AIK goes KHL?

The news has today revealed that AIK has been approached by KHL to join the league. AIK with a very precarious economic situation is of course interested. So what does KHL want with a team from the second Swedish division? Well the answer is very simple; KHL is desperate to expand its borders and AIK is a well supported team from the Swedish capital (even though they are supposed to be a Solna club, they are actually playing in Stockholm). Sporting-wise they should obviously look towards HV71 and Färjestad - even though I am not excluding these teams from potentially joining (I rather expect it following the faux invstigation currently spear-headed by Färjestad's Håkan Loob regarding the future of Swedish ice hockey - kindly sponsored by KHL), I imagine Medvedev is hoping for the big cities in order to up the profile of the league in the rest of Europe. I imagine Malmö has already been approached.

АИК?

What I do not understand is why people expect their teams to somehow gain both sporting and economical profits from this move. Let's start with the budgets. Before the 2008/09 season, Dinamo Riga published the budgets for the KHL teams on their website. These were the figures;

1. AK Bars Kazan - $55 mill.
2. Salvat Ulaev Ufa, SKA St. Petersburg, Avangard Omsk - $50 mill.
5. Metallurg Magnitogorsk - $45 mill.
6. Lokomotiv Yaroslavl - $40 mill.
7. Atlant Moscow - $35 mill.
8. Dinamo Maskava, Sibir Novosibirsk - $25 mill.
10. CSKA Moscow - $22 mill.
11. HK MVD Balashikha, Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod - $20 mill.
13. Spartak Moscow - $18 mill.
14. Amur Khabarovsk - $17 mill.
15. Dinamo Minsk - $16 mill.
16. Severstal Cherepovets, Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk- $15 mill.
18. Metallurg Novokuznetsk, Vityaz Chekhov - $13 mill.
20. Lada Togliatti - $12 mill.
21. Dinamo Rīga, Traktor Chelyabinsk - $11 mill.
23. Barys Astana, Khimik Voskresensk - $10 mill.
source: http://www.dinamoriga.eu/en/news/view/season-budgets-of-khl-clubs-revealed

Looking at Swedish teams we have a slightly different situation. The top Swedish teams would be in the bottom half of this table.

So how are these figures supported by income. Again we'll look at some figures.

The average attendance in KHL and Sweden (as comparison) has over the last few years been as follows;

             KHL       Sweden (Elitserien)
2009     5.142         6.260
2008     5.325         6.288
2007     4.815         6.315
Source: http://www.hockeyarenas.net/

Of course there are major disparities between teams, but it still works well as an income indicator. In the NHL,  roughly half of the income is through ticket sales. This is obviously impossible in the case of KHL looking at the figures above. Or are we expected to pay more than our monthly wages to see AIK v Dinamo Riga? On top of this of course you have merchandising, TV money etc. I have not been able to find figures for any of this in regards to KHL, but suffice to say I very much doubt the income in any of the clubs even remotely equals the costs. I doubt it would even cover the players' salaries. Of course there is the Gazprom money. But to throw yourself into any venture that is unsustainable on its own feet is an obvious recipe for disaster. Something AIK is no stranger to. But in essence, KHL is not a viable business - with or without teams from Sweden. And what happens when the oligarchs get fed up with their expensive toy?

LOOBotomized?

Even if a Swedish team does decide to join in the Russian fun,  what can you expect? Well, for starters, income tax is 13% in Russia. That's right. In Sweden you'd really have to double the wages they pay in Russia to cover taxes, social fees etc. Sweating yet Loob? So this is the simplest reason we will not see Zetterberg returning home earning as much or more that he would in the NHL. I can't really see the teams being able to afford different players than they can today. KHL is not the gold-mine some people seem to imagine. There is talk of Gazprom injecting 5 million Euro into any Swedish team that joins. As if that will help. Actually, it would help AIK - they need to get their hands on 1.8 million Euro or they will hit the wall.

Then what?

It's not like they'd actually survive for long in the Russian winter anyway. Just ask the last guy from Stockholm who tried...

Yeah, they're still shitting on you!