How do you respond to USL lovers who insist hat the CPL is not worth it?

[PJSweet]

I'm keep coming across this misinformed idiot on Twitter who insist that Canada does NOT need the CPL. He insists adamantly what Canada needs is the USL because it's a much better league and stable than the CPL. What kind of respond will you give this guy when defending the CPL.

 

[Rheo]

See the 200 pages of opinions in the main thread.  Agree to disagree and hope for the best.

[-Hammer-]

There is little you can do. There are some people, in my view, whose love for soccer extends as far as their local team and longterm prospects of Canada as a whole be damned, and the reason they want all of Canada to turn to the USL is to make Canada one giant farm for their local MLS team, actual Canadian development be damned.

The only approach is that there are markets outside of MLS markets who deserve independent, pro teams of their own, so they can have what TFC has in their own backyard, and that MLS has a long history of not developing enough Canadian talent to produce meaningful world cup qualifications for our country. If they can't see that, well...you can only agree to disagree and that we'll have to wait and see, because the CPL is coming regardless of you liking it or not. You'll never convince them otherwise until other league start succeeding and you have that as evidence.

[shermanator]

Simple. Ignore them.

[GuillermoDelQuarto]

1 minute ago, shermanator said:

Simple. Ignore them.

other than this obvious one

I'd say it's fairly simple to defeat that narrative.  Someone eariler was going off about half-measures, which the USL would most certainly be.  There are also just far far too many teams from markets that Canadians don't give a fuck about.  Think about it, what makes the NHL so popular(and keeps the CFL able to compete with a superior product in NFL) - it's banter.

Just due to the fact that we are separate countries, there are far less opportunities for banter with fans of american teams.  But within Canada, people move around a lot, most of us have contact with people who are from coast to coast(even at my workplace in whitehorse there are people from all over the east coast and everywhere in between).

This is actually the best way to expose non-fans to the game, have some playful banter between people like us within the workplace(at a bar, etc etc).  While there are a few places within USL that would be Canadian, and even some american teams that we would probably know people from, it just wouldn't be quite the same.

[Rheo]

It seems to me that the USL supporters have a lack in faith in the CSA/potential owners to pull off and and Canadian to support a new league.  That it's best to go with the established league which will won't give the domestic quotas we'd like to have but it's better than the status quo and/or a league that dies.  Am I off in how I'm reading these discussions?

[shermanator]

Personally, I'd rather work on convincing those who could be interested in CPL rather than those who have no interest whatsoever. It's a waste of my time to engage those who aren't going to be persuaded.

Think USL is a better option? That's fine. I don't. End of story. Think MLS is a better option? That's fine. I don't. End of story.

[Levi Oakey]

Totally agree on the banter element. It is why the PDL is such a struggle to suppport now with United. Like. How am I supposed to get excited for playing Dayton Ohio?

This from a Spurs blog is exactly what fandom is about: http://www.dearmrlevy.com/dml/2016/11/20/everything
 

Tottenham 3 West Ham United 2

Games like this is what we live for. It's the bread and butter of tribalism. The very pinnacle of escapism and entertainment. Even if there were few prolonged moments of joy across the entirety of the game, it was the precious cameos that mattered most. Everything was defined by those pockets of delirious celebrations. They had two. We had three. The timing of the last couple, scripted to perfection. It's like watching a movie that's completely sold you on its ending, only for one final demented twist that turns you upside down, shaking your senses into complete overload. We've seen it before, yet we never see it coming.

 

[rob.notenboom]

5 hours ago, PJSweet said:

I'm keep coming across this misinformed idiot on Twitter who insist that Canada does need the CPL. He insists adamantly what Canada needs is the USL because it's a much better league and stable than the CPL. What kind of respond will you give this guy when defending the CPL.

 

Do the same thing I do when religious recruiters come to my door. Close it and move on. There's no use trying to debate with the indoctrinated. 

[Gopherbashi]

8 hours ago, PJSweet said:

I'm keep coming across this misinformed idiot on Twitter who insist that Canada does need the CPL. He insists adamantly what Canada needs is the USL because it's a much better league and stable than the CPL. What kind of respond will you give this guy when defending the CPL.

 

It's growing American teams for American players.

As is their right.  As is their mandate.

It's just not a right or a mandate which holds the best benefit for us.

[marauder01]

For the record, the TFC fan in question is Duncan Green. He holds multiple twitter accounts as he gets banned frequently for some real non-inclusive tweets. Ignore him in particular, always.

[rob.notenboom]

1 hour ago, marauder01 said:

For the record, the TFC fan in question is Duncan Green. He holds multiple twitter accounts as he gets banned frequently for some real non-inclusive tweets. Ignore him in particular, always.

Ha! Didn't realize that that twitter handle was ALSO him. Yeesh.

[Kent]

I'm curious now. Where do the people that prefer a USL solution over a CPL solution live? My purely speculative guess would be that most of them would come from MLS cities (or outside of Canada). Are there people in Calgary, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Quebec City, etc that would rather the USL option than CPL?

[Macksam]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

I'm curious now. Where do the people that prefer a USL solution over a CPL solution live? My purely speculative guess would be that most of them would come from MLS cities (or outside of Canada). Are there people in Calgary, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Quebec City, etc that would rather the USL option than CPL?

Exactly my thought. If we had stable USL franchises right now as we speak drawing decent crowds in numerous cities like Belleville, Victoria, Barrie, KW and London for example, we could make the argument of it being a decent choice to pursue. However, all we have so far are reserve teams, which aren't very good barometers for success. Ottawa becoming a smash hit next year could provide that evidence but the jury is out on that one. 

[Tuscan]

On 12/13/2016 at 0:13 PM, shermanator said:

Think USL is a better option? That's fine. I don't. End of story. Think MLS is a better option? That's fine. I don't. End of story.

Our story is far from over Sean. It continues........FOREVER!!!

[Tuscan]

On 12/14/2016 at 11:30 AM, Macksam said:

Exactly my thought. If we had stable USL franchises right now as we speak drawing decent crowds in numerous cities like Belleville, Victoria, Barrie, KW and London for example, we could make the argument of it being a decent choice to pursue. However, all we have so far are reserve teams, which aren't very good barometers for success. Ottawa becoming a smash hit next year could provide that evidence but the jury is out on that one. 

I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to include multiple quotes in a single post, so by all means spit fire at me for double posting.

I do think we're fortunate that there aren't USL franchises in the different markets mentioned above. I think we need to look at both USL and the NPSL as models for how our D2 could work. I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a Pro/Rel debate, but I still wonder how a D1-D2-D3 relationship will work without that construct?

[ironcub14]

Hey folks, perusing the CPL boards after a 3-month self-imposed absence, due mainly to work/twitter.

I thought I'd answer this question, considering I had made some long-form arguments about 6 months ago for a USL approach over CPL, around page 70 of the main CPL thread.

For a preface, we should all note that there were investors in Hamilton, Victoria and Calgary in the past 5 years that had been exploring USL options, but were rebuffed by CSA, with a future CPL in mind, correct? We will obviously never know how successful they would have been, but the A-League/USL clubs in the Big 3 in the past, and the Eddies and the Fury seem like apt comparisons.

For me and some of the more reasonable folks who had advocated for USL in the past (not anything like that Duncan Green dude in the OP), the main draw of it was the existing league infrastructure within the overall North American pyramid, and growing upon that, considering that the majority of mainstream sports fans in Canada consider major leagues of the big 5 team sports to be a North American construct, rather than a Canadian construct. I don't consider any Voyageur reading this comment to be a mainstream sports fan btw, we are all more hardcore than that

The eureka moment for me that made me shift ever slightly towards CPL over USL was when Brennanfan, who's a friend of mine in Toronto, wrote in the CPL thread that I should be thinking of bigger possibilities in both financial and sporting perspectives when considering CPL. He pushed me to think about all CPL ownership groups, not just the few that have been rumoured, to be at the billionaire category, rather than the millionaire category. And when he dropped Goldhar's name as a potential Toronto CPL owner, I think that's when it really resonated that CPL could actually, if all rumours do materialize, be something possibly bigger than NASL or USL. I guess it was that local Toronto connection that really may have been the tipping point.

I thought I'd share that as a somebody who had advocated for that USL approach. Keep in mind that all the rumours that have been discussed would have to materialize concretely for me to get into CPL on another level, particularly for Toronto. I still do think that the USL approach is a very solid option that shouldn't be discounted. But if all of the Vs' wildest dreams come true on the potential CPL ownership groups, and if this really becomes a play thing for Canadian billionaires, then CPL would definitely be the way to go. Still a lot of if's, though.