SKA and CSKA again: isn't it boring?

[alko]

If im correct, in the west, this battle is in semifinals 4th time of the last 5 playoffs. What must be done, to end this dominance?

Btw. when broke those two franchises to the top level?

Click to read more...

 

[SoundAndFury]

The salary cap is kind of an obvious answer. Other than that, what can you do. It would be a borderline miracle if teams with half that payroll would challenge those 2. I mean look at Loko roster construction, it's a bunch of local kids.

 

[hansomreiste]

There is one thing I don't understand with salary cap. If I recall correctly, full salary cap will come into effect only two seasons later, starting fom 2020/21 and it will be at 900 million rubles. Ak Bars' budget for 2018/19 was almost 2 billion, six teams in the east (didn't check for west) exceeded this by A LOT. I remember reading a work about how salary cap will still keep KHL wages significantly higher than other leagues so I guess it still looks good in general but no idea if it will ever be implemented.

If those figures are correct, a hard salary cap could indeed fix the problem. As it looks, there are at least 10 clubs in KHL that could spend over 900 million rubles/a season, which means you compete on equal terms when it comes to budgets.

I see no other way than salary cap. There is no any team could muster a serious challenge against SKA & CSKA in west with such budget differences.

 

[alko]

There is one thing I don't understand with salary cap. If I recall correctly, full salary cap will come into effect only two seasons later, starting fom 2020/21 and it will be at 900 million rubles. Ak Bars' budget for 2018/19 was almost 2 billion, six teams in the east (didn't check for west) exceeded this by A LOT. I remember reading a work about how salary cap will still keep KHL wages significantly higher than other leagues so I guess it still looks good in general but no idea if it will ever be implemented.

If those figures are correct, a hard salary cap could indeed fix the problem. As it looks, there are at least 10 clubs in KHL that could spend over 900 million rubles/a season, which means you compete on equal terms when it comes to budgets.

I see no other way than salary cap. There is no any team could muster a serious challenge against SKA & CSKA in west with such budget differences.

Maybe there will be some soft Salary cap. It is a very big pay-cut for SKA.

 

[hansomreiste]

It is a gradual decrease. We're already supposed to be in soft cap era now. It must be something like 850 million rubles plus %20 luxury tax for every penny over the line but I'm not exactly sure. This was the plan for 2017-22 some time ago, maybe it was changed or maybe they're in practice.

 

[vorky]

Just two things

- the KHL has always had a soft cap with a luxury tax
- even with an upcoming hard salary cap, bonuses (max 25% of the basic salary if I remember) are not counted towards the hard salary cap. I remind it in case anybody forgot it. The KHL has announced this formula at the moment of revealing the hard salary cap vision.

 

[hansomreiste]

Just two things

- the KHL has always had a soft cap with a luxury tax
- even with an upcoming hard salary cap, bonuses (max 25% of the basic salary if I remember) are not counted towards the hard salary cap. I remind it in case anybody forgot it. The KHL has announced this formula at the moment of revealing the hard salary cap vision.

What is the ceiling for hard cap? 900 mil or higher? I hope it is something much less than what SKA are spending now. Otherwise, it would have absolutely no meaning. I mean, if average KHL team has a yearly budget of a billion rubles and the ceiling is at 7 billion, then SKA & CSKA could easily keep destroying the league since pretty much no other team could even come close to the ceiling. I'm not asking to have 20 contenders but we should have alternatives to SKA and CSKA, they are just too buffed.

 

[vorky]

What is the ceiling for hard cap? 900 mil or higher? I hope it is something much less than what SKA are spending now. Otherwise, it would have absolutely no meaning. I mean, if average KHL team has a yearly budget of a billion rubles and the ceiling is at 7 billion, then SKA & CSKA could easily keep destroying the league since pretty much no other team could even come close to the ceiling. I'm not asking to have 20 contenders but we should have alternatives to SKA and CSKA, they are just too buffed.

900 milion rubles + bonuses

I will give you facts for last season

Clubs making the playoff (last 3 seasons I believe) spent 667 milion rubles on average in 2017-2018.
8 clubs spent over 1 bilion, so not only SKA & CSKA as is presented in discussions
13 clubs spent from 500 milion to 1 bilion
6 clubs, including Lada/Yugra, less than 500 milion

Even you may identify clubs according to these 3 levels if you wish. All information was published by the KHL.

 

[hansomreiste]

This sounds good but do you know whether there are limitations for bonuses and other items that may help teams circumvent the rules? For example, 900 million + bonuses sounds decent but... Let's assume Kaprizov is contracted for 65 million rubles a year. What if CSKA offers him a new contract,

* 20 million rubles (salary)
* 5 million rubles for every eighth appearance (bonus)
* 0.7 million rubles for every point made (bonus)

If Kaprizov played only 40 regular season games and had 25 points, that'd give him 42.5 million in bonuses and almost the same amount of money he'd make with his previous contract yet his contract would have gotten A LOT smaller and thus clearing a lot of cap space. Are there any rules in place to prevent this? Because I assume any club could do such weird things as they please as long as players also agree. What is to prevent them from giving out performance-based (not so much in reality) contracts to players to keep the "salary" item very low? I mean, Kaprizov would sign for 10 million rubles/year if he had 5 million rubles per appearance as bonus...

Of course, it may not be as obvious as in my example but you get my point. Unless all loopholes are fixed, this cap won't change anything.

 

[vorky]

I will give you the bylaws, here, articles 50-54

Yes, there may be such a loophole, but look at the NHL - the same story with bonuses. Tavares as an example.

 

[Nino33]

I will give you the bylaws, here, articles 50-54

Yes, there may be such a loophole, but look at the NHL - the same story with bonuses. Tavares as an example.

I think in the NHL all bonuses are included and have to be compliant with the salary cap

Tavares' bonus is a signing bonus (not a performance bonus) and it's part of his cap hit John Tavares - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

And player performance bonuses are also included in determining whether a team is compliant with the salary cap; see "Bonus Cushion" and "Bonus Rollover" here for details The basics on NHL contract bonuses

 

[Kshahdoo]

Look, Real and Barca has been winning Premiera for last zillion years, and the league is still ten times more popular, than NHL... this is the way most of Euro pro leagues work.

 

[Jussi]

Look, Real and Barca has been winning Premiera for last zillion years, and the league is still ten times more popular, than NHL... this is the way most of Euro pro leagues work.

There's more parity in other European leagues. Well maybe not Bundesliga where Bayern wins unless they mail it in and Ligue 1 where PSG has more or less bought themselves the title for several years now and probably for the next couple of seasons. But if you thing fans are fine with this, you obviously don't spend much time at the Soccer board here. The sheer glee at when certain "oil money" clubs get into FFP trouble with UEFA is pretty evident.

 

[Kshahdoo]

There's more parity in other European leagues. Well maybe not Bundesliga where Bayern wins unless they mail it in and Ligue 1 where PSG has more or less bought themselves the title for several years now and probably for the next couple of seasons. But if you thing fans are fine with this, you obviously don't spend much time at the Soccer board here. The sheer glee at when certain "oil money" clubs get into FFP trouble with UEFA is pretty evident.

Yeah, and Italy, where it's Juventus. Holland, where it's Ajax and PSV. Portugal, where it's Benfica and Porto. 7 out of 10 top European football leagues are owned by one or two teams. KHL is a queen of variety and competition comparing to them.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Just because it's that way in football doesn't mean it's 1) good; 2) same in hockey. Even in football it doesn't cause a massive backlash mostly because the Champions League is seen as an ultimate prize which makes things interesting for the big teams.

 

[vorky]

Just because it's that way in football doesn't mean it's 1) good; 2) same in hockey. Even in football it doesn't cause a massive backlash mostly because the Champions League is seen as an ultimate prize which makes things interesting for the big teams.

You propose the European football clubs to be organised like the NHL, so with all transfer rules benefiting ONE league and other leagues as their colonies. But, we here in Europe, prefer a liberal competition over communism. The competition between clubs. And yes, some clubs are more successful than others.

It is normal that top players want to play in Barca, or Liverpool or Bayern or Juve and not Vallecano, Huddershfield, Augsburg or Chievo.

The same in the KHL. You can have the greatest ever salary cap, the top players will always want to play for SKA or CSKA. And, why the hell did not Tavares signed with Arizona? Such a great team!

I guarantee you that if the NHL did not force the players to sign with just one team, which the players cannot influence, the top players would be concentrated in just a few top teams. Thank God European clubs do not force the players to sign a contract with just one team selected them. There is a free competition for players in Europe!

 

[hansomreiste]

Look, Real and Barca has been winning Premiera for last zillion years, and the league is still ten times more popular, than NHL... this is the way most of Euro pro leagues work.

Why would I care about La Liga? Two or three teams on steroid beating everyone left and right. How exciting. Why do you compare football with hockey? NHL is a hockey league and it is the best. One of the main reasons for this is the wonderful parity they have. It is balanced - you can still build a very good team, make playoffs for over 20 teams or even have consecutive Stanley Cups but everyone knows it is neither a tossup nor a dynasty. And even if it's a dynasty, it is for a sporting reason, not because they can outspend everyone.

Football is much more popular than hockey in Europe and worst football league will still be more popular than NHL or KHL. This doesn't change the fact that even top European football leagues are so terribly boring and one-sided. I grew up adoring football. I still like it very much. It's not like I'm "hockey-only" person who is not interested in anything else. Yet I can't stand watching EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga etc. nowadays unless it features a team I like. Even then, I just want to see some football - the element of surprise or excitement is completely out of the picture, we all know how it ends. A game in itself can be interesting in football yet the champions are almost always determined even before the season starts.

Long story short, hockey is not football and European football is still considered as good only because there is no alternative to it and business is emotion-driven. Some guy from Magdeburg won't stop cheering for them, like ever. Fan base and money is always there.

Moreover, hockey has playoffs. Parity is a MUST for a decent league. You can't put five guys in front of your goal and hope for the best after 60mins. Two sports with totally different dynamics.

 

[Kshahdoo]

Why would I care about La Liga? Two or three teams on steroid beating everyone left and right. How exciting. Why do you compare football with hockey? NHL is a hockey league and it is the best. One of the main reasons for this is the wonderful parity they have. It is balanced - you can still build a very good team, make playoffs for over 20 teams or even have consecutive Stanley Cups but everyone knows it is neither a tossup nor a dynasty. And even if it's a dynasty, it is for a sporting reason, not because they can outspend everyone.

Football is much more popular than hockey in Europe and worst football league will still be more popular than NHL or KHL. This doesn't change the fact that even top European football leagues are so terribly boring and one-sided. I grew up adoring football. I still like it very much. It's not like I'm "hockey-only" person who is not interested in anything else. Yet I can't stand watching EPL, La Liga, Bundesliga etc. nowadays unless it features a team I like. Even then, I just want to see some football - the element of surprise or excitement is completely out of the picture, we all know how it ends. A game in itself can be interesting in football yet the champions are almost always determined even before the season starts.

Long story short, hockey is not football and European football is still considered as good only because there is no alternative to it and business is emotion-driven. Some guy from Magdeburg won't stop cheering for them, like ever. Fan base and money is always there.

Moreover, hockey has playoffs. Parity is a MUST for a decent league. You can't put five guys in front of your goal and hope for the best after 60mins. Two sports with totally different dynamics.

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.

 

[vorky]

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.

 

[Jonimaus]

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.

What in the world is this? That has literally nothing to do with it. If one team outspends another team by a massive amount, 99 times out of 100 that team is going to be a whole lot better. Which is what is happening in the european football leagues.

It's all about spreading out talent, which NHL is doing a good job at with their salary cap, which KHL is apparantly doing a really poor job doing.

 

[hansomreiste]

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.

 

[Nino33]

It is not correct to bring the NHL and its mythical parity.

You brought the NHL into the discussion in post #6 in this thread, literally saying "look at the NHL" (and you were completely wrong in what you were saying)

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.

There is a free market, but only one league that can pay market prices (unlike in football, where multiple leagues can)

If football had a similar situation to hockey, with one league far, far above all others in ability to pay for players (and recognized worldwide as the far superior league to all others), there wouldn't be great teams/players in multiple leagues like there is now

For example, take a look at average team revenues List of professional sports leagues by revenue - Wikipedia

The Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga are the top three leagues by revenue & the the #3 league's teams make on average about 63% of what the the teams in the top league make

In hockey the NHL teams average over 450% more than the #2 league's teams (KHL) and about 950% more than the #3 league's teams (NLA)

 

[vorky]

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?

What prevents us from achieving the same parity in western conference?

The East has always had more parity than the West.

The West lacks more European clubs on Jokerit level or even better. The problem is not that SKA/CSKA are too good, but the rest of the conference is too bad. Dynamo Moscow had their problems recently, the same Spartak who missed a reason even. Lokomotiv is a very special case. Jokerit is OK, but could be even better. Sochi will always be a very average club. Slovan, Riga, Minsk have their internal problems who have nothing to do with the KHL. And Severstal, Vityaz need to go. Let bring two or three good European clubs and you have it. Especially if the rest of the conference gets better.

Chernyshenko was asked if the league plans the salary floor. He said the following idea - we do not need a salary floor, the poor teams - who do not have their economy to the in the KHL - will leave the league by their own request. I have no doubt this scenario will happen and the league, in this case whe West, gets better.

You brought the NHL into the discussion when saying: "NHL is a hockey league and it is the best. One of the main reasons for this is the wonderful parity they have."

When the all-world working on one league, the parity is very easy to achieve in that one league. Therefore we cannot bring the NHL´s mythical parity into the discussion and hence, the better example is European football as talked by @Kshahdoo.

 

[hansomreiste]

KHL currently should focus on stomping ridiculous domination by SKA & CSKA in forms of contracting 10000 players and making sure that no team prevails by taking all their talent away. This alone would give teams like Spartak, Dynamo or Jokerit a good chance to fight for something more than a demolition against top two guns. Now you may say, "It is unfair to get SKA & CSKA to become worse just to give league more parity!" but this is what is supposed to happen with salary cap regardless. Moreover, it is not like SKA and CSKA will turn into Admiral or Amur. They'll still probably be the best with one difference: other teams will have close financial looks as them.

Other than that, I agree western conference has its own problems which needs to be solved. Indeed, Riga-Slovan-Minsk trio is too weak. Those are wonderful cities with great KHL potential but it all comes to financing again... The cost of running a KHL club is too much. Minsk shows glimpses of hope from time to time but Slovan have been in shambles for so many years. Riga is somewhere inbetween.

On paper, western conference is the one that is expected to be stronger... Much of Russia's population and economy is concentrated in western part of the country. However, other than SKA and CSKA, no other team has a realistic chance of making it to WCF. That gets boring and depressing after a while.

I know you dislike this idea but I seriously believe KHL should focus on improving hockey in Russia and putting cities like Saratov, Volgograd, Krasnoyarsk, Tyumen etc. on the map... KHL can't be the center of European hockey when clubs fail to make money. Russians at least care about the league and the teams because well, it is theirs and they always have a reason to stand behind their teams. Western conference is in shambles and it is not going anywhere like that.

 

[vorky]

Here I can agree with you. I would just not blame all problems of the league on SKA/CSKA. Yes, the hard cap is needed and will be introduced soon. And even the hard cap would be even earlier if CSKA did not succeed with their position. It is a well-known fact that Timchenko, the head of SKA, supports the hard cap. If I remember, Chenyshenko said multiple times that without Timchenko´s strong position on a hard cap, the hard cap would not be introduced. But yeah, people in discussions (not only here) blame SKA.

Regarding the expansion within Russia. I like to work with facts. So, the fact is that clubs from cities you mentioned would not bring anything to the league. I mean the financial benefits, which is a core policy of Chernyshenko´s team. I do not know if you have statistics about international broadcasters of the KHL. I have such a statistic and I can see that the most interesting clubs for those broadcasters are European teams like Jokerit, Slovan, Riga and teams from the West (and Avangard because of playing in Moscow region). If you want the league to have more revenues, hence sharing it with clubs, you can not advocate an expansion within Russia. The strategic places like Vladivostok and Sochi are now in the league. There is simply no more potential with expansion inside Russia, maybe the second team in Petersburg could work, that is all. But definitely not in cities you mentioned. There is the VHL for them.