Health of the KHL

[SilentSam]

Can't find a thread that actually reads into this topic..

just thought it to be interesting considering the KHL has dropped a team and another went into a Euro League.

https://conwaysrussianhockey.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/guest-post-the-khls-strategic-plan/amp/

[ItsMillerTime]

Rumour has it NHL is going to buy the KHL and have all those teams play in the NHL

[RRypien37]

34 minutes ago, ItsMillerTime said:

Rumour has it NHL is going to buy the KHL and have all those teams play in the NHL

Stop

[Qwags]

45 minutes ago, ItsMillerTime said:

Rumour has it NHL is going to buy the KHL and have all those teams play in the NHL

 

10 minutes ago, RRypien37 said:

Stop

I'm with Rypien on this one. Travel times are already a gong show. Adding a whole other continent to the matter isn't going to help. Not to mention the cost.

[Lancaster]

Before everyone laugh at the KHL.... it wasn't too long ago when the Flames, Oilers, Senators, etc were asking for the Canadian government for a handout. 

 

Russia's economy is in the crapper due to the collapse of oil prices in the last couple of years, plus all the sanctions.  If the Canadian dollars somehow drops to like 0.60USD, the teams here would be freaking out too. 

[iinatcc]

2 hours ago, ItsMillerTime said:

Rumour has it NHL is going to buy the KHL and have all those teams play in the NHL

If this happens Gary Bettman will make sure the China based team will win the Cup before Canada 

[SabreFan1]

@ItsMillerTime is messing with everyone.  He knows the NHL isn't buying the KHL.

 

MillerTime, stop stealing my schtick.  I'm the one who chums the water around here for gullible people to mess with!

[Ghostsof1915]

I heard all the Canadian teams were in talks with the Canadian government, and to split from the NHL, and start legal action to have the Stanley Cup a part of an all Canadian League. All the players would get paid tax free and subsidized by Heritage Canada. All to have its players compete in the Olympics.

[timberz21]

Hopefully things get worst and Tryamkin decides to return.

 

12 hours ago, ItsMillerTime said:

Rumour has it NHL is going to buy the KHL and have all those teams play in the NHL

I know you're fooling around, but I think eventually this is where we will end up.  It wont happen in the short or medium-term, but maybe 20 years down the road. 

 

It think for it to work it would need to be a Europe league-based, rather than Russian league-based.  Something like 2 teams from Sweden, 2 from Finlands, 2 From Czech Rep., 1 from Slovakia, 1 Germany, 1 From Latvia, 1 from Belarus and maybe top 6 Russian cities.  A 16 teams league, with each NHL teams making 1 week Europe trip to play 3-4 games and same for the Europe-based teams.  At the end you work out a formula of the top 20 NHL teams making the playoffs and 8 teams from Europe.  Top 4 NHL teams have a 1st round bye, while the other 16 battles each other, while the 8 Europe team do the same.  In the second round there would be 12 NHL teams left and 4 Europe team.  Play another round of the same continent, to leave the NHL with 6 teams left and 2 Europe teams left.   With 8 teams total left, there is a crossover, meaning 2 NHL teams could play 2 Europe teams in the Quarterfinals.  

 

NEWAYS got a little carried away here lol...I wouldn't be against a 3/5 or 4/7 mini-series between Stanley Cup Champ and Gagarin Cup Champ to start, though

[nuckin_futz]

13 hours ago, ItsMillerTime said:

Rumour has it NHL is going to buy the KHL and have all those teams play in the NHL

Is it that crazy an idea? In 2005 Bain Capital offered to buy the entire NHL.

 

Offer to Owners: $3 Billion for All 30 N.H.L. Teams

By JOE LAPOINTEMARCH 4, 2005

 

In the midst of the National Hockey League's long lockout came a surprising offer for a big buyout.

 

Would the owners of the 30 franchises seriously consider a bid from new investors to buy all the teams at once for more than $3 billion and turn the business into a single-entity partnership?

 

"Simple answer?" said Jeremy Jacobs, owner of the Boston Bruins. "No, I don't. The Bruins aren't for sale. I talked to a lot of my contemporaries. They didn't take it terribly seriously. This had been floated a few months ago, and it didn't get any traction then."

 

The presentation to radically restructure the business was made at the N.H.L. Board of Governors meeting on Tuesday in Manhattan by two companies based in Boston, Bain Capital Partners and Game Plan. Bain is one of the largest private equity firms in the country, managing $25 billion, and Game Plan provides consulting, financial advice and investment banking for pro sports teams.

 

Bain and Game Plan said they would run the league in a manner similar to Major League Soccer. Individual groups would operate the franchises, but all revenue would be shared as a single business. Because their bid came during a lockout that resulted in the cancellation of this season and threatens to disrupt the next one, the offer could affect collective bargaining, which broke down two weeks ago.

 

Commissioner Gary Bettman has said the league will play next season and has left open the possibility of declaring an impasse, imposing new work rules and starting the season with replacement players. New owners of the league would still have to negotiate with the N.H.L. Players' Association, said Robert L. Caporale, chairman of Game Plan. "We would take over and assume that responsibility and risk," he said.

Caporale said the group would look forward to negotiating with the union. "In the single-entity model, you could create a real partnership and a real win-win situation for all involved, including the players," he said.

 

It would appear that, even under the unlikely prospect of wholesale new ownership, the N.H.L. would not be able to disregard the union or impose a new collective bargaining agreement without the same difficulties the current ownership faces.

 

A person with ties to the financial end of hockey speculated that the concept was made public as a ploy by the league to intimidate the union because a single-ownership group would reduce bargaining leverage.

 

Charles Craver, a professor of labor law at George Washington University, said single-entity ownership would raise issues about labor law and antitrust rules and added, "The new owners, if they ever did come in, would probably feel a severe degree of pressure to try to reach an agreement with the union."

 

Sal Galatioto, a New York investment banker who recently brokered the sale of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, said he thought that the bid for the N.H.L. was "creative, bold and aggressive" but that it did not have much chance of success "because it has so many hurdles to overcome."

 

Among those hurdles would be to persuade the owners to sell and to divide the sale price among them after assessing the value of their franchises. Before the lockout began, Forbes magazine estimated the total value of the 30 franchises, including team-owned arenas, at $4.9 billion.

 

Most owners referred all inquiries to the league office, but Jacobs, a militant on the bargaining committee, responded to several questions.

"I'm not saying it was not a serious bid," he said. "I just don't think it was seriously regarded by the ownership. There's nothing that I found enticing about it. I'm not interested in selling my team. This is not a subject I think that is really worth any conversation on."

 

In a statement released by a spokesman, Peter Karmanos Jr., owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, expressed what he called "passing interest and morbid curiosity" regarding the offer.

 

Neither the union nor the N.H.L. commented beyond short statements.

 

Ted Saskin, senior director of the union, said, "Given that I have no first-hand knowledge of what was proposed, and since the N.H.L. has expressed no interest in pursuing the offer, I see no reason to comment on it."

 

Bill Daly, executive vice president of the N.H.L., confirmed that the presentation had taken place and added only, "The substance of the presentation and the reaction of the board to that presentation are internal league matters, and ones on which we are not prepared to comment further."

 

In an interview with The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Daly also said, "When someone's offering over $3 billion, we felt we had an obligation to the board to have them, at least, hear from the proposed purchaser."

 

Bill Guerin of the Dallas Stars, a union vice president, chuckled when asked about the report.

 

"It's pretty amazing; it's pretty wild," he said. "I've never heard of anything like that. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Obviously, somebody thinks that they can do better. I don't think somebody would jump into it like that unless they believed in it and thought it was a good product."

 

A person who attended the meeting said the presentation was made by Caporale; his partner, Randy Vataha; and Steven Pagliuca, the managing director of Bain Capital and a part-owner of the Boston Celtics. It lasted 20 to 30 minutes, and the owners took the plan under advisement.

 

The person who attended the meeting said the Boston investors approached the league five months ago and were called back by Bettman.

Bettman told Bain and Game Plan that some owners were interested in hearing the new concept but that the difficulty would be getting all owners to agree on such a deal.

 

According to the person who attended the meeting, friction could come from owners of high-revenue teams in large markets who have different perspectives from owners of smaller-market teams. The person conceded that "this is a long shot" unless a vast majority of teams chooses to pursue it.

 

Caporale, of Game Plan said: "Quite frankly, not everything we said in our presentation was flattering because we addressed what we believe are the structural impediments that their current system has and why single-entity would overcome these problems. But they were very attentive and polite."

 

The league has said it lost $497 million in operations the past two seasons. The union has questioned many of the N.H.L.'s figures but offered a 24 percent rollback in wages and agreed to the concept of a salary cap.

 

Caporale said he thought 19 teams lost money last season and said of the league, "It's in distress, in my view, but that doesn't mean it can't be rectified." He added, "We're ready to move when they are."

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/sports/hockey/offer-to-owners-3-billion-for-all-30-nhl-teams.html

[Me_]

13 hours ago, Qwags said:

 

I'm with Rypien on this one. Travel times are already a gong show. Adding a whole other continent to the matter isn't going to help. Not to mention the cost.

One month trans-Russian trip per team

One month trans-Euro trip per team

All Russian and Euro teams on one month trans-America trip.

 

Three conferences.

[Alflives]

46 minutes ago, Me_ said:

One month trans-Russian trip per team

One month trans-Euro trip per team

All Russian and Euro teams on one month trans-America trip.

 

Three conferences.

It will happen when super fast travel is available.  Five hour flight from Moscow to New York?

[Toews]

The KHL will never fold, not when Russian oligarchs have ownership stakes in teams.

[Me_]

33 minutes ago, Alflives said:

It will happen when super fast travel is available.  Five hour flight from Moscow to New York?

Underway between North America and Europe? Elon Musk has it covered.

[Alflives]

7 minutes ago, Me_ said:

Underway between North America and Europe? Elon Musk has it covered.

Under ocean high speed train?  

[elvis15]

I don't know if I've seen a thread on it yet either, although it's been a point of particular interest over in the Tryamkin thread(s). The KHL has always had some issues financially, but the top teams have owners with enough money that they keep it going as a personal project. We likely will see more contraction next year, with Tryamkin's team rumoured to be among them, and depending on the demand for those players on other teams and if Tryamkin will still prefer to stay in Russia even if it's not his team close to home is the next question for us fans.

 

I don't see it harming the KHL in a major way though. They'll do ok with a little smaller league, ok enough that they're still supporting a team in Sochi for political reasons when it's losing money and has poor attendance.

 

[Alflives]

8 minutes ago, elvis15 said:

I don't know if I've seen a thread on it yet either, although it's been a point of particular interest over in the Tryamkin thread(s). The KHL has always had some issues financially, but the top teams have owners with enough money that they keep it going as a personal project. We likely will see more contraction next year, with Tryamkin's team rumoured to be among them, and depending on the demand for those players on other teams and if Tryamkin will still prefer to stay in Russia even if it's not his team close to home is the next question for us fans.

 

I don't see it harming the KHL in a major way though. They'll do ok with a little smaller league, ok enough that they're still supporting a team in Sochi for political reasons when it's losing money and has poor attendance.

 

Isn't it rumoured that several of the big owners use the league to wash dirty money?  Who was that Flyers/Senators goalie that went over for a year and came back saying he needed a body guard?  

[HC20.0]

1 hour ago, Alflives said:

Isn't it rumoured that several of the big owners use the league to wash dirty money?  Who was that Flyers/Senators goalie that went over for a year and came back saying he needed a body guard?  

Ray Emery, but I'd hardly call him credible.

[SilentSam]

3 hours ago, elvis15 said:

I don't know if I've seen a thread on it yet either, although it's been a point of particular interest over in the Tryamkin thread(s). The KHL has always had some issues financially, but the top teams have owners with enough money that they keep it going as a personal project. We likely will see more contraction next year, with Tryamkin's team rumoured to be among them, and depending on the demand for those players on other teams and if Tryamkin will still prefer to stay in Russia even if it's not his team close to home is the next question for us fans.

 

I don't see it harming the KHL in a major way though. They'll do ok with a little smaller league, ok enough that they're still supporting a team in Sochi for political reasons when it's losing money and has poor attendance.

 

Agree about the KHL perhaps being a smaller league,. I think if they pulled it back to 20 strong teams to create a stronger fan base..  and look to bring in an expansion club every 2-3 years.

I read something recently where the average game attendance to games in the KHL last season was just over 7000 spectators a game (7k).

The league does sound crooked,. perhaps it has to fully collapse before they get it right.

[Me_]

10 hours ago, Alflives said:

Under ocean high speed train?  

Under ocean airless tunnel. Check out the Boring Company.