CPL new teams speculation

[phil03]

11 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Don't think there was any need to add the sometimes.

The Mark Noonan hire showed how fixated they still are with the concept of supplanting rather than complementing MLS in the Canadian "soccer ecosystem". Think that was very much a case of magical thinking though. Just because Mark Noonan was around when MLS turned the corner doesn't mean having him around in a CanPL context will result in massively escalating franchise values and expansion fees for them as well. Confusing correlation with causation is a trap a lot of people fall into and there must have been a reason why his career path led to Accra in Ghana.

MLS always had a genuine shot at emulating what the original NASL and MISL had been doing in terms of popularity in the 1970s and 80s once they finally addressed some of the stadium related issues that had helped to sink the NASL along with not having a salary to prevent unsustainable wage inflation spirals. The rational basis for believing that CanPL can ever operate at a genuine D1 level when there are already as many MLS franchises in Canada per capita as there are in the United States is what exactly? $125 million in the hole and counting when they could be exploring what they could do to emulate Halifax in other mid-sized markets where junior hockey does well in the winter months rather than tilting at windmills where MLS is concerned.

11 hours ago, narduch said:

Ironic that even Easton himself commented on how relying on MLS alone was not good enough for player development. 

But Ozzie won't touch that one because it goes against his narrative. 

Saying that 3 MLS teams is enough because it's the same as what the US has per capita is just another way of saying you don't know what you're talking about or how soccer works.

Honestly, I do think Noonan make a hell of a lot of sense as a hire. MLS and A-League are arguably the most similar projects in world soccer to what the CPL is trying to build so finding a guy who has that very rare and specific experience is a good move IMO.

I also think that the CPL can become a solid tier II league worldwide in the grand scheme of things and that people will generally concede that more then three clubs were indeed needed, that the US quota on non-US clubs in their D2 leagues meant that we didn't really have any other options then a fully Canadian one to make it happen and that something like the CSB deal was a sad necessity to build the financial foundation.

As to whether they believe they will supplant the MLS clubs in the Canadian market... Honestly, I'd say the jury is still out on that one. Its pure speculation on my part but my impression is that they got sold by Montagliani and the federation that the MLS clubs (as well as the Fury) would be forced in and have to play ball pretty quickly, even if only grudgingly, ''because that's just how its done in Soccer'', nevermind that its actually not how it has turned out in the two other countries comparable to Canada (Wales and New Zealand) in having recent pyramids...  IMO they probably understood that it wasn't going to happen in the near future at the same time they did...

Where their minds went after that realization? Honestly, I don't think anyone knows. Maybe they still do believe the MLS clubs would be brought in, willingly or not, in the not-too-distant future and that they could convince them to accept it and smooth things over if they were conscripted rather than recruited. Maybe they believe they will fold instead ala Fury and the CPL will be allowed to pick up the pieces as well as manage to pacify the old fans of the three MLS clubs as they did with the Fury ones in Ottawa. Maybe they genuinely think York United and VFC will become more popular then TFC and the Whitecaps on their own merits. Maybe they are accepting the MLS will be around for sometimes but the ''we are D1, good damnit'' spin on their decision-making still make them feel they need a presence in the MLS markets at all costs. Personally, I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe they are both realistic and not mean-spirited toward the MLS clubs and that they are thinking more of a relatively willing version of the first option or the fourth option.

More broadly though, and that was kinda what he was trying to get with a fair few of my last posts on the forum, is that I do believe there is a space between ''this whole thing was a mistake'' and ''in the CPL we trust'' when it comes to the league. It is possible to believe in the project and that the sacrifices made by Canadian soccer for it will be worth it while also criticizing some of their decision-making in general and especially believing they should be more anxious to ween themselves out of the CSB money asap than they are.

And you know what? I would argue the league actually does need people like that! At least as much as it needs its diehard fans. No organisation is perfect, either in sports or elsewhere, and they all can benefit from constructive criticisms, even if they are strong ones sometimes, because that's how they are held accountable. For most sports orgs it's usually the media who play that role but for the CPL their main source of media coverage at this point is just too closely tied to the league to play that role. It needs to be us, the fans, who do it.

Edited April 29 by phil03

[Colonel Green]

6 minutes ago, phil03 said:

As to whether they believe they will supplant the MLS clubs in the Canadian market... Honestly, I'd say the jury is still out on that one. Its pure speculation on my part but my impression is that they got sold by Montagliani and the federation that the MLS clubs (as well as the Fury) would be forced in and have to play ball pretty quickly, even if only grudgingly, ''because that's just how its done in Soccer'', nevermind that its actually not how it has turned out in the two other countries comparable to Canada (Wales and New Zealand) in having recent pyramids...  

I really tend to doubt that this was ever the case, both because of MLS' ownership structure and the reality that the MLS teams exist in such a different financial universe from anything the CPL can realistically be in its present formulation. And with respect to the latter, I mean that if you are building a league that has places like Halifax and Victoria, they are never going to be able to compete with current MLS spending levels (let alone the spending levels that MLS aspire to as it grows).

[phil03]

5 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

For people bringing up Moncton as a comparable for Halifax, it's really not. Moncton is approximately one-third the size of Halifax and doesn't have nearly the same corporate/economic muscle. New Brunswick in general is an issue for pro sports because its total population is theoretically large enough for a team but it doesn't have one big city at the center of everything, it has three geographically disparate small ones.

The numbers for Moncton are a bit misleading has they don't include a bunch of smaller communities that aren't part of the greater Moncton but are close enough that a 30 mins drive would get you there. Even with them they area isn't Halifax but IMO the difference is narrowed enough that it become more then worth it thanks to the stadium.

When it come to economic muscle I will also say the gap is not nearly as big as it was even fairly recently. The place has been in a long term boom and it isn't showing any signs of stopping. Honestly, I do think it would be a great long term project for the league as well as something who could get good attendance from the get go: the community is still small enough that having a CPL club would mean the world to it and by coming to Moncton relatively early, so to speak, it would have the opportunity to carve itself a niche as a key part of the cultural life of one of the up and coming area of the country.

[phil03]

15 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

I really tend to doubt that this was ever the case, both because of MLS' ownership structure and the reality that the MLS teams exist in such a different financial universe from anything the CPL can realistically be in its present formulation. And with respect to the latter, I mean that if you are building a league that has places like Halifax and Victoria, they are never going to be able to compete with current MLS spending levels (let alone the spending levels that MLS aspire to as it grows).

I can't find the article but back when the CPL was founded Montagliani gave an interview where he was like ''oh yeah, by the end of the year we will have removed all of their certifications to play in the US pyramid. No biggie!''.

EDIT: I slightly misrembered the context but he very much did say publicly this was the direction he wanted to go: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/sep/13/mls-canada-american-citizens

Edited April 28 by phil03

[Kingston]

The MLS teams are never going to join the CPL.  The money gap is too big.  Even if the powers that be lost their minds and somehow forced them over, it would not be the MLS teams that came.  That’s to say, we would not see 25 000 fans for the CPL versions of TFC, the Whitecaps, and Montreal- we’d have three new Yorks in the league. 
 

Although mid-size markets make sense, small ones do not.  Moncton is too small.  
 

I think the best short(ish) terms goals would look something like get back into Edmonton in a viable way, expand to Quebec City, and move York to KW or London.  That should give us ten teams with reasonable chances of financial success.  

[SpursFlu]

Hey Maritimers.. does Halifax and Moncton have a rivalry? You know, just in general?

[BearcatSA]

1 hour ago, Kingston said:

I think the best short(ish) terms goals would look something like get back into Edmonton in a viable way, expand to Quebec City, and move York to KW or London.  That should give us ten teams with reasonable chances of financial success.  

That would be my perspective, as well.

[Colonel Green]

1 hour ago, SpursFlu said:

Hey Maritimers.. does Halifax and Moncton have a rivalry? You know, just in general?

No, not really (especially not on Halifax's end; it's so much more prominent than any other city in the region, it doesn't have to be rivals with anyone).

If you did have a Moncton team, I'm sure it could be the basis of a solid regional rivalry, but there isn't anything like that already extant.

Edited April 28 by Colonel Green

[CDNFootballer]

4 hours ago, Kingston said:

The MLS teams are never going to join the CPL.  The money gap is too big.  Even if the powers that be lost their minds and somehow forced them over, it would not be the MLS teams that came.  That’s to say, we would not see 25 000 fans for the CPL versions of TFC, the Whitecaps, and Montreal- we’d have three new Yorks in the league. 
 

Although mid-size markets make sense, small ones do not.  Moncton is too small.  
 

I think the best short(ish) terms goals would look something like get back into Edmonton in a viable way, expand to Quebec City, and move York to KW or London.  That should give us ten teams with reasonable chances of financial success.  

Never say never, we don't know the growth the CPL will have in 15-20 years.

If they grow in that time to a level of say 16 clubs, averaging 20k, playing in large stadiums, much higher salaries and all that would go along with that kind of growth, then that may likely be a level where the 3 Canadian MLS teams and CSA see as favorable to move to Canada's D1 CPL.

That may not happen, or it may, but if you ask the CPL club owners what their vision is a couple of decades down the road they likely will say a vision closer to what I've mentioned above instead of a small time small market league closer to what we have at the moment.

[Colonel Green]

13 minutes ago, CDNFootballer said:

Never say never, we don't know the growth the CPL will have in 15-20 years.

If they grow in that time to a level of say 16 clubs, averaging 20k, playing in large stadiums, much higher salaries and all that would go along with that kind of growth, then that may likely be a level where the 3 Canadian MLS teams and CSA see as favorable to move to Canada's D1 CPL.

MLS teams are currently spending $10-20 million on wages, which seems likely to increase significantly in the foreseeable future if growth continues. Canada does not have 16 cities that could realistically shoulder a wage bill like that, even if it implausibly didn't increase beyond inflation; all of our major pro sports teams are bolstered by sharing in lucrative US media deals, which the CPL will obviously never get

[phil03]

1 hour ago, Colonel Green said:

MLS teams are currently spending $10-20 million on wages, which seems likely to increase significantly in the foreseeable future if growth continues. Canada does not have 16 cities that could realistically shoulder a wage bill like that, even if it implausibly didn't increase beyond inflation; all of our major pro sports teams are bolstered by sharing in lucrative US media deals, which the CPL will obviously never get

I imagine many people who want to see the MLS clubs brought in implicitely package it with, at the very least, some pretty serious flexibility with the cap. Combine that with good growth from the CPL, the pretty sizable accomodation packages that I'd assume would need to come to either somehow make MLS clubs accept it or their conscription survive potential challenges in Canadian and sports court alongside increasingly solid ties with their fanbase and I could buy they could reinvent themselves as the flagship clubs of the Canadian pyramid, turned toward continental competitions like most flagship clubs across the world are, and survive the transition, even if it would still cause some fairly serious damages...

IMO there is a few problems with that scenario though:

I. If the integration in the CPL is forced, which IMO is the most probable way to make that scenario happen, odds are the three clubs and their fanbases will still heavily resent the move and, in the case of the fanbases be fairly vocal about it. Combine that with the fact that in this scenario they'd still dominate the league (because if they don't survive the transition well and/or recover from it in due time I'd argue it would defeat the whole purpose of conscripting them) and you have all the ingredients for a pretty toxic atmosphere around the league.

II. In North American sporting culture there is an expectation of at least some parity, which IMO would create some challenges for the other clubs in terms of fanbase growth and retention after some time of being systematically outspended by the former MLS clubs and with the prospect of trophies seeming to need some pretty big upsets to ever come true...

III. I'd argue a big part of why smaller clubs elsewhere can maintain interest even if it is known they are very unlikely to win a championship anytime soon is that the spots in continental football are there as consolation prizes in many cases. Unless more places in concacaf are granted to Canada it won't help in this scenario though, as the former MLS clubs would generally monopolise those as well...

[Bison44]

I think you are missing the most obvious case Phil03, MLS outgrows some of its CDN owners and they cant compete with the 15-20mil salaries that are coming league wide ASAP.  Joey S pleads poverty now, the Whitecaps have never been big spenders so it doesnt take a big leap to see MLS going like MLB or NBA and only having 1 CDN team.  

Oh and the article from Montaglinani..it was back in 2016..the height of the anger at MLS for its INT/DOMESTIC player tags and the shitty deal CDN players were getting.  That kind of tough talk from Monty and the looming spectre of a CPL slowing lurching into view on the horizon finally forced MLS to ease up on those rules and TA DA...american teams now have many more CDNS (that arent INT) on their rosters.

And not directed at you but the goof throwing around population % and franchise numbers.  That means diddly do, if you just count MLS-26-3 ratio, and dont count in the 25 USL-C, the dozen USL-1.  At one time we had mb 1-2 teams at that level but now we have 8 thanks to the CPL with much more favorable CDN roster rules that we can control.   MLS will always be the big brother, but now the pyramid is filled in more fairly and our CPL is supporting the regional L1O type bus leagues popping up all over.      

[Colonel Green]

2 hours ago, phil03 said:

II. In North American sporting culture there is an expectation of at least some parity, which IMO would create some challenges for the other clubs in terms of fanbase growth and retention after some time of being systematically outspended by the former MLS clubs and with the prospect of trophies seeming to need some pretty big upsets to ever come true...

I meant this implicitly when talking about salary spending. I have a hard time seeing the smaller clubs holding onto interest long-term once it becomes clear they've been relegated to permanent minnow status in their league. North American pro sports fans expect their teams to compete for championships -- not all the time, but to at least be working towards it plausibly. These clubs aren't century-old community institutions that people support more or less reflexively even though they've never won anything in fans' lifetimes and have no realistic chance of doing so.

1 hour ago, Bison44 said:

I think you are missing the most obvious case Phil03, MLS outgrows some of its CDN owners and they cant compete with the 15-20mil salaries that are coming league wide ASAP.  Joey S pleads poverty now, the Whitecaps have never been big spenders so it doesnt take a big leap to see MLS going like MLB or NBA and only having 1 CDN team.  

Those ownership groups would either sell to others or bring in partners. Moving to the CPL would kill most of the franchises' value, they would never do that because of salary issues.

MLB/NBA scarcity in Canada is more about the limits to which those leagues are willing to expand, at this point. Vancouver and probably Montreal could support NBA teams if the NBA wanted to move in there (or back, in the case of Vancouver, after they bungled the Grizzlies so badly).

[Bison44]

6 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

Those ownership groups would either sell to others or bring in partners. Moving to the CPL would kill most of the franchises' value, they would never do that because of salary issues.

MLB/NBA scarcity in Canada is more about the limits to which those leagues are willing to expand, at this point. Vancouver and probably Montreal could support NBA teams if the NBA wanted to move in there (or back, in the case of Vancouver, after they bungled the Grizzlies so badly).

I am assuming if Joey/WC ownership get left behind in the MLS arms race, they sell off MLS franchise and would still be interested, but at a lower, cheaper scale, ie CPL.  In that scenario, they would be the big men on campus in CPL even down sizing their new operations.

We already lost teams in CDN teams NBA, MLS, why would they come back here with so many american cities trying to buy in? Again, who are the marinas trench deep pockets owners for those leagues??  MLS used to be "reasonably" priced but its quickly growing away from that.   

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

17 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

...I mean that if you are building a league that has places like Halifax and Victoria,...

They never really wanted to be in Greater Victoria and only went there at the very last minute after Langford's former mayor Stew Young offered to build them a stadium (which has subsequently stalled only half built after a change of mayor and local council).

SixFive Sports's team was accepted into CSA membership under the name "Port City" and my understanding is that they had hoped to be able to play in Surrey initially next to the Skytrain at the site currently used as the BC Lions' training facility with a large stadium subsequently being built for them by the City of Surrey.

Worth bearing in mind also that the CFL were expected to have a tenth franchise in Halifax playing in a 20,000 seat stadium by now when the Wanderers were added and CanPL have not accepted temporary bleachers in a public park as the stadium solution in any other market despite the fact that doing things that way in Halifax provided them with their biggest success story.

The CSB investors also only allowed York 9/United to use York Lions stadium because there was a plan in place for a 12,000 seat soccer specific stadium to be built by Greenpark Homes in York Region that the Baldassarra family understandably later got cold feet about when York 9 drew much smaller crowds than anticipated in 2019. A group in Kitchener/Waterloo wanted in at launch but were not allowed to use Wilfred Laurier's U-sports stadium for CanPL because it wasn't viewed as being suitable because it lacked 8000 seats in an expandable format.

I think they were completely delusional if they seriously expected that MLSE, Greg Kerfoot and the Saputos were going to be strong armed into a Canadian domestic league format but many of the other things they have done also appear highly delusional to me and it's the only way I can see that several of their other actions and collectively dropping $125 million on this whole escapade would actually make some sort of sense. The massively escalated franchise values that the three MLS franchises have enjoyed over the last 15 years or so no doubt made a lot of people elsewhere in Canada's sports entertainment industry very jealous and wanting a piece of that action. 

Edited April 29 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[narduch]

27 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 when the Wanderers were added and CanPL have not accepted temporary bleachers in a public park as the stadium solution in any other market despite the fact that doing things that way in Halifax provided them with their biggest success story.

Is there an actual example of someone trying to do this? Or are you editorializing as usual?

[Colonel Green]

7 hours ago, Bison44 said:

I am assuming if Joey/WC ownership get left behind in the MLS arms race, they sell off MLS franchise and would still be interested, but at a lower, cheaper scale, ie CPL.  In that scenario, they would be the big men on campus in CPL even down sizing their new operations.

But the MLS teams would still exist in that scenario. That doesn’t really help the CPL.

7 hours ago, Bison44 said:

We already lost teams in CDN teams NBA, MLS, why would they come back here with so many american cities trying to buy in? Again, who are the marinas trench deep pockets owners for those leagues?? 

That’s what I said, it’s the leagues that aren’t interested in expanding here. There are absolutely people interested but in bringing the NBA to other cities, there’s just no opportunity to do it.

[Kingston]

7 hours ago, Bison44 said:

I am assuming if Joey/WC ownership get left behind in the MLS arms race, they sell off MLS franchise and would still be interested, but at a lower, cheaper scale, ie CPL.  In that scenario, they would be the big men on campus in CPL even down sizing their new operations.

I'm assuming this implies the new owners would move the MLS team out of Montreal?  Because otherwise a CPL team would be in a York/Vancouver position.

Actually, though, even without an MLS team in the market, a Montreal CPL team would not be a "big man on campus" CPL team because it is a salary cap league with a very low cap.  Even in the incredibly unlikely scenario where the Montreal CPL team retains MLS-level fan support, there's no way to convert that into a super club status.

[Aird25]

39 minutes ago, Kingston said:

I'm assuming this implies the new owners would move the MLS team out of Montreal?  Because otherwise a CPL team would be in a York/Vancouver position.

Actually, though, even without an MLS team in the market, a Montreal CPL team would not be a "big man on campus" CPL team because it is a salary cap league with a very low cap.  Even in the incredibly unlikely scenario where the Montreal CPL team retains MLS-level fan support, there's no way to convert that into a super club status.

The cap can always be raised 

[Bison44]

1 hour ago, Colonel Green said:

But the MLS teams would still exist in that scenario. That doesn’t really help the CPL.

Sure they would exist...in Indiannapolis or Detroit etc.  Someone billionaire in US  pulls a Nords/Avalanche and now no soccer in Montreal.  Thats the whole point, the guys who want to be in the soccer business, and MLS is just too big a game for them, they would fire up the Montreal so and so's and play at stad saputo, draw half the crowd in CPL.  And I do think they could be a force, look at how Forge just seems to stockpile GTA players and never worries about the cap.  Joey could do the same with the wealth of talent in Quebec.  Anyways the whole gist of this was that someone was implying that there was no way the MLS owners would drop a level.  With the way salaries are going up in MLS I can see Montreal and Van getting squeezed financially, then bought out and moved. And a CPL team might be a way to stay in the game for a dedicated owner.    

[Colonel Green]

12 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Sure they would exist...in Indiannapolis or Detroit etc.  Someone billionaire in US  pulls a Nords/Avalanche and now no soccer in Montreal.  

Sales of an MLS team would almost certainly start from the point of keeping them in their current location, just with different owners, not immediately moving the franchise elsewhere. Franchise relocation is the last resort of most leagues.

[Kingston]

32 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

The cap can always be raised 

Bison44's idea appears to be that a switch to the CPL would be appealing to Montreal because they could translate their large existing fan and player bases to the new league and thereby become a super club.

Montreal spent $17 million (US) on salaries last year.

The cap could be raised but that would apply to everyone and be nowhere near what Montreal spends now.

So even if the fan base came over, I don't see how Montreal gets to spend enough to keep their players and become a super club. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Let's watch crowds go from Montreal Manic to Montreal Supra levels all over again. Maybe have Molson throw in a Team Canada concept to speed things along. What the CSB dudes never seem to have grasped is that soccer isn't something new in Canada and they are not investing in something early. You could draw huge crowds to watch Pele play in Canada close to 50 years ago just like you can now with Messi, just as you could 15 years ago with Beckham, or for that matter over 60 years ago with Stanley Matthews, because then as now post-WWII immigration patterns mean there is no shortage of people who know and love the sport of soccer in the larger cities.

Then as now though most of those same fans in the larger cities are not going to fall over themselves to watch a second rate domestic product with mainly Canadian players. If anything they'll do it less so than they would 50 years ago where the GTA is concerned relative to how the NSL was back in day because it's so much easier to watch soccer from overseas on webstreams now. I'm one of the people who will show up for the lower budget domestic Canadian stuff or watch it on Onesoccer but I know from experience the extent to which I have been swimming against the tide and viewed as a weirdo over the years for doing so by the sort of people who will be falling over themselves to watch Messi whenever they have an opportunity over the next few years.

Edited April 29 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[SpursFlu]

With the new Club World Cup, World Cup in America the MLS is not going to continue to be embarrassed like they have been with Miami on their tour or like them getting thrashed by Monterrey. Spending going way up and it will be tough for Canadian teams to keep up. They don't have the stadiums and the same business environment to do what American teams do. Should be interesting to watch what happens in the summer transfer window 

[Kingston]

14 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

MLS teams are currently spending $10-20 million on wages, which seems likely to increase significantly in the foreseeable future if growth continues. Canada does not have 16 cities that could realistically shoulder a wage bill like that, even if it implausibly didn't increase beyond inflation; all of our major pro sports teams are bolstered by sharing in lucrative US media deals, which the CPL will obviously never get

I also don't see this as a bad thing.

Assume for the moment that both the CPL and MLS continue to move up the international soccer league rankings and pay scale.

If, in twenty years, we have three MLS teams with $40 to $50 million payrolls and a dozen or more CPL teams with $5 to $10 million payrolls I think that would actually position us very well to feed the national team.  (Obviously with a proportionately thriving L1 system and various paths to Europe.)