KHL to make record payment to clubs
The KHL will distribute a record one-billion-ruble fund among its member clubs. The money, raised from league revenues during the 2023/2024 campaign, represents comfortably the biggest pay-out since the league began disbursing these funds in 2014/2015 – and the total payment of 1.175 billion rubles is almost double the 2022/2023 figure.
The money is derived from the sale of TV and betting rights to KHL games. Last season, 896 games were shown on international channels, 920 on Russian regional TV, 109 on Russian Federal sports channel Match TV and 1,550 on the KHL’s in-house streaming services.
Payments to individual clubs are calculated based on their sporting performance (30%) and their place in the KHL club ratings (70%). The ratings take into account 10 factors including ticket sales, promotional work with fans, financial stability and conformity with technical requirements. Gagarin Cup winner Metallurg receives the biggest payment (106.4 million rubles), with Lokomotiv second on the list (92 million). The smallest payment went to Kunlun Red Star (19.8 million). In addition, the KHL will invest 99 million rubles in developing youth hockey. This money will be divided between JHL clubs that are not affiliated with a KHL organization, independent hockey schools and the ”Your Chance” tournament and a festival of hockey for young athletes with disabilities.
Details of the latest payments were confirmed at Wednesday’s KHL board meeting. The same event also shared plans to promote youth hockey coaching and discussed a new three-year development strategy for the Junior Hockey League.
After the meeting, KHL president Alexei Morozov took questions from journalists – and hinted at some exciting games in the coming season.
The Sports Minister recently mentioned the possibility of the KHL expanding to Azerbaijan. Have you discussed this with him?
We met recently but we didn’t talk about Azerbaijan. The league is looking at expanding into countries that are sympathetic to us now. But everything needs to be worked out in detail, because not all of these countries have arenas that meet our regulations for players and spectators. We need to resolve all the detail of any possible new clubs well in advance of the start of next season.
What’s happening with the KHL draft? Should we expect something in the next couple of years?
Right now we’ve spent a lot of time preparing for the new season – changing the rules and regulations, looking at legal issues. We’ll get back to this idea in the near future. It’s likely we’ll discuss this with the clubs in December at our traditional meeting with club directors.
Will we see any exhibition games this season? There was talk that Spartak might play Dinamo Minsk in Tashkent.
We’re looking into this, but things are not moving all that fast. It takes time, but we have time for it. We’ve spoken to the clubs and they are interested. Another interesting idea came from Nizhny Novgorod, where Torpedo is keen to play an open-air game. We’re working on that as well.
In addition, Morozov suggested that within a couple of months there might be more information about a future 3x3 KHL tournament. Previously, the league set up a pre-season 3x3 tournament, which was well received by players and spectators and since then work has continued to develop a successful format for a regular competition.
