hansomreiste
Registered User
Politically now KHL has no future. Financially never has....The existence of this league is unjustified, money/salaries are unfair/unearned.
So sooner, than later, it's going to be Russian teams plus a few Chinese. Than NHL will get serious about the Asian market, and KHL will lose aforementioned teams as well.
NHL just wants the Chinese money by marketing their product, for which they don't need to snatch some useless teams from KHL. At this point, Global Series should be more than enough for them to conquer the Chinese market. Moreover, unless the technology suddenly develops immensely and travel issues become a thing of the past, there is absolutely zero sense in adding a Chinese team to NHL.
Though I tend to agree with you about the rest. KHL has been doing really well to keep the league running but at some point they will have trouble finding cash. Being the "best league" in terms of salary (after NHL) is not possible in Russia in the long run unless you totally rely on oligarch money, which is not the best way to make the league self-sustainable. Or, just maybe, KHL will keep improving alongside with Russian economy and in next 10 years the scenery will change immensely, with Russians being able to pay like 20USD for a hockey game. Then we have a perfect KHL.
I wonder about that Uzbeki team since Wiki states that once their new rink is opened they could host games from next season i.e. KHL
Having read your post, I looked into it. Actually, the construction started last year and according to a piece of news dated 7 February of this year, it continues in full swing and the arena is expected to be opened at the end of this year. In this case, it would be ready for KHL hockey in 2019-20. Though at this point I'm not getting very excited - things tend to change very quickly and plans are almost never reliable in Central Asia. This arena could've been used for many other things and while the main reason seems to be "hockey", it doesn't mean we'll get to have KHL hockey in Tashkent in future.