The Impact of Innovations on the Competitive Balance in the Kontinental Hockey League

The problem of competitive balance in the sports economy remains relevant and widely discussed both in the scientific community and among representatives of the sports services market around the world. This issue is widely considered in the world scientific literature. At the same time, there are practically no studies devoted to assessing the competitive balance in the leading sports leagues in Russia. The tasks required to achieve this goal are as follows, based on methods for assessing the competitive balance, characterize the innovations made by the top – KHL management and identify new factors that affect the level of competitive balance in the KHL. The study relies on previous works that examine the presence of a competitive balance in leading sports leagues. Including in the NHL, the model of which was used to create the Kontinental Hockey League and is very similar in many respects. This work makes it possible not only to evaluate the effectiveness of decisions made by the league, but also to study the impact innovations KHL policies on organizational results over time. In this article, for the first time, issues of the impact of innovations on competitive balance in hockey leagues until changes and after. Authors conclude that after making major changes to the KHL regulation, in all respects, the level of competitive balance has not changed than before. It means that the well-known and widely used tools for regulating the competitive balance in the sports leagues did not give the expected result in one of the leading sports leagues in Russia.