget of $18M, and 28 home games per year, break even net revenues per game are: $642,000. Using the 60/40 gates to other revenues break down that means each game has to generate $386,000 in gates revenues and another $257,000 in television, advertising, parking, concessions, merchandise, etc.

Exactly how do you come to the conclusion that 60 % of the revenue should come from the gates? This just isn't the case nor is it realistic in the current Russian economy and with the current size of the arena's, everybody knows this. It will be quite a while before this changes, can change...

 

[Alessandro Seren Rosso]

guys, many of you have no idea about how sports run in Europe. And I'm not talking about Russia only, but about the whole Europe.

 

[gingerninja*]

guys, many of you have no idea about how sports run in Europe. And I'm not talking about Russia only, but about the whole Europe.

That's the thing. Many come here, act smart, but **** up. Cause it seems, they know nothing about things outside their country

 

[worstfaceoffmanever]

Simply put, even with a lowered, $17.4M salary cap, the conditions to sustain the cost structure of the KHL as a business do not exist in the current Russian economy.

Then it's a good thing that the KHL isn't run as a business.

 

[LeftCoast]

Exactly how do you come to the conclusion that 60 % of the revenue should come from the gates? This just isn't the case nor is it realistic in the current Russian economy and with the current size of the arena's, everybody knows this. It will be quite a while before this changes, can change...

Because the current situation (approx $2.5M in gates for a $18M budget) is about 14% of breakeven revenues and is clearly not enough (unless you think the average KHL team is going to generate over $15M per year in TV and ad revenues).

 

[veras654]

NHL Salary

$ 57.7 million (50% income tax) ==> $ 29 million

KHL salary

$ 33 million (13% income tax) ==> $ 29 million

In Russia a small capacity stadiums, but the taxes are low.
After 3-4 years there will be new arenas. Then we can compete with the NHL.

 

[vorky]

After 3-4 years there will be new arenas. Then we can compete with the NHL.

Are you sure? Where will be new arenas? I know only about Soci

 

[veras654]

Are you sure? Where will be new arenas? I know only about Soci

There is talk about the new arena in Ufa. Will build a new arena in Moscow.
http://www.hockeyland.ru/news/17918.html

In the future there will be new projects. may be a new arena in Saint Petersburg. City rich , and attendance at the maximum.
There are plans to build a new arena in Astana.

And in Sochi will be built two arenas. One disassemble and transported to another city.

 

[vorky]

There is talk about the new arena in Ufa. Will build a new arena in Moscow.
http://www.hockeyland.ru/news/17918.html

In the future there will be new projects. may be a new arena in Saint Petersburg. City rich , and attendance at the maximum.
There are plans to build a new arena in Astana.

And in Sochi will be built two arenas. One disassemble and transported to another city.

thanks, new infos for me