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I don't understand Manning's logic that TFC should get all of the best young players in the GTA because they spend a lot of money on it. There is no way that one club can sufficiently mine all of the talent from a metro area of that size. Even if they could, tough shit, they don't own these kids. 

I'll also add that he probably knows how much BS his argument is but it's the most PR friendly excuse they could come up with. 

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Manning also has that annoyingly useful trait of being able to agree with his words but disagree with his tone, so it seems difficult to actually corner him in an interview. 

12 minutes ago, rob.notenboom said:

However, I also think that he displayed that he simply doesn't understand some things and his answers displayed this lack of understanding. He commented that he didn't think that the supporters groups would support CanPL and not TFC, but there are a large number of people in TFC SGs who were Voyageurs first and for whom the advancement of Canadian soccer is front of mind. It might not be an overwhelmingly high percentage of those in TFC's SGs but it's not an insignificant number either. 

This I think is a key point. TFC lives and dies on the environment created by the supporters, I would think ticking them off is a greater (or at least more immediate) risk to TFC than a team in Vaughan. 

8 minutes ago, lazlo_80 said:

I think his point about the NY and LA soccer community is actually extremely valid. he doesn't predict there would be alot of crossover between TFC fans and another teams fans. I suppose the one point of difference in my mind would be a sense of nationalism. Yes, Toronto FC will still be the better product, but will people support a lower calibre team out of a sense of nationalism (there's a CFL/NFL parallel in there I suppose) that's the riddle another owner would have to solve. This isn't like a second MLS team coming into the market, this is a lower calibre team and there are concerns here that absolutely need to be addressed. The stadium issue is going to be huge.

I think his comparison of a CPL team in Toronto to the Cosmos was interesting. It's not a perfect analogy, the team wouldn't be banking on a dated identify (barring revival of the Blizzard) and would hopefully be less confrontational, but the Cosmos are now drawing 6000 when properly situated in a good location. I'd be happy with that 

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1 minute ago, Alex D said:

I don't understand Manning's logic that TFC should get all of the best young players in the GTA because they spend a lot of money on it. There is no way that one club can sufficiently mine all of the talent from a metro area of that size. Even if they could, tough shit, they don't own these kids. 

This argument irks me too. Their own homegrowns are a strong argument that this isn't the case. If the majority of the homegrowns on your team are guys who developed elsewhere, signed for a couple months to a year in the academy before moving up, it is pretty clear that TFC doesn't have a wide enough funnel to capture all of the top talent in southern Ontario. 

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18 minutes ago, lazlo_80 said:

This isn't like a second MLS team coming into the market, this is a lower calibre team and there are concerns here that absolutely need to be addressed.

 

How inferior is it actually going to be though? That's the magic question. We have heard things on one end where they only need 5-7K to break even and then heard on the other end that they will be attracting first and second division players. 

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46 minutes ago, rob.notenboom said:

However, I also think that he displayed that he simply doesn't understand some things and his answers displayed this lack of understanding. He commented that he didn't think that the supporters groups would support CanPL and not TFC, but there are a large number of people in TFC SGs who were Voyageurs first and for whom the advancement of Canadian soccer is front of mind. It might not be an overwhelmingly high percentage of those in TFC's SGs but it's not an insignificant number either. 

I don't think that's lack of understanding - I think that's narrative.

Repeat the message that the teams aren't worth the supporters' groups time, and hope they succumb to that mentality.

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23 minutes ago, Alex D said:

I don't understand Manning's logic that TFC should get all of the best young players in the GTA because they spend a lot of money on it. There is no way that one club can sufficiently mine all of the talent from a metro area of that size. Even if they could, tough shit, they don't own these kids. 

I took it more as him saying players look to play at the highest level and in Canada the three MLS teams will be the highest level, while at the same time talking about the money they put into development.  Just like players will look at major European leagues as over MLS.

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The one thing with all these revenue models that's not really being spoken about is this idea of a Canadian SUM.

Suppose CSUM gets split among the owners of all the CPL teams as a bonus for joining the league. Do the Canadian national teams provide enough money to add a few mil to each of their pockets? Maybe they start buying up rights to the World cup and other tourneys to make extra cash. Maybe they start doing their own version of "she believes" cups to bring more cash into this organization.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure SUM was essentially what MLS survived off of during the lean years. Considering MLS is coming to talk to the CSA this week, I wonder if the first question is "How do we do that, but in Canada?"

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1 hour ago, Alex D said:

How inferior is it actually going to be though? That's the magic question. We have heard things on one end where they only need 5-7K to break even and then heard on the other end that they will be attracting first and second division players. 

1st and 2nd division can mean a lot of different things.

Since SEA said 3-4k was the projected breakeven point, and they are talking $10-35 tickets, I'm not sure we'll even see the 1.5M cap. 4000x22.5x15 home games is only 1.35 million. Sure there will be revenue from other sources, but I imagine ticket sales would still be the bulk. 

TFC, for comparison, apparently has an average ticket price ~$80 x 26500 average attendance x 17 home games. That comes out to 36M in the context of a 23M wage bill. That is about a 1.5:1 ratio for ticket sales to wage bill. 

If we take TFC as a very rough guide as what is a reasonable ratio of ticket sales to player wages and scale it to Halifax's numbers, that is a 900k cap, with 36k average wage across a 25 man roster,  in line with NASL numbers outside of Miami and the Cosmos. 

Now, there's obviously a bunch of flaws in the above reasoning (TFC has a decent TV deal, better corporate sponsorships, there's conflicting reports on whether TFC is profitable or not, we don't know how single entity will work exactly in CPL, many costs like travel aren't scalable, I'm assuming equal distribution of cheap and expensive tickets in Halifax, there was even a rumour of FIFA providing the league with a subsidy, etc), just using it as a warning to temper expectations of what "first and second division players" refers to. If I'm wrong, fantastic. 

Edit: Also good point from @lazlo_80 about "C-SUM". Who knows how exactly it will pan out, and if the current flow of information is any indication, I bet we are in for MLS-esque opacity on financial details anyways. 

Edit 2: Just reread it, SEA said 3-4k was needed to make it "financially viable", not to break even, so it's entirely possible that 3-4k is the point at which they are only losing an acceptable amount of money for the early years, so this entire post is sort of pointless

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28 minutes ago, Complete Homer said:

 

TFC, for comparison, apparently has an average ticket price ~$80 x 26500 average attendance x 17 home games. That comes out to 36M in the context of a 23M wage bill. That is about a 1.5:1 ratio for ticket sales to wage bill. 

If we take TFC as a very rough guide as what is a reasonable ratio of ticket sales to player wages and scale it to Halifax's numbers, that is a 900k cap, with 36k average wage across a 25 man roster,  in line with NASL numbers outside of Miami and the Cosmos. 

 

I don't mind your analysis but your numbers are way off because you are mixing Canadian and U.S. dollar values. 36k Canadian is 27k American, for example, if you are going to compare this league to NASL.

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11 minutes ago, Dub Narcotic said:

I don't mind your analysis but your numbers are way off because you are mixing Canadian and U.S. dollar values. 36k Canadian is 27k American, for example, if you are going to compare this league to NASL.

Also valid point

Again, I was going for a very rough comparison. Since we don't actually have direct figures for revenue, I was just trying to use indirect figures to guess what sort of spending would be happening in a true "break even" scenario

I also suspect that SEA's numbers in the presentation were pretty rough as well. Considering they said elsewhere that the costs of running the team would be 3-4 million (IIRC), I don't see how 4000 people paying $10-35 I'd coming close to that. There's  pieces missing here. 

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The big thing to note is that all of these numbers are based on the expectation of profit in the temporary stadium. Of course they don't make sense if you are looking for a profit, because there won't be one at first.

Their goal is likely to put up with the initial years' losses while establishing a preliminary fanbase before moving to something more permanent and aiming for the initially reported 6-8k attendance figure, which is much more realistic to make a profit on. I don't think any owner expects to make money for 5+ years minimum, and lots of revenue figures will have grown past these estimates by that point (such as, hopefully having a paying TV deal at that point).

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1 hour ago, Gopherbashi said:

I don't think that's lack of understanding - I think that's narrative.

Repeat the message that the teams aren't worth the supporters' groups time, and hope they succumb to that mentality.

Yes that's definitely a possibility. Make it look second rate before it gets going. 

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5 minutes ago, Diamondium said:

The big thing to note is that all of these numbers are based on the expectation of profit in the temporary stadium. Of course they don't make sense if you are looking for a profit, because there won't be one at first.

Their goal is likely to put up with the initial years' losses while establishing a preliminary fanbase before moving to something more permanent and aiming for the initially reported 6-8k attendance figure, which is much more realistic to make a profit on. I don't think any owner expects to make money for 5+ years minimum, and lots of revenue figures will have grown past these estimates by that point (such as, hopefully having a paying TV deal at that point).

Only thing is that SEA said that 3-4k was a break even point at the March 30 meeting. That's pretty telling IMO 

Edit: I'm an idiot. Just reread it, and they actually said 3-4k is needed to be "financially viable", which is completely different than breaking even and fits your narrative much more. Whoops 

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2 hours ago, to70 said:

Butch Carter's basketball league is paying to be on the YES network. Catch it sometime. Pretty drab playing in empty gyms.

Oh i know that league is a joke but prior to it's launch chch (which has reach) jumped on board (and later left when it became clear it wasn't going to work). There was no word on if butch was paying but it seemed closer to a situation where they would have to pay for production not air time.

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18 minutes ago, matty said:

Oh i know that league is a joke but prior to it's launch chch (which has reach) jumped on board (and later left when it became clear it wasn't going to work). There was no word on if butch was paying but it seemed closer to a situation where they would have to pay for production not air time.

No matter exactly how it worked, there definitely was no rights fees paid to the league and it cost the league money to have the games on TV.  Just a matter of exactly how much.

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2 hours ago, lazlo_80 said:

I think his point about the NY and LA soccer community is actually extremely valid. he doesn't predict there would be alot of crossover between TFC fans and another teams fans.

It is true, but that's not why I have an issue with it. He was using that as an argument why Toronto wouldn't be a good place for a CPL team when the overlap of fanbases to me isn't an issue. He pretty much admitted there he's afraid of a this team stealing fans and the VMP people should have said "what's the problem with that?" instead of going "No, the same fans can go see both."

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15 minutes ago, Jason said:

No matter exactly how it worked, there definitely was no rights fees paid to the league and it cost the league money to have the games on TV.  Just a matter of exactly how much.

Actually if they were given or offered free then the value is worth more than what they paid. Tv even if you aren't being paid is worth a fuck ton.

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4 hours ago, Complete Homer said:

This I think is a key point. TFC lives and dies on the environment created by the supporters, I would think ticking them off is a greater (or at least more immediate) risk to TFC than a team in Vaughan. 

I think his comparison of a CPL team in Toronto to the Cosmos was interesting. It's not a perfect analogy, the team wouldn't be banking on a dated identify (barring revival of the Blizzard) and would hopefully be less confrontational, but the Cosmos are now drawing 6000 when properly situated in a good location. I'd be happy with that 

This, although that Iron isn't quite as hot as it was, say 3-5 seasons ago.

I have little doubt that if there was another team in Toronto and MLSE screwed it's fanbase with a bad PR move, you would get people jumping ship. Sure the last couple of seasons have been good, but if they go back to having revolving door coaching or punctuate a failed year with a ticket increase, I could totally see people jumping ship on the team. That said, last year's run probably soothed quite a few fans. I do know, if MLSE takes TFC back to the way it was a few years back, I know more then a few fans will jump ship.

Especially when you have a two to four teams who are a day trip away and a lot easier to hate, then say...Dallas.

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8 hours ago, rob.notenboom said:

However, I also think that he displayed that he simply doesn't understand some things and his answers displayed this lack of understanding. He commented that he didn't think that the supporters groups would support CanPL and not TFC, but there are a large number of people in TFC SGs who were Voyageurs first and for whom the advancement of Canadian soccer is front of mind. It might not be an overwhelmingly high percentage of those in TFC's SGs but it's not an insignificant number either. 

There is a difference in level of commitment between supporting a club and supporting the national team. I don't have to spend a lot of time and money into supporting the national team in comparison to supporting a club which does take quite a lot of time and commitment. Seeing if those Voyageurs would commit to supporting a CPL club for the advancement of national team over TFC for which you already committed significantly... it's a big ask.

I'd find it hard to support both TFC and a CPL club on regular basis. And what happens if TFC and CPL club play at same time? Which game do you go to?

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Thought on how this league is going to work: Is it possible the people wanting to start these teams are not looking to make money now but make money down the line?

Like the Argos make no money but David Cynamon bought them for $2m in 2003 and was looking for $15m for them in 2009. Team is likely worth north of $10m. There are a ton of examples in sports of teams costing their owners millions over a number of years before they sell the team and make millions in profit from the sale.

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So it's clearly evident that Bill is worried about a Toronto CPL team affecting their overall investment. Everything mentioned in regard to his concerns is relating to money. He doesn't want GTA players having the option of going to something better that isn't in the TFC "funnel" or the only option. Example would be, Malik Johnson being offered a Toronto CPL contract, while TFC want to sign him to extended contract with TFCII....or sign him with TFC, and send him back down. 

He kind of contradicts himself when he makes reference to the city of Toronto comparing themselves to other big cities (LA, NY, Chicago). Those cities have 2+ major league teams....But then he attempts to differentiate Toronto from those cities by saying there would be confusion in the market place, which I think solely translates to competition in the market place....because he doesn't want a team moving in 5 minutes down the road (Lamport)

He then talks about if TFCII were to be in the CPL, they would look into moving them to Lamport (which they manage) and would require a lot of money to renovate. (In which there sounded like some reluctancy).

I'm a strong believer that if a team from Toronto is to be in the CPL...they need to be at Lamport, or even Varisty (but we know the UofT nimby folks won't let that happen). 

So my question is, what does MLSE's management of Lamport entail? Can they veto any CPL plans to play at that stadium? Can they say yes or no to who can use the stadium? What would it take for a Toronto CPL team to takeover management of Lamport?

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Thought the most interesting snippets were the references to CFL owners being involved, which implies at least one more group beyond Hamilton (Calgary being the prime suspects as they are not under community ownership and have no MLS team to compete with) and the bit about how John Pugh of the Ottawa Fury is not sure about it, which suggests that the minimum of one extra CFL group probably isn't Ottawa. If as that suggests they don't have either Edmonton (as we know from Steven Sandor's reporting) or Ottawa on board yet and if they continue the no MLS B team rebranded or otherwise posture, I seriously doubt this is happening in 2018. Also found the stuff about Montagliani's motivation being somewhat different from that of the CFL owners interesting because although it has looked that way reading between the lines from the outside, that's the first time I have seen it articulated like that by somebody that is reasonably in the loop on these matters.

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