Here I agree with @
Kshahdoo. It is a European sports culture.
It is not correct to bring the NHL and its mythical parity. Yes, there might be parity, but there is a big BUT. It is very easy to make a very balanced league if the rest of the words works as a colony for that league. If there was a free market, even within the NHL, the NHL would be on the same level as any European football league - a few great teams and the rest of uninterested and weak teams.
I remember reading something from Chernyshenko, Medvedev or whoever the guy was, about the salary cap. He said KHL salaries on average would still be better than the rest of Europe when a hard cap is introduced. So, this means KHL can achieve decent parity without having colonies. Very talented players will eventually leave for NHL and the rest can be part of a very competitive, decent league. Imagine a "billion rubles" hard cap that is implemented fairly without loopholes. This means there are 10 to 12 teams that could fight for the title. And this is more than pleasant enough - nobody is asking for a 10-point league where every single playoff series end in seven games. Just make it possible for more than a couple of teams to win and that's it. I say 10 to 12 teams based on budgets - the number of teams that could spend around a billion rubles. However, when you close the gap, you also give others a chance. When Sochi have %20 of SKA's budget, they stand absolutely no chance against them. Yet when they can work with %70 of SKA's budget, then they could complete against them without having to hit the salary ceiling. In other words, you have 10-12 teams that can hit the ceiling and probably like another seven to eight with a legitimate chance of fighting for a title.
Just look at how competitive eastern conference is. In last three years, we've seen Sibir, Traktor, Barys, Avto, Ak Bars, Salavat Yulaev, Avangard etc. all achieve good things while the poorer sides like Amur and Neftekhimik performed in playoffs. What prevents us from achieving the same parity in western conference?
Also, I don't understand your obsession with NHL. They are what they are and numbers clearly show they are by far the best league. We are talking abut how to make KHL more competitive and better. You talk about "what ifs" of NHL. What's the point?
I say, that's the way, almost every European pro league works, no matter what sport we're talking about. You may love it, you may hate it, nothing will change.
And I'm saying it doesn't have to be the way, at least for KHL. European top football leagues being stupid doesn't justify KHL turning into a one-sided competition. Moreover, unlike national divisions in Europe, KHL aspires to become an international league. They need much more than local fans and rivalries than that to stay afloat.
KHL started as a very good project because it indeed had a high-quality product. Then came the SKA & CSKA dominance. Thankfully, Magnitka and Ak Bars managed to prevail over them in two instances. Over time, KHL slowly turned into Soviet-era championships: if not Moscow, then nowhere else... This is why the board had to make some decisions and it is no surprise they decided to implement a hard cap.
Well, I think they will abolish hard cap after just two seasons but whatever, I'm confident we'll have good competition in next three years.