Alexei Morozov: KHL Targets Concerts as Main Rival for Fans

Alexei Morozov, president of the Kontinental Hockey League, says the competition for a new audience is being lost not to another league but to concerts, and that closing that gap now sits at the centre of the KHL's development strategy through to the end of the 2028/2029 season.

"In the last year we have seen stagnation — it is getting harder and harder to attract a new audience to the stands. For it to grow, we need to bring in those who have never once been to an arena. Out of the Country's 146 million population, 46 million live in cities where the KHL is present, and 12 million of them are our active audience. That means there are tens of millions of people who have never been to a hockey match and know nothing about it. To grow, we are focusing on bringing them to the stands and making their visit to hockey unforgettable — that is all built into the new strategy. We looked at the figures and the trends, at how the country around us is changing, and understood that people are making spontaneous decisions about how to spend their leisure time less and less often. We want to attract these people to hockey as a fashionable and modern form of leisure for all ages."

Concerts, not the NHL

Morozov's own numbers place the KHL close to the NHL in one respect already. He said the league captures 0.16% of a fan's overall spending, against 0.18% for the NHL, though its reach covers only 8% of Russia's population, compared with 19% for the NBA in its own market.

"Our key competitor is concerts, which offer a product comparable to ours in format. The concert market is growing faster than any other, up 54% over the year. That is where the KHL has the greatest potential to attract a new audience," Morozov said.

Tighter finances, tighter races

Sports minister Mikhail Degtyarev met Morozov to review the outgoing strategy and sign off on the new one. He said the KHL's active audience has grown from 8 million to 12 million over three years, with women now making up 36% of spectators, up from 19% in 2022, and 13 to 17-year-olds up from 4% to 7%. A quarter of all spectators, he said, now bring children to matches. Average arena occupancy has passed 80%, the best figure of any Russian league.

"We are recording strong competition between teams, and the intrigue in the championship has increased. Specialists put that down to the narrowing gap in total player wage funds, from four times to two times," Degtyarev said.

He added that commercial revenue for the league and its clubs has risen from 17% to 26% of the total over the same three years, driven mainly by sponsorship and ticket sales, and that reducing budget financing further remains a goal. The new strategy targets an audience of 13.5 million, commercial revenue at 30% and arena occupancy of at least 80%.

The meeting came less than a week after Degtyarev said he would intervene in a separate row over journalists denied accreditation by the KHL, including Sport-Ekspress correspondent Alexei Shevchenko. Degtyarev also noted that 2026 marks the 80th anniversary of Russian hockey, and that president Vladimir Putin has approved 22 December as a national Hockey Day.

Whether the KHL can actually turn newcomers into repeat spectators, rather than one-off visitors, is likely to be the real test of the strategy over the next three seasons.