MTV: Jokerit is assembling an amazing team for the League!

Helsinki’s Jokerit is set to compete for top positions right from their first Liiga season.

The chairman of Jokerit’s board, Mikko Saarni, revealed on the Hockey Night Maanantai program that the Helsinki club’s player budget for the upcoming season will be significant.

– We need to do some additional calculations so we won’t put final numbers on the table just yet, but we are starting with a competitive budget. Currently estimated to be around 3–3.5 million, Saarni says.

The player budget is ambitious, as this season only Tappara, Ilves, Kärpät, HIFK, and Lukko reported their player budgets to be of this magnitude.

Jokerit’s revenue is also expected to double from their Mestis years.

– We will probably be in the range of 5.5–6 million on the expense side, which is of course a very large sum for Mestis. Then next year in Liiga, around 12–15 million for sure, Saarni estimates.

This season in Liiga, HIFK’s budget is 11.7 million euros. The top of the league includes Tappara with a budget of 15.4 million euros and Ilves with a budget of 14.8 million euros.

The door to Liiga opened for Jokerit when SM-liiga Oy decided at the end of November in a shareholders’ meeting to transition to a 14+10 team league model starting from the 2027-28 season.

Before that, a so-called super season will be played, in which last year’s Mestis champion and this year’s champion have the opportunity to apply for a spot. In Jokerit’s case, it can be considered almost certain that the Helsinki club will meet the criteria required for a Liiga license.