Spartak has decent following, constantly over 9k people recently. CSKA can only dream of such crowd, not that it's even theoretically possible but they have hard time selling out their much smaller arena, usually around 4k spectators at their games.
It has long history from CCCP times. CSKA was an army team, Dynamo was Ministry of interior and Spartak was a national team or people team. So, Spartak´s fanbase is naturally bigger.I've heard this about CSKA, and Dynamo being, I think, Putin's team. Are Moscovites, apart from Spartak, very apathetic to hockey are just those teams along with Vityaz in the Moscow Oblast?
As has been said before it would be logical to lose some of those teams there but for upper KHL echelon influence I've read before.
It has long history from CCCP times. CSKA was an army team, Dynamo was Ministry of interior and Spartak was a national team or people team. So, Spartak´s fanbase is naturally bigger.
Nowadays, CSKA has really bad arena, Dynamo had some scandal last summer. So, not a good reason how to keep fans or get new one. Another reason is marketing. Spartak has one of the best marketing in the league, CSKA one of worst. Can not judge Dynamo to be honest.
And there are problems with traffic jams, but can not say how serious it is.
Generally, Moscow is a bad hockey market. There is much more support in regions, like Novosibirsk etc. Hockey is only big entertaiment event in the town, especially if a city does not have a soccer team in the top tier league, so people come to arena. Moscow is different, big city, many events, people from all (not only) Russia, so no connection to local teams.Cheers. I've read that before so I appreciate the brush up along with that you've added more insight.
I have no idea why KHL keeps putting all games in the same slot. It's SATURDAY and I'm pretty sure Loko can play before or after Jokerit. But nah, just make them both play at the same time so people who'd prefer watching both shall not be able to do so. Nice choice.