The future of KHL?

[alce*]

More like shut down meaningless and unprofitable teams in eastern Russia to help meaningful and unprofitable expansion in Europe.

Not gonna happened. It one thing when foreign teams have support from Russia, it doesn't make public opinion very happy, but could be tolerated for a while. And it's completely another case when such support would be in same time as shutting down Russian teams. Nobody would even think about that here.

What makes you think that teams in major cities are meaningless? That's the crux of the issue here, a team in Berlin is much more important to the league's prestige than another team in Siberia.

I don't see any connection of hypothetical team in Berlin to any team in Siberia. If Berlin would be able to support such team without Russian money, I'd be all for that. I'm sure that place in the league would be freed for them by some collapsed foreign team by that moment.

 

[Coramoor]

The assumption that Russian money is endless is laughable, without some semblance of profitability in the medium to long term future, the KHL will fail. If the oil market crashes, all that Gazprom money is gone

 

[alce*]

Well I just mentioned Kiev just because I am of course in agreement with what you mentioned about there being too many teams in Moscow. But still, thanks for this insight. I hope that we will see Sokil joining the league eventually. )

Sadly, but KHL team in Kiev seems very unlikely. Ukraine is more of football country, so there is almost no hockey on Ukraine now except in Donbass. Actually without this man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borys_Kolesnikov there would be no top hockey there at all. His money are almost only source of support for Ukrainian hockey.

 

[Sokil]

Sadly, but KHL team in Kiev seems very unlikely. Ukraine is more of football country, so there is almost no hockey on Ukraine now except in Donbass. Actually without this man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borys_Kolesnikov there would be no top hockey there at all. His money are almost only source of support for Ukrainian hockey.

The other issue is that his money is tied to the corruption of the current regime. If the regime is overthrown in the next year, everything may become a big question mark. Kolesnikov would have parliamentary immunity, but his source of 'income' may get cut off.

 

[obskyr]

The assumption that Russian money is endless is laughable, without some semblance of profitability in the medium to long term future, the KHL will fail. If the oil market crashes, all that Gazprom money is gone

Gazprom is a gas company. As in "natural gas", not petrol, which is called benzin in Central and Eastern Europe, not gasoline. I know it doesn't change things that much, even though it's a different energy market, but I feel like I have to point this out, because Canadian fans make this mistake so often, it's getting under my skin. Pls, don't. Thanks in advance for understanding.

 

[Coramoor]

Gazprom is a gas company. As in "natural gas", not petrol, which is called benzin in Central and Eastern Europe, not gasoline. I know it doesn't change things that much, even though it's a different energy market, but I feel like I have to point this out, because Canadian fans make this mistake so often, it's getting under my skin. Pls, don't. Thanks in advance for understanding.

As far as I know, Gazprom does no business in Canada so it's an easy mistake to make. Natural gas market drops significantly then

 

[Sokil]

Gasprom, not Oil Co., the name is kinda self explanatory