Canadian Premier League

[Macksam]

On ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 0:59 PM, nolbertos said:

Seems to e following the MLS business plan.  Good luck to Mont Pete finding a rich investor and convincing him to lose money the first 5-10 years of its existence.  I guess if thr CPL were to want to survive, would have to be single wntity ownership or else.  I say if thats the case, might as well as the big three MLS clubs to help out and they get to have first dibs on CPL star players.  Glad that montagliani is accepting that the CPL will become a MLS feeder league to the big three MLS sides.

Where does he accept that?

[mtlsab]

On 17/2/2016 at 0:19 PM, SthMelbRed said:

Seems to be alluding to a business plan that is heavily dependent on TV and sponsorship revenue, likely with a lot of revenue sharing. 

What about international transferts?

[mtlsab]

2 hours ago, Blue and White Army said:

Do you suggest that clubs that join the CPL after the "original six/eight" but before the hypothetical future implementation of pro/rel should pay a franchise fee?

Yeah, that would be the problem of passing from franchises to pro/rel. I'm for the introducing of pro/rel but not in that way.

I think we can let the 1st div closed for the 5 first years to get it sustainable. After that, we can see how we can progressively implement pro/rel, like finding a way that each new club should begin in semi-pro(D3) or D2.

After 10 years, if we've got a 1st div National, a 2nd division (4 regions: West, centre-west, centre east, east). D3 (L1O, PLSQ, etc) and lower depending on each Province

i think each CPL club should have at least 3 reserve teams in the (Pyramid) and younger teams (U-21, U-18, U-16, U14, etc) playin in provincial leagues or even a national league for the young players

 

[Coramoor]

9 hours ago, Elgin Soccer Dad said:

Interesting to see the responses I've generated from posing the pro/rel system and stating my preference for it. Realistically, I don't think pro/rel will ever be a part of US/Canada professional sport but I wanted to see what the community thoughts were. If pro/rel is part of the league, the league can stipulate maintenance of an academy presence as part of league membership. So axing an academy because of lost revenue won't become an issue. Of course, this is all speculation and creative expression inspired by this awesome news.

It's not about axing it completely, it's about cutting the amount of funding it gets, both as a total number and as a relative percentage of the club budget. This happens over and over and over again in the pro/rel world and hand waving it away, does nothing. 

6 hours ago, MrSabiondo said:

To be quite serious any league especially soccer a league that wants itself to be taken seriously should embrace Promotion / Relegation. 

Promotion / Relegation creates a more naturally distributed interest of teams and not artificial teams just for sake of filling up quotas in certain Metropolitan areas.

 

That's just purist nonsense. Pro/Rel was a solution to a problem that existed while merging disparate leagues and teams that had formed prior to the invention of the radio. It's a horrible system from a business perspective and can absolutely destroy teams. It's also a very European-centric solution, it's a system that was easy to form because teams can use a bus to get to everyone they have to play, travel cost is never a serious issue. 

I appreciate the dream of Pro/Rel and the thought of the local club making it all the way, but it's just not practical

[baulderdash77]

I agree that Pro/Rel is not a problem we have.  Promotion from what pool of teams exactly?  Relegation to why exactly?

I think it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.  We can only come up with a maximum of 10 professional teams and we have room for 20 D1 teams.  

There's never going to be a D2 in Canada after the CPL gets launched.  We don't have enough markets and your not going to promote from D3 to D1

[mtlsab]

26 minutes ago, Coramoor said:

It's not about axing it completely, it's about cutting the amount of funding it gets, both as a total number and as a relative percentage of the club budget. This happens over and over and over again in the pro/rel world and hand waving it away, does nothing. 

That's just purist nonsense. Pro/Rel was a solution to a problem that existed while merging disparate leagues and teams that had formed prior to the invention of the radio. It's a horrible system from a business perspective and can absolutely destroy teams. It's also a very European-centric solution, it's a system that was easy to form because teams can use a bus to get to everyone they have to play, travel cost is never a serious issue. 

I appreciate the dream of Pro/Rel and the thought of the local club making it all the way, but it's just not practical

In some countries, the pro rel include a playoff (like in Germany) and the team promoted needs to follw some strict conditions (read about Luzenac in 2014 or GFCO Ajaccio in 1999)

[Michael Crampton]

On 2/16/2016 at 6:30 PM, Unnamed Trialist said:

I can't exactly figure out why, but this is one of the lowest quality threads in the history of the board.

 

Even compared to Towrads? Nepotism? It's poor, but you've been around too long for this.

But all the putative CPL threads really were more fun when it was just "what drugs did Duane take this week?" every other post.

[Michael Crampton]

11 hours ago, Tuscan said:

Is that really what the Broadway Bridge looks like? I like the concept, but my brain doesn't place it with only the central span.

[GuillermoDelQuarto]

onto anything?  

[Blue and White Army]

2 hours ago, baulderdash77 said:

There's never going to be a D2 in Canada after the CPL gets launched.  We don't have enough markets and your not going to promote from D3 to D1

You really think so? Here's just one province as an example...

BC club pyramid (in ideal world)

D1 clubs:

• Vancouver 2

D1/D2 yo-yo clubs:

• Victoria

D2 clubs:

• Surrey
• Abbotsford
• Kelowna

D2/D3 yo-yo clubs:

• Kamloops
• Nanaimo

D3 clubs:

• All other cities in BC

[longlugan]

1 hour ago, baulderdash77 said:

I agree that Pro/Rel is not a problem we have.  Promotion from what pool of teams exactly?  Relegation to why exactly?

I think it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.  We can only come up with a maximum of 10 professional teams and we have room for 20 D1 teams.  

There's never going to be a D2 in Canada after the CPL gets launched.  We don't have enough markets and your not going to promote from D3 to D1

I don't get why people don't see this. We haven't even got a Div1 league up and running and they are talking pro/rel already. Possibly the most classic case of putting the cart before the horse ever? I understand the intrigue of it and would be more than happy to see it implemented in Canada. There's just one problem...we have no teams as of yet and we will never have a CanPL in enough secondary markets to warrant pro/rel. Stop daydreaming and let us put our focus on supporting this league when it starts (or even before) to give it a fighting chance of not just surviving but thriving.

[Blue and White Army]

1 hour ago, longlugan said:

I don't get why people don't see this. We haven't even got a Div1 league up and running and they are talking pro/rel already. Possibly the most classic case of putting the cart before the horse ever? I understand the intrigue of it and would be more than happy to see it implemented in Canada. There's just one problem...we have no teams as of yet and we will never have a CanPL in enough secondary markets to warrant pro/rel. Stop daydreaming and let us put our focus on supporting this league when it starts (or even before) to give it a fighting chance of not just surviving but thriving.

For pro soccer to flourish in Canada, we need a healthy club pyramid, not just one tier of "franchises."

While pro/rel obviously isn't mandatory, in the long-term it is desirable, and it would require more than a single tier of healthy clubs to function properly.

The USA and Australia are examples of how the longer you neglect the lower tiers, the larger the gap appears between D1 and the rest, and the more difficult over time it would become to implement pro/rel. China and Russia are the opposite.

It's most definitely not "putting the cart before the horse," because the long-term vision needs to be part of the plan before the initial stage is executed, just like Jeff has written. In other words: if you don't plan to implement pro/rel in the long-term, it becomes increasingly unlikely as time goes on. If it's something we desire, we should plan for it now.

We need to be conscious of which national pyramid structure we emulate. I can guarantee you that there will be a semi-pro, regional second-division in the long-term, and having pro/rel would make membership much more enticing to clubs as well as much more interesting for fans. It would be the only sport with pro/rel in Canada, helping soccer to differentiate itself from the competition (junior hockey, CFL, etc.).

I'm by no means a pro/rel evangelist, but to rule it out completely now would be utterly daft.

[Bison44]

I want to see some sort of pro football league in canada that actually works.  You'll never get the 3 MLS clubs (lets call them D-1) into a pro/rel agreement, because you'll never get MLS to do it. So..lets say the NASL teams fold into the new CANPREM league (lets call them D-2) with 8 other CDN cities and it goes great.  Where are the hypothetical D-3 teams that will be promoted into the CANPREM?? I am trying hard to believe that we will be able to get clubs in Regina, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Calgary, Victoria?, Quebec city, Halifax, St Johns?, Toronto 2 or Montreal 2, to round out a ten team league with ottawa and edmonton.  We are not England, there isn't 100's of storied football clubs around to fit into a pyramid.  How can we make a pyramid with 3MLS and maybe 10 teams in the new league?  And the new league isn't even here yet for cripes sake!  Can we not sink it before it starts??  

[Blue and White Army]

46 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

I want to see some sort of pro football league in canada that actually works.  You'll never get the 3 MLS clubs (lets call them D-1) into a pro/rel agreement, because you'll never get MLS to do it. So..lets say the NASL teams fold into the new CANPREM league (lets call them D-2) with 8 other CDN cities and it goes great.  Where are the hypothetical D-3 teams that will be promoted into the CANPREM?? I am trying hard to believe that we will be able to get clubs in Regina, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Calgary, Victoria?, Quebec city, Halifax, St Johns?, Toronto 2 or Montreal 2, to round out a ten team league with ottawa and edmonton.  We are not England, there isn't 100's of storied football clubs around to fit into a pyramid.  How can we make a pyramid with 3MLS and maybe 10 teams in the new league?  And the new league isn't even here yet for cripes sake!  Can we not sink it before it starts??  

Sigh.

Nobody is talking about pro/rel in 2018. I'm talking about pro/rel in 2048 or 2068. HAVE A LONG-TERM VISION, PLEASE.

You and others are getting blinded by the phrase "pro/rel." Think of it simply as "a healthy, robust club pyramid with several tiers" instead. That must be a major, long-term goal of the CSA.

Implement a pro D1 national league in the next few years.

Then get to work on the grassroots: provincial D3 leagues in provinces other than Ontario and Quebec. Possibly even D4 leagues that cover a portion of one province. Put pro/rel between those. (Many metropolitan leagues, which would be D5 and below, already have pro/rel).

Once D3 and D4 are stable, create regional D2 leagues (likely each covering two provinces or so). Perhaps start amateur, then move up to semi-pro after a few years. Implement pro/rel between D2 and D3 after things become stable.

Then once you have strong, semi-pro regional D2 leagues, you will see more clubs want to move to full-time squads to get better. Those will be the ones with the desire to eventually move up to D1 (CPL).

You ask, "where are the clubs?" I ask, "where are the leagues?" and "where is the leadership?" And most importantly, "where is the comprehensive vision?" Semi-pro clubs aren't going to appear out of thin air.

Have the CSA work together with every province to create strong D3 and D4 leagues. That's the first step of how you get your clubs. (In fact, many of these ambitious clubs already exist, and would be happy to join D4 and D3 leagues.)

There's more to soccer than D1. A professional, national D1 league would be fantastic, but it has a much greater chance of success with a strong, stable club pyramid as a foundation below it, eventually linking in with it.

In Japan they have a 100-year club soccer plan. What is the CSA's plan? They've talked a lot about D3 leagues, but where are they? Without guys like Dino Rossi, even Ontario likely wouldn't have one. It's time for the provincial associations to either create ambitious leagues or move out of the way and let the CSA do it for them.

[rob.notenboom]

Admittedly this is crazy to suggest, but what the hell.

 

Start with a bunch of Div 3 teams. PDL level. There could be dozens.

After they are established (yes, yes, yes ... how are they going to become established when no one wants to watch lower league soccer in Canada) have a season where the top 8 teams 'promote' to establish a new Div 2. 

Add a few more the next year. Continue until you've established three flights. Because you've started pro/rel with pro and not rel, it will be more accepted. 

Yep. Never going to happen. I'm drunk. etc etc etc

[baulderdash77]

6 hours ago, Blue and White Army said:

You really think so? Here's just one province as an example...

BC club pyramid (in ideal world)

D1 clubs:

• Vancouver 2

D1/D2 yo-yo clubs:

• Victoria

D2 clubs:

• Surrey
• Abbotsford
• Kelowna

D2/D3 yo-yo clubs:

• Kamloops
• Nanaimo

D3 clubs:

• All other cities in BC

There's a difference between vision and dreaming.  Are you seriously advocating before the CPL starts and the owners of a new league are contemplating potentially losing loads of money, that they may be relegated if they were in last place?  

Would you invest your own millions of dollars for a venture like that?  Nobody would.  

As it is it takes a lot of vision from a guy like Bob Young and the CSA to create a fully professional D1 league in Canada and invest millions of dollars with low certainty.  That's real vision.

Pro/Rel is a fantasy of some small groups of European soccer purists but there's no reality in it as it relates to soccer in Canada.  There are not dozens and dozens of millionaires competing to line up to invest millions on professional soccer in Canada.  We should be very happy if we get 6-10 because that's not even a given yet.

[MrSabiondo]

13 hours ago, Coramoor said:

That's just purist nonsense. Pro/Rel was a solution to a problem that existed while merging disparate leagues and teams that had formed prior to the invention of the radio. It's a horrible system from a business perspective and can absolutely destroy teams. It's also a very European-centric solution, it's a system that was easy to form because teams can use a bus to get to everyone they have to play, travel cost is never a serious issue. 

Surely you mean World-centric.  

[Oranje]

8 hours ago, rob.notenboom said:

Admittedly this is crazy to suggest, but what the hell.

 

Start with a bunch of Div 3 teams. PDL level. There could be dozens.

After they are established (yes, yes, yes ... how are they going to become established when no one wants to watch lower league soccer in Canada) have a season where the top 8 teams 'promote' to establish a new Div 2.

Add a few more the next year. Continue until you've established three flights. Because you've started pro/rel with pro and not rel, it will be more accepted.

Yep. Never going to happen. I'm drunk. etc etc etc

I think you're onto something but "Div 3" is essentially established already and should only need some minor tweaking (I'd assume). I am drawing some parallels from the Regionalliga in Germany, where divisions are based on locations and teams are promoted into the 3.Liga which is nation-wide.

Imagine, each city and surrounding area is a division in Div 3. They gain promotion into a "Regionalliga" in west, central, ON/QC and Atlantic. Each year top 4 teams have a playoff and top team is automatically promoted, runner-up has a playoff vs 2nd last in the CPL.

I don't think there is a question about if it is possible, it's whether or not it is viable. Div 3 is basically existing in the Metro areas, so it's just figuring out a "Regionalliga" and CPL.

[Blue and White Army]

49 minutes ago, MrSabiondo said:

Surely you mean World-centric.  

Indeed, most CONCACAF countries use pro/rel. The USA and Trinidad & Tobago are the only real exceptions (other than minnows that only have enough clubs for one tier).

Will Canada be exceptionalist #3? Most likely, but it's worth making this as a conscious decision, rather than leaving it to chance in the future.

[Blue and White Army]

6 hours ago, baulderdash77 said:

There's a difference between vision and dreaming.  Are you seriously advocating before the CPL starts and the owners of a new league are contemplating potentially losing loads of money, that they may be relegated if they were in last place?  

Would you invest your own millions of dollars for a venture like that?  Nobody would.  

As it is it takes a lot of vision from a guy like Bob Young and the CSA to create a fully professional D1 league in Canada and invest millions of dollars with low certainty.  That's real vision.

Pro/Rel is a fantasy of some small groups of European soccer purists but there's no reality in it as it relates to soccer in Canada.  There are not dozens and dozens of millionaires competing to line up to invest millions on professional soccer in Canada.  We should be very happy if we get 6-10 because that's not even a given yet.

If Germany cancelled promotion and relegation, what would happen to clubs in the lower divisions? Would their attendance not drop? Does pro/rel not help to increase the popularity of lower divisions, and thus the overall German club pyramid?

What is Bob Young's long-term interest in launching the CPL? Is it only in regards to how much money his individual franchise can make?

When Major League Soccer was created, one of the primary goals of its "investors" (as you like to call them) was to increase the popularity of spectator soccer in the USA. Is that not a goal here in Canada for the CPL founders?

MLS television ratings are abysmal. Club soccer in the USA is neglected below D1. Is that just a coincidence?

I would argue that a community with a lower-division soccer club (that is able to mature and forms links with the community over several decades) is much more likely to contribute to high D1 TV ratings than a community without a club.

Is investing in the lower divisions not an indirect investment in D1's financial viability?

What would NHL TV ratings be like today if there were never any junior hockey clubs? Can CPL expect to get any decent TV ratings outside of its franchise cities if it exists in an insular vacuum?

[ted]

6 minutes ago, Blue and White Army said:

MLS television ratings are abysmal. Club soccer in the USA is neglected below D1. Is that just a coincidence?

Compared to what? Neglected by whom?

I thought TV ratings for MLS were pretty good for a niche sport and for some reason I thought NASL and even some USL clubs have been getting at least local media coverage.

[Bison44]

Dear BLUE AND WHITE......SIGH..............in 40 years I will be living on Mars and watching Mars murder ball vs Pluto and not football (actually I'll be long dead).  But seriously everything you said is great.  I wish it would happen, but we have been hearing it for ever.  CSA work with the provinces, get the provinces to work together?? Magical grass roots support will spring out of nowhere and millions of CDNs will support local semi pro leagues.  I wish it would happen. But if a CDN pro league pops up in the next few years with a decent level of play giving young CDNs some sort of job oppurtunity in canada, well then I think I would be happy. With your long term planning and vision, you should try and get on with the CSA.  Try and change things in there.  But I am sure those guys have looked at Japans 100 year model as well.  Having a plan and getting anything done are very different things.  

[Blue and White Army]

5 minutes ago, ted said:

Compared to what? Neglected by whom?

I thought TV ratings for MLS were pretty good for a niche sport and for some reason I thought NASL and even some USL clubs have been getting at least local media coverage.

Neglected by the US Soccer Federation. It has essentially abrogated most of its power over club soccer to MLS. All the USSF does in regards to promoting club soccer is update its D2 and D3 league sanctioning requirements every few years, and publish US Open Cup fixtures. It's a mess, and that's why the US pyramid looks more like an hourglass that could topple over at any moment.

MLS TV ratings are still very poor. With soccer such a popular participatory sport, how many decades does MLS need to cut the massive chasm between soccer as a participatory sport and as a spectator sport? Ignoring small "markets," in my opinion, is at play here.

[Blue and White Army]

54 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Magical grass roots support will spring out of nowhere and millions of CDNs will support local semi pro leagues.  I wish it would happen.

We forget that soccer is the most popular participatory sport here in Canada, and that its popularity as a spectator sport is growing rapidly. It's not like I'm advocating that we start a four-tier handball pyramid here in Canada.

Make some decent D3 provincial leagues, pay some part-time people who have a clue about marketing, and people might just go watch!

One of the problems is that people don't identify with "franchises" that are suddenly concocted out of thin air. The CSA and provinces need to encourage youth clubs to become all-ages clubs, and those clubs can field an amateur senior side in the provincial D3 leagues. Youth players WILL identify with those teams, because they're literally from their clubs. That's a great way to start putting bums in seats for the amateur/semi-pro levels.

Less top-down, more grassroots. Fewer Bob Youngs, more local clubs. Clubs like Calgary Foothills creating senior sides to play in spectator leagues is the perfect example of what we need to foster all across Canada.

Could we not leave our sport's future solely in the hands of CFL and NHL execs, please? Their involvement is welcome, but the vision and scope surely needs to extend beyond them.

[Levi Oakey]

I think the biggest reason you don't see a push in the Pro/Rel direction is because of the way clubs are compensated for developing players.

We have recently started to see some smaller clubs getting these transfer fees for players who move on, but I would be interested to see if someone like Sigma gets anything beyond bragging rights for developing players. The MLS clubs (especially here in Ontario) continuously snipe players from smaller clubs. Even withing the OSA you see this happening with OPDL clubs going to places like Kitchener and telling their top players that they won't make it unless they drive to some Toronto OPDL club. Kitchener who worked on the skills for that player get nothing if the player decides to leave. This continues throughout the whole chain.

Either way, if the Can-PL actually start working at paying clubs when players move on (difficult I know), you could actually see grassroots developments of clubs. If smaller clubs received proper compensation for their development, they could use that money to support the club and bring about greater training and better levels of play. Which could bring about the opportunity to actually develop players from start to finish and develop more professional sides.If the CSA can bring a proper compensation structure to the Canadian "Pyramid". I think that will bring about true long term developments.