CPL new teams speculation

[EnigMattic1]

1 minute ago, Bison44 said:

Your doing pretty good on that list, just add Saskatoon and those cover the possible spots.  But each spot has holes in the plan, either a motivated deep pockets ownership group, applicable stadium etc.  

Doesn't the owners of the Vancouver expansion also own Pacific? Surely that can't be allowed? 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

1 minute ago, EnigMattic1 said:

So the Vancouver expansion is in Fraser Valley? I knew of Saskatoon, but that's gone quiet recently hasn't it? And what does a "conditional expansion slot" mean? 

Usually means they need to build a suitable soccer specific stadium with 6,000+ capacity. That definitely applies to Saskatoon and Windsor with the former having a solid plan at Prairieland that still needs funding from different levels of government while the latter is not so far along. Have seen it claimed Fraser Valley is also conditional but the stated 2023 timeline on that one seems clearer and there are strong rumours a pop-up can easily be installed at the Langley Events Centre if needs be.

[ted]

3 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

Doesn't the owners of the Vancouver expansion also own Pacific? Surely that can't be allowed? 

Welcome to North American Pro soccer.

MLS at one point had two owners who owned 80% of the league.

[MM3/MM2/MM]

10 minutes ago, ted said:

Welcome to North American Pro soccer.

MLS at one point had two owners who owned 80% of the league.

What ever happened to that league? Surely that model couldn't have led to success.

[Kingston]

28 minutes ago, ted said:

Saskatoon already has a team in the works and we have teams in Victoria and Halifax. Are you suggesting two teams in each market?!? 

No.  I'm saying that in the long run I believe that to be viable, the CPL must have teams in those six core markets I listed and then will also need teams in some of the smaller markets to bulk up the numbers.

Right now, we have teams in five of the core markets but still need to add Quebec.

Right now, we have teams in the non-core markets of Victoria, Halifax, and York.

I'd love the CPL to be successful in every market it enters.  The history of pro sports teams, especially at the financial level of the CPL, suggests this is unlikely.  I fully expect we will see both additions and subtractions (possibly followed by replacements) of teams over the league's first decade as it gets its feet under itself. 

The fact that five of the eight teams aren't drawing anywhere near enough fans to support themselves and the fact that Edmonton's owners have already bailed point in this direction.  It's not pleasant but it's not necessarily a disaster.  It will take serious investment from some people to get through the rough phase.  At one point in MLS's development, Lamar Hunt and Philip Anschutz owned (IIRC) nine of the ten teams between them while the league dumped both Florida teams.  Look at the NLL or attempts to start a rugby league.  The CFL has ownership crises to this day and it's far more established than the CPL.

[EnigMattic1]

1 hour ago, ted said:

Welcome to North American Pro soccer.

MLS at one point had two owners who owned 80% of the league.

Don't the MLS own all the teams and then franchise them out? It's a weird setup, but I'd still rather that than seeing a team sold to someone who doesn't care for the club or its history and just wants a plaything to spend money on. I guess you wouldn't get teams in a similar situation to Barcelona either. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

1 hour ago, Kingston said:

...The fact that five of the eight teams aren't drawing anywhere near enough fans to support themselves...

I don't think the Valour can be viewed as a success story on crowds any more after starting strongly in the 2019 spring season and the Forge only drew 5000+ very sporadically last season despite having the big CONCACAF run, so it's only really Halifax that provides a reason to believe at the moment.

That could point to the second tier of mid-sized market possibilities that draw big crowds for junior hockey and do not expect a major league or CFL team as the top local sports story as being more likely to provide a second success story than the core 6 you mention.

Alternatively Halifax is a freakish outlier like the Des Moines Menace have been in PDL. Hopefully Saskatoon happens and shows it can be replicated and that more municipalities should do what Langford did and invest in an SSS.

[Kingston]

7 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

Don't the MLS own all the teams and then franchise them out? 

Yes.  Technically, the league owns everything and each team has an operator (rather than an owner).  All player contracts are technically with the league.  The league pays the basic salaries under the cap but the operators are permitted to kick in additional money for, for example, designated players.

The reality is that the operators act more like owners (doing their own scouting, building stadiums, etc.) but the single owner model has some advantages.  Especially early on it allowed for revenue sharing that kept teams afloat.  Even today (for good or bad) it helps enforce a degree of parity that is unheard of in free-market European leagues.

[EnigMattic1]

5 minutes ago, Kingston said:

Yes.  Technically, the league owns everything and each team has an operator (rather than an owner).  All player contracts are technically with the league.  The league pays the basic salaries under the cap but the operators are permitted to kick in additional money for, for example, designated players.

The reality is that the operators act more like owners (doing their own scouting, building stadiums, etc.) but the single owner model has some advantages.  Especially early on it allowed for revenue sharing that kept teams afloat.  Even today (for good or bad) it helps enforce a degree of parity that is unheard of in free-market European leagues.

I will be totally honest, I'm in the UK, but I have grown increasingly disillusioned with European football over the years. I find the North American variant a lot more interesting (especially the draft system and the way the leagues expand). The main thing that puzzles me is the lack of a youth setup in Canada. 

Is the fact that, technically, the MLS owns the Canadian 3 the reason why they won't play in the CPL or is that only part of the reason? I guess league reputation would also play a part? 

Sorry, don't mean to keep going off topic. 

[Kingston]

2 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

I don't think the Valour can be viewed as a success story on crowds any more after starting strongly in the 2019 spring season and the Forge only drew 5000+ very sporadically last season despite having the big CONCACAF run, so it's only really Halifax that provides a reason to believe at the moment.

I'm pretty much ignoring last year.  Covid, for one.  Also, the league didn't reliably publish attendance data so it's really hard to know what the crowd sizes and averages were.

Valour pretty reliably drew 5000 in their first year so I count them as a tentative success.  We will have to see how they (and everyone else) does this year when things are hopefully more normal.

5 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

That could point to the second tier of mid-sized market possibilities that draw big crowds for junior hockey and do not expect a major league or CFL team as the top local sports story as being more likely to provide a second success story than the core 6 you mention.

Alternatively Halifax is a freakish outlier like the Des Moines Menace have been in PDL. Hopefully Saskatoon happens and shows it can be replicated and that more municipalities should do what Langford did and invest in an SSS.

I think Victoria could replicate Halifax's experience with the right stadium.  The Highlanders used to average around 1500 with big crowds over 2000 back in their PDL days.  The market is there.  Starlight seems nice enough in everything except location.

I also wonder about the mid-size city possibility.  To me, the biggest hurdle is the stadium.  An owner willing to spend, say, $5 million can probably get a simple stadium in a very good, down town location in a mid-size city.  That becomes much harder (or at least, more expensive) in the six core cities for the CPL and realistically isn't going to happen on a CPL budget in the MLS cities.  But if the CPL is truly going to work, I think we need owners in a majority of cities to spend what it takes to set up an appropriate stadium like Halifax did.  That will show they are in it for real and not just hoping they are able to buy in cheaply and see their asset appreciate in value somehow.

[Kingston]

10 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

I will be totally honest, I'm in the UK, but I have grown increasingly disillusioned with European football over the years. I find the North American variant a lot more interesting (especially the draft system and the way the leagues expand). The main thing that puzzles me is the lack of a youth setup in Canada. 

Is the fact that, technically, the MLS owns the Canadian 3 the reason why they won't play in the CPL or is that only part of the reason? I guess league reputation would also play a part?  

The youth set up is coming, but soccer (as more than just for fun) is still very new in Canada.

The Canadian MLS teams can't play in the CPL in anything like their current form.  Many of their players make more than entire CPL teams.  In UK terms, it would be like trying to drop three Premiership teams into League 1.

When the CPL was starting up, there were apparently discussions between the league and the Canadian MLS teams.  The idea was that the three MLS teams would put their reserve teams into the CPL.  This would give the reserve teams a local league to play in and give the CPL three stable franchises in the largest cities.  The talks fell apart.  Depending on who you believe, either the MLS teams were trying to tell the CPL how to run their league or the CPL was trying to put too many conditions on the MLS teams.

[K Edgar]

18 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

I will be totally honest, I'm in the UK, but I have grown increasingly disillusioned with European football over the years. I find the North American variant a lot more interesting (especially the draft system and the way the leagues expand). The main thing that puzzles me is the lack of a youth setup in Canada. 

Is the fact that, technically, the MLS owns the Canadian 3 the reason why they won't play in the CPL or is that only part of the reason? I guess league reputation would also play a part? 

Sorry, don't mean to keep going off topic. 

Think of the Canadian teams in the MLS as the Cardiff City and Swansea City of the English league.

[EnigMattic1]

39 minutes ago, Kingston said:

The youth set up is coming, but soccer (as more than just for fun) is still very new in Canada.

The Canadian MLS teams can't play in the CPL in anything like their current form.  Many of their players make more than entire CPL teams.  In UK terms, it would be like trying to drop three Premiership teams into League 1.

When the CPL was starting up, there were apparently discussions between the league and the Canadian MLS teams.  The idea was that the three MLS teams would put their reserve teams into the CPL.  This would give the reserve teams a local league to play in and give the CPL three stable franchises in the largest cities.  The talks fell apart.  Depending on who you believe, either the MLS teams were trying to tell the CPL how to run their league or the CPL was trying to put too many conditions on the MLS teams.

Yeah, the lack of a youth setup was one of the first things I noticed (being a former youth coach). But it is good to know that it is coming. Am I right in thinking that only Edmonton, Cavalry and Pacific have a youth setup? 

I do get the impression that, despite being very new, the fans are more 'friendly' than in Europe. I mean, I've yet to hear about fans rioting or mass brawls, but I guess, with the way the contracts are set up, there is little to no chance of a player getting labelled as 'judas' for moving to a rival after 'x' years at the club. 

[EnigMattic1]

42 minutes ago, K Edgar said:

Think of the Canadian teams in the MLS as the Cardiff City and Swansea City of the English league.

And Wrexham. We can't forget Mr Reynolds' latest business venture. 

[CDNFootballer]

9 hours ago, Kingston said:

 The owners talked about investing $5 million per team per year but haven't spent that much and have already cut the salary cap instead of raising it. 

Not sure where your getting your info re the player salary cap, was supposedly 750k the first year and then increased to 800k after that and now apparently sits at 850k.

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by CDNFootballer

[Haligonian#1]

6 hours ago, Kingston said:

No.  I'm saying that in the long run I believe that to be viable, the CPL must have teams in those six core markets I listed and then will also need teams in some of the smaller markets to bulk up the numbers.

Right now, we have teams in five of the core markets but still need to add Quebec.

Right now, we have teams in the non-core markets of Victoria, Halifax, and York.

I'd love the CPL to be successful in every market it enters.  The history of pro sports teams, especially at the financial level of the CPL, suggests this is unlikely.  I fully expect we will see both additions and subtractions (possibly followed by replacements) of teams over the league's first decade as it gets its feet under itself. 

The fact that five of the eight teams aren't drawing anywhere near enough fans to support themselves and the fact that Edmonton's owners have already bailed point in this direction.  It's not pleasant but it's not necessarily a disaster.  It will take serious investment from some people to get through the rough phase.  At one point in MLS's development, Lamar Hunt and Philip Anschutz owned (IIRC) nine of the ten teams between them while the league dumped both Florida teams.  Look at the NLL or attempts to start a rugby league.  The CFL has ownership crises to this day and it's far more established than the CPL.

I do not think that Halifax is less of a "core city" than Winnipeg or Quebec City. It is about to hit 500,000 and is growing faster than those two cities in both percentage and absolute terms. The last five years has seen strong growth (2 percent annually) and it is about to accelerate. We likely added 15,000 in 2021 and should have a better year in 2022. Current reasonable population projections have Halifax hitting 750K to 1 million by 2050, which is less than 28 years from now. So if Halifax is capable of attracting crowds of 6,500 fans game after game and with today's population and with less than stellar results on the field, then its future prospects are looking good. I can't say the same for Winnipeg, a city twice our population, or Edmonton which has roughly 3 times our population. However, the location of the stadium in Halifax has had a lot to do with the attendance success. If the stadium would have gone to Shannon Park, Dartmouth Crossings, or any of the other proposed sites for a CFL stadium, the team would have likely folded after the first season. I actually think, for example, that Pacific would do much better if the stadium was more centrally located.

[Bison44]

I would think Halifax is more of a core city.  The maratime provinces get almost no representation, so it fills a large hole.  The other cities mentioned have hockey and cfl football which competes against the soccer for entertainment money.  Having a "winner" or lets say a successful team there is a big step for the league as a whole.  Now we need to have similar success with a team from Quebec.  Whichever one steps forward to carry the torch.  

[Haligonian#1]

As long as Quebec City has the right ownership group and the right stadium in a central location, then it will likely beat all other existing teams in terms of attendance. Like Halifax, it wouldn't have to compete against a CFL team.

[Stanley]

8 hours ago, Kingston said:

but soccer (as more than just for fun) is still very new in Canada.

Crap, what have I been watching here since 1977?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Would probably have been news to Stanley Matthews that he was only playing for fun in Toronto in the 1960s:

and to Eusebio in the 1970s:

or to Roberto Bettega in the 1980s:

 

 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

15 hours ago, EnigMattic1 said:

Yeah, the lack of a youth setup was one of the first things I noticed (being a former youth coach). But it is good to know that it is coming. Am I right in thinking that only Edmonton, Cavalry and Pacific have a youth setup? 

I do get the impression that, despite being very new, the fans are more 'friendly' than in Europe. I mean, I've yet to hear about fans rioting or mass brawls, but I guess, with the way the contracts are set up, there is little to no chance of a player getting labelled as 'judas' for moving to a rival after 'x' years at the club. 

In this respect we are a very young footballing nation but there are positive signs that point to a future brimming with mass brawls, fan rioting, name calling including "judas" and its equivalent terms for those not of the Christian faith.

And more, since we have a lot of experience with things like spearing, which is nowhere to be found in the rest of world football.

It's a great time to be a fan in Canada.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Unnamed Trialist

[Kingston]

12 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

Not sure where your getting your info re the player salary cap, was supposedly 750k the first year and then increased to 800k after that and now apparently sits at 850k.

 

I'd have to dig out the link from old threads on the Bigsoccer board, but I understood that they cut it from $750 k to $500 k in 2020 for the first year of covid.  Good to see it heading upwards as per your post.

[Kingston]

7 hours ago, Stanley said:

Crap, what have I been watching here since 1977?

Yeah, and I had a good time watching Toronto Blizzard games back in the CSL days.  But after the NASL died there was a long time where, for 98% of Canadians, soccer was just a sport to sign their kids up for in the summer so they could get a run around while the "coach" handed out orange slices.  There was some "real" soccer for those who wanted to put in the effort to find it but the CSL and Canadian A-League and USL teams (and whatever the acronym was for a year or two before the league folded or reorganized) was not mainstream stuff.  Soccer's current presence in Canadian consciousness with MLS and now CPL teams and a whole bunch of D3 teams and a good national team - that's all still pretty new here.  Hence my answer to EnigMattic1.

[EnigMattic1]

13 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

Not sure where your getting your info re the player salary cap, was supposedly 750k the first year and then increased to 800k after that and now apparently sits at 850k.

 

Do you know where I could find a better copy of this image? 

[ray]

24 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

Do you know where I could find a better copy of this image? 

https://canpl.ca/article/exclusive-director-of-football-oliver-gage-reviews-cpl-compensation-approaches