Source. I don't believe this statement at all. For example, the English Premier League is the second most profitable soccer league in the world. Its profits as a league are fourth in the world in any sport, trailing only the NFL, MLB and NBA - and it is run primarily a country that is roughly the size of Michigan. Sure, there are teams in every league that run at a loss, but they are making bets that if they spend and win a championship they will make all that money back and more - and they would be right if successful. That can happen on a team by team basis, but not on a league wide basis. The Russian billionaires that own these teams didn't become billionaires because they love to give money away. They want to turn a profit.
I'm not sure what the leagues debt is,
but many teams themselves operate at huge losses and are deeply in debt.
Here is some of the teams debt as of April this year.
Real Madrid £600million (Appx 911 Million US dollars.)
Manchester United £359.7million (Appx 546 Million US dollars)
Barcelona £369.5million (Appx 560 million US)
Arsenal £104million (Appx 156 Million US)
AC Milan £298.8million (Appx 454 Million US)
Juventus £48.65million (Appx 74 Million US)
Liverpool £237million (Appx 360 Million US)
The Billionaires that run the KHL teams don't seem to care that they are losing money on them, they are status symbols like yachts and incredibly expensive cars...they are acceptable losses considering the amount of money they make from their businesses.
KHL owners seem to be treating that league the same way, although on a far smaller scale.
With the payroll of some of the rich teams combined with the size of most of their arena's you would have to charge insane amounts per ticket to even have the possibility of turning a profit.