Novokuznetsk removed from league. 3 more teams to be culled/replaced next season
espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/19452582/khl-cuts-tea...Posted May 24, 2017, 8:54 PM UTC
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Are they going to the VHL?
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According to HockeyBuzz, yes.
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so that news was for real, they are really dropping teams
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Yes but only teams that don't meet criteria that in the long run should make the league stronger and more stable. They will be replaced by new teams
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Metallurg the Lesser is now a VHL club. Yurga and Lada are the two most obvious targets for the next cull (though Dynamo Moscow may slide themselves in).
As we already knew, some clubs are having trouble paying players.
A lower, harder cap "was discussed". Movement on this isn't likely. The severely weak state of the Russian economy makes SKA/Gazprom all the more powerful within the league.
The culled Russian teams are to be replaced by new teams in "Europe and Asia". This will be interesting few years, to say the least.
I really want to see where they end up expanding. London? Tallinn? Seoul? Tokyo? Maybe somewhere in a country that already has a team, like Almaty? Perhaps another team back in Prague?
With the USD-RUB exchange rate being hammered asshole right now, expanding in any large market with a Westernized economy may be a very expensive affair, and a risky one at that.
Much of the trouble is how difficult it is to get non-Russian money into the league. See, the KHL is a league about 30 years behind the western major sports world business wise. Unlike the NHL and every other major western league, who's big money comes from local and national (and in some cases, international) television deals, KHL clubs are reliant on gate revenue and direct sponsor dollars. Even merchandising and arena revenue are painfully behind the rest of the world. THere is very little real money to be made. Couple that with Russia's sketchy ass business climate, and the leagues reputation in sports circles for being little more than a fun way for a few very wealthy people to clean money (the big accounting firms won't touch KHL clubs with poles, which is a great indicator of the relative corruption within a company), and no one wants to invest. It's a difficult position, albeit one mostly of the league's own creation.
Tallinn seems like a disaster. Tallinn has half the metro population of Riga, and doesn't have Latvia's domestic player pool to cheaply fill it's roster. Estonia also lack's Latvia's intense love of the sport. Latvians will put asses in seats half a world away when the hockey team is playing. Estiis don't even know they have a national team. I'd love to have another team in the Baltic, but it doesn't seem like the right move.
Seoul and Tokyo run into the same issue as Kunlun; lack of local interest. Maybe the Olympics will stir something up in Korea, but as of now, there isn't much. That said, being absolutely massive cities, enough interest to survive could probably be built. The issue is making enough money to put a good team on the ice.
London keeps getting discussed, and a lot of the monied Russians have UK passports. It's a popular town for rich Russians. If the money can be moved without issue (given current sanctions, this may be difficult), and the Brits will allow it to happen, this is likely to happen.
I doubt Prague happens again. Lev made no money, despite their popularity. Donbas is not returning either, given there is still a war happening in the region.
Almaty would probably work, a sure improvement over some of the outposts the KHL is currently in, though I have not seen it mentioned at all.
Maybe Seoul and Tokyo is a bad idea but Japan has hockey culture in the north especially and given the economy of Japan that could be a very interesting move.
For now I'd prefer another team from say Kazakhstan - if possible.
There is some traction for London but who knows. A former popular UK player is working on the marketing for it and keeps putting out cryptic posts for Example
Do you think any big city in Poland ever gets a team? Or are they too far in the future to tel right now? I just really want a Polish team to cheer for, but I know that they are not even in the discussion right now.
Don't know about Poland. Krakow maybe? They have a pretty big arena which has been used for hockey games before, so that's a start.
Uzbekistan shouldn't be an interesting market as it is with Kazakhstan? I think a Tashkent team could have some success.