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  CBA: Economics of the Russian Super League a mixed bag

Sunday, October 10, 2004

With the National Hockey League temporarily closed for business, some people say the strongest and richest hockey league in the world is now the Russian Super League.

That's why goalie Garth Snow, a U.S. native, opted for Russia during the lockout. But while some players get paid well in the Russian Super League, the league is hardly profitable.

Snow, who is playing for SKA St. Petersburg, wouldn't divulge what he was making, but some reports put it at more than $500,000. Snow made $1.3 million last season with the New York Islanders.

"The rumor is that the [Russian Super League] is the best league outside the NHL," Snow told USA Today. "[The NHLPA] has been preaching for us to find a place to play to keep our skills at a high level, and this was an instance where I can do that and have a culture experience and earn some money."

Along with Snow, more than 30 NHL players, including Ilya Kovalchuk, are now earning a paycheck in the top Russian league while the NHL and NHLPA try to hammer out an agreement a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Some reports say Kovalchuk is earning close to $3 million this season playing in his native Russia. That could be the largest one-year deal in Russian Super League history.

Oleg Tverdovsky, who played in Russia last season as well, is said to making close to $2 million this season. Select others may be getting between $750,000 to $1 million. Some players may get a nice car or an apartment as part of their compensation package. Then there are players in the league who may earn $500 per week.

Getting exact figures in Russia is impossible. There is no salary disclosure. There's not much information about team finances either. Publicly disclosing team budgets is not part of the sports culture in Russia.

"Transparency is not very good here, but we're working on improving that," Andrei Mochkin, spokesman for the Russian Hockey Federation, told the Moscow Times recently, adding that the secrecy surrounding budgets is part of the "nuances of Russian realities."

But its believed that AK Bars Kazan , which signed Kovalchuk, and Avangard Omsk, for whom Tverdovsky plays, are among the richer teams in the league with budgets in the $25 million to $30 million range.

Avangard, for example, is partly owned by the Russian billionaire Roman Ambramovich's oil company, Sibreft. The company reportedly chips in about $10 million per year to help fund the team.

And Russians teams are apparently ready with more money if the lockout extends into 2005, the NHL season gets wiped out and more players decide to head to Russia. There's talk of big name players such as Nikolai Khabibulin and Alexei Yashin making the trek back home to Russia.

Overall, the NHL lockout has been a big boost for the Russian Super League. Moscow Dynamo, which features 2004 No. 1 overall NHL draft pick Alexander Ovechkin and five NHL players including Pavel Datsyuk, is expecting a big boost in attendance this season.

"We had an average of 4,500 spectators at Super League games last year," Mikhail Sokolov, a spokesman for Dynamo Moscow, told the Moscow Times. "We're expecting between 6,000 and 7,000 per game this year."

As a result, there has been increased interest from sponsors. More people at games means more targets for product advertisements.

The Russian Super League is also in the second year of a contract to have its games broadcast on state-owned television, but no one knows how much the deal is worth.

But despite the gains from the NHL lockout and the Russian's Super League's reputation for having money to spend, the teams in the league aren't profitable. Not one is operating in the black, according to the Russian Hockey Federation.

"There can't really be any talk of profits," Mochkin, the Russian Hockey Federation spokesman, told the Moscow Times. "It's much more of a social project."

A big part of the problem is that the Russian population does not have the money to pay high ticket prices to attend hockey games. Dynamo, for example, sells tickets to Super League games for 100 to 300 rubles or about $3.50 to $10.00.

Snow says there can be a lot of uncertainty surrounding the money in Russia.

"The contracts are really only worth the paper they're printed on," Snow told the Toronto Star. "I've heard of guys showing up from North America, staying for two days and then leaving. Russian contracts are supposed to be paid by a certain date, but most of the time they're five days or a week late. It sure makes me appreciate everything I've got back home."

But all he's got right now as far as hockey back home is a lockout with no apparent end in sight.

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