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FCE: NASL 2011 or the V?


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Voyageur's Cup simply because they will be facing bigger competition and Canadian MLS teams will be their biggest selling point. However, they have to do well in their main competition as well.

So to summarize, for the development of the club, they need to do well in the league. For their development commercially, they need to do well in the Voyageur's Cup.

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AH! Thanks Macksam... I knew it couldn't be that hard, and it was just the lack of sleep setting in.

I think that the answer lies in both the NASL and the Voyageur's Cup. While the Voyaguer's Cup allows for some impressive Canadian compition, I don't think that it will be the breaking point. People like to support a team that does well, and while there may be a few games for the V's Cup that might sell well, it will be the week by week games that will provide the team with the income they need to survive.

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Absolutely. I think the Voyageurs Cup games will probably draw the best ratings and biggest press coverage though. While the success might not be there intially, it will definately be fun to watch a fourth team in the competition.

To my mind the Draw in Edmonton will be the MLS boys. They will get local Global/CTV/ CBC Edmonton news coverage, which i have to say has been all positive (if occasionally sketchy) so far. Canadians Playing against Canadians in a Canadian Competion. Local press will be eager to cover this but FCE have got to spin it well. Playing MI again will hopefull give a sense of continuity.

My worry is that the NASL is going to seem a little second rate if the current USSF DIV2/3 issues are not resolved over the winter.

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To my mind the Draw in Edmonton will be the MLS boys. They will get local Global/CTV/ CBC Edmonton news coverage, which i have to say has been all positive (if occasionally sketchy) so far. Canadians Playing against Canadians in a Canadian Competion. Local press will be eager to cover this but FCE have got to spin it well. Playing MI again will hopefull give a sense of continuity.

My worry is that the NASL is going to seem a little second rate if the current USSF DIV2/3 issues are not resolved over the winter.

My question is if FCE can keep the fans around once they've seen a few MLS teams play. I think it will increase the number of fans for at least a short while after the cup anyways.

I'm also worried about the NASL. I'm sure Edmonton will play somewhere next year, but I'm anxiously awaiting any kind of news regarding the sanctioning. I'm hopeful there will be some news out of the general meeting over the weekend.

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Seeing as the V's Cup will consist of a home-and-home series and therefore only one home game, likely against Toronto FC, i would have to argue that doing well in the NASL will be most important for FCE.

They haven't confirmed it moving to something like that though.

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Still, not confirmed.

Also, this would be a terrible move. We all know people like *****ing about the format, and it wont be solved by TFC only playing an expansion FCE while Vancouver and Montreal have to battle established quality sides. Or any sort of format like that. No matter what, anything less than playing every team twice is unfair.

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Both TFC and Vancouver are offering 2 NCC games on their ST's instead of 3 so i think that's a pretty good indication the format has changed.

That doesn't make any sense. That just means they're playing two home games. That leaves one team the odd man out.

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The obvious competition would be a home and away 'Champions league group' set up. Top two play off in a single game final.

Simple easier to understand and essentially equitable.

However, i get the impression from jpg75, that VW and TFC, may well have to Dance to their MLS paymasters tune first.

It may be the the case the additional MLS games (created by the expansion) could be sqeezing what would be a Canadian seven (mid) week League schedule into oblivion.

If that was the case FCE could be wasting their time with the V, which to be honest would be a scandal. What little hype their has been around growing canadian soccer in the Mid West, is little more that offering an Exhibition game. They would do better to get Everton back over for the summer.

It seems to me that the CSA allows itself to be treated as if it's little more than a local community league, compared MLS' "Proper" Soccer.:mad::confused:

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Seeing as the V's Cup will consist of a home-and-home series and therefore only one home game, likely against Toronto FC, i would have to argue that doing well in the NASL will be most important for FCE.

I agree. I think that FCE management would do well to hype up any Canadian competition (like vs Montreal) in the NASL, and then hope to develop other rivals during the course of the season. There may be big crowds during the Cup game(s), but it will attract casual fans, not long term ticket sales.

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I agree. I think that FCE management would do well to hype up any Canadian competition (like vs Montreal) in the NASL, and then hope to develop other rivals during the course of the season. There may be big crowds during the Cup game(s), but it will attract casual fans, not long term ticket sales.

Most fans start as casual fans. If Edmonton gives the Whitecaps or Toronto a run for their money, I bet some of those casuals will be back.

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Most fans start as casual fans. If Edmonton gives the Whitecaps or Toronto a run for their money, I bet some of those casuals will be back.

Fair enough. I did some quick research on the attendance after the "international friendlies" (and was disapointed to find there's very little easy to find info out there...) and found this out.

Montreal: 2106

Colo-Colo: 5573

Ottawa: 2903

Portsmouth: 8792

Victoria: 2356

Spokane: 1201

Miami: around 1200

Its nice to see the numbers around the 2500 mark (the average is 3506 according to wikipedia, but I don't know how long its been since that was updated...). The last game is a little disapointing but it was the same night as the Oilers and Eskimos. Hopefully the increases can continue to happen, I know that I've been talking about it with friends and coworkers, who had no idea about FCE and want to buy tickets (or in some cases season tickets) which will hopefully increase the teams bottom line. We just need more promoting of the team to make it known city wide.

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That doesn't make any sense. That just means they're playing two home games. That leaves one team the odd man out.

If it was a round-robin with 4 teams then TFC would have offered 3 NCC games + 2, but instead they started off with 4 games in the ST packages (2 NCC +2 (CCL prelim. and first CCL group game)) and removed the last 2 games when they pissed off the fans. The clubs have likely been made aware of the new format and it just hasn't been officially announced yet.

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