CPL new teams speculation

[Ansem]

1 minute ago, Complete Homer said:

Ignoring inflation, if CPL's spending is actually reaching what has been reported by Milton, the average CPL salary will be in line with MLS' average salary the year TFC entered MLS. If people were fine with that level, they will be fine with CPL. Teams competing with MLS teams in Surrey and GTA may have issues, but quality shouldn't be a deciding factor in the majority of markets IMO 

Granted, a decade of inflation is still quite a bit, but it's still a useful a useful way to frame it to people

Also HOW CPL teams build their rosters will be a huge factor in how big the gap will be.

Some MLS teams blows 70%+ of the salary on their 3 DPs leaving the rest of the team pretty average good. If CPL focus on a good overall salary cap, with a healthy dose of young internationals (mostly CONCACAF) to compensate our thin player pool, yes there will be a gap but I don't buy it will be as huge as people like to paint. It's really under CPL's control to find that right balance between development and still putting out great quality.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

1 minute ago, gator said:

Of course the league will be below MLS quality at the beginning, I'm not sure how many of you watched MLS when it first started, it was very low quality, basically a notch above NCAA!

In terms of the filler content on the rosters that's true. Bringing things back full circle that was why they needed the likes of Jorge Campos, Hugo Sanchez, Robert Donadoni and Carlos Valderrama as big name Mr Beens to have any hope of being able to draw large crowds, and the reason they almost folded in the aftermath of the first season because several of the original I/Os quickly bailed out given their initial expectations were not aligned properly with the quality of the entertainment product they had to offer. It is only because of two very determined billionaires wanting to save face, who were willing to pump in north of $200 million to cover losses through the early years, that MLS isn't remembered today as a complete fiasco.

[Complete Homer]

6 minutes ago, Ansem said:

Also HOW CPL teams build their rosters will be a huge factor in how big the gap will be.

Some MLS teams blows 70%+ of the salary on their 3 DPs leaving the rest of the team pretty average good. If CPL focus on a good overall salary cap, with a healthy dose of young internationals (mostly CONCACAF) to compensate our thin player pool, yes there will be a gap but I don't buy it will be as huge as people like to paint. It's really under CPL's control to find that right balance between development and still putting out great quality.

Well, MLS median salary would still be 3 times the most optimistic projection for average CPL salary. So there will be a substantial gap regardless, but best case scenario it is less than the gap seen between the top spender and the bottom spender in most leagues. Still a David and Goliath picture, but with the numbers advantage hopefully V-Cup upsets wouldn't be too rare

That said, with the big expansion of TAM, I don't think the contributions of the top paid players on each roster can be dismissed as easily. You could easily have five $1 million+ players on the field at one time for a high spending MLS team, that isn't quite the same as the old days with 1 DP and a bunch of guys earning 100k

Edited March 20, 2018 by Complete Homer

[Ansem]

21 minutes ago, Complete Homer said:

Well, MLS median salary would still be 3 times the most optimistic projection for average CPL salary. So there will be a substantial gap regardless, but best case scenario it is less than the gap seen between the top spender and the bottom spender in most leagues. Still a David and Goliath picture, but with the numbers advantage hopefully V-Cup upsets wouldn't be too rare

That said, with the big expansion of TAM, I don't think the contributions of the top paid players on each roster can be dismissed as easily. You could easily have five $1 million+ players on the field at one time for a high spending MLS team, that isn't quite the same as the old days with 1 DP and a bunch of guys earning 100k

That's assuming that MLS pays for the real value of the player. They tend to overpay, which in their position is necessary to get good established, proven players.

CPL must be a young man's league. Don't overpay for the actual value you're getting. Go young and pay the real value for the talent you're getting. Cheaper and room for improvement/potential. For me, it comes down to CPL identity.

Just be different

My personal opinion of course:

MLS: They are moving away from making it rain for old/past their prime Euro stars. However, I think they would rather fill their international spots with good proven/established players over young Internationals. Not super stars but proven like a Giovinco. That's the right way to go but let's not kid ourselves, they are overpaying big time. Giovinco doesn't get that kind of money in Serie A.

CPL: I think CPL should just target those young promising Internationals from our region and surround them with hungry young Canadians and good veterans (good value for talent). 

I fully acknowledge that we aren't surpassing MLS, but that looks like the kind of football I want to see. (fast, creative, instinctive, lots of heart and desire). On top of that, CPL gets to create its own stars instead of buying them at a very high price. CPL can be a very competitive CONCACAF league by being efficient that way and give exciting football to the fans. Going young means that CPL is the perfect stage for all these younger guys to jump to higher league. That kind of motivation/drive is priceless.

I have a feeling that CPL suits and owners came up with the same conclusions.

That's why I laugh off the comments on MLS vs CPL level of play. If that was all people cared about, no one would be watching Scottish Premiership, Ligue 1, Portugal etc... They are lower than la Liga but are exciting in their own way and locals relate to them.

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Ansem

[Complete Homer]

10 minutes ago, Ansem said:

That's assuming that MLS pays for the real value of the player. They tend to overpay, which in their position is necessary to get good established, proven players.

CPL must be a young man's league. Don't overpay for the actual value you're getting. Go young and pay the real value for the talent you're getting. Cheaper and room for improvement/potential. For me, it comes down to CPL identity.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, I'm pretty optimistic about CPL, but CPL will need to overpay for most players too IMO. A new, unproven league with no prestige and no reputation as a spring board will need to overpay even for young/unproven players, with the possible exception of players coming to Canada for standard of living improvement. Down the line that would hopefully change a bit

edit: To be clear, none of this should be taken as an argument that CPL will be unwatchable/unable to attract a crowd. I'm just tempering my expectations in V-Cup games to be "hope to not get blown out + expect an occasional upset"

Edited March 20, 2018 by Complete Homer

[Ansem]

9 minutes ago, Complete Homer said:

Not to be a Debbie Downer, I'm pretty optimistic about CPL, but CPL will need to overpay for most players too IMO. A new, unproven league with no prestige and no reputation as a spring board will need to overpay even for young/unproven players, with the possible exception of players coming to Canada for standard of living improvement. Down the line that would hopefully change a bit

Young Euro and South American? Of course not. We are decades from being in that game of getting young talent from there.

Central and Caribbean young talent? Maybe to likely. Top league in Canada is still more desirable than top league in their own countries I would think. They aren't really the focus of Euro leagues. I think there's untapped potential there.

Established good players/veterans? Not from a top league or English Championship. Signing good D2 Euro players even League One at good value for talent isn't in the realm of unreasonable even if it's slightly higher than value. I'm not talking the best of the best in D2 but the good depth players that could help our young guys and young Internationals.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Ansem

[MtlMario]

3 hours ago, Complete Homer said:

 

That first half season will be pretty key in my opinion. If you can attract large enough crowds to generate a fun atmosphere, those crowds will self-sustain to a certain extent. If the atmosphere is poor off the bat I think it will be hard to recover

Exactly what I had mentioned in an earlier post.  "Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd".

[SpecialK]

I do hope the CPL thinks outside the box alittle when in comes to cities. I hope they are not scared away from small population places for example the north like Yellowknife ( 19-20  Thousand )and Whitehorse (25 Thousand). I saw videos of people (they said around 15 Thousand  ) jam packed into a small area just to watch nhl alumni play. A 5-10 Thousand staduim would be perfect. I’m sure their home games would be sold out every game. At $50 a ticket and 8000 seat stadium = $400,000 a game x roughly 20 home games = $ 8 million a season just in tickets.

 Also the weather would be fine in the spring and summer. Vancouver Edmonton Calgary Whitehorse and Yellowknife are 2-4 hour flights between each other.

In my view markets that don’t have any pro teams or just one should be  heavily  pursued, CPL can really grad a strong hold on the market. I truly believe small places would really  rally behide their team. It would have a close local feel. Us against the big bad Toronto’s.  Specially in the north.

Also I was looking up info on Yellowknife, yes things are more  expensive up there but people are making good money. The average income in the city was C$57,246, and the average income for a family was C$124,200, with 10.6% of all families earning less than $30,000.

Just think of the good feel stories all over Canada “CPL brings Soccer to the Arctic” “ first ever pro team in Canada’s north “ 

Im from ottawa and have no connection to the North, I just did some thinking and looked up some info and I really have  come to the conclusion that it’s lightning in a bottle. I hope others are thinking the same and we should push hard for it. For the  sceptics just look up the info, look at other northern events. Northerners are proud passionate people, soccer would be perfect. 

 

 

[SpecialK]

5 hours ago, Ansem said:

Central and Caribbean young talent? Maybe to likely. Top league in Canada is still more desirable than top league in their own countries I would think. They aren't really the focus of Euro leagues. I think there's untapped potential there.

Central, Caribbean and African young talent. Also CPL should be taking on loans of young players from other teams. Steven Gerrard said Young English players should be looking at the MLS. Well CPL should  promoting as a option for them. Same with young Scotlish, Irish,  Welsh players. 

There also might be some gems in northern countries like Iceland, Faroe Islands etc
 

Edited March 20, 2018 by SpecialK

[johnyb]

21 minutes ago, SpecialK said:

I do hope the CPL thinks outside the box alittle when in comes to cities. I hope they are not scared away from small population places for example the north like Yellowknife ( 19-20  Thousand )and Whitehorse (25 Thousand). I saw videos of people (they said around 15 Thousand  ) jam packed into a small area just to watch nhl alumni play. A 5-10 Thousand staduim would be perfect. I’m sure their home games would be sold out every game. At $50 a ticket and 8000 seat stadium = $400,000 a game x roughly 20 home games = $ 8 million a season just in tickets.

 Also the weather would be fine in the spring and summer. Vancouver Edmonton Calgary Whitehorse and Yellowknife are 2-4 hour flights between each other.

In my view markets that don’t have any pro teams or just one should be  heavily  pursued, CPL can really grad a strong hold on the market. I truly believe small places would really  rally behide their team. It would have a close local feel. Us against the big bad Toronto’s.  Specially in the north.

Also I was looking up info on Yellowknife, yes things are more  expensive up there but people are making good money. The average income in the city was C$57,246, and the average income for a family was C$124,200, with 10.6% of all families earning less than $30,000.

Just think of the good feel stories all over Canada “CPL brings Soccer to the Arctic” “ first ever pro team in Canada’s north “ 

Im from ottawa and have no connection to the North, I just did some thinking and looked up some info and I really have  come to the conclusion that it’s lightning in a bottle. I hope others are thinking the same and we should push hard for it. For the  sceptics just look up the info, look at other northern events. Northerners are proud passionate people, soccer would be perfect. 

 

 

I think Fort McMurray would be great! What else is there to do there? Tons of disposable income.;

[SpecialK]

Just now, johnyb said:

I think Fort McMurray would be great! What else is there to do there? Tons of disposable income.;

Totally agree 

[Shortdutchcanuck]

I come from a tiny farming town.  I'm sure someone there would pony up millions for a stadium.  And even though hardly anyone cares for soccer, there's literally nothing else to do so why wouldn't they show up?  If every single person in town attended every single game we'd have no problem selling out 5000 seats.  It's a no-brainer right?

[SpecialK]

4 minutes ago, Shortdutchcanuck said:

I come from a tiny farming town.  I'm sure someone there would pony up millions for a stadium.  And even though hardly anyone cares for soccer, there's literally nothing else to do so why wouldn't they show up?  If every single person in town attended every single game we'd have no problem selling out 5000 seats.  It's a no-brainer right?

I’m curious is your tiny farming town near a city with sports ? Like within 3 hours away ?

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by SpecialK

[Shortdutchcanuck]

I am from a farming town but I was being sarcastic buddy.  Sorry but to me the idea of a CPL in Yellowstone or Whitehorse is just ludicrous.  My wife used to fly in and out of those cities - flying players in and out would be ridiculously expensive, building a stadium would be ridiculously expensive . . . everything would be ridiculously expensive.  Not to mention you have nowhere near the needed population.  A quarter of the damn population would have to show up to get 5000 fans.   In a place that has little to no soccer culture to draw from.  I appreciate any attempt to think outside the box but I can't get on board with this one.  Yukon United does have a certain ring to it though.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Complete Homer said:

Not to be a Debbie Downer, I'm pretty optimistic about CPL, but CPL will need to overpay for most players too IMO. A new, unproven league with no prestige and no reputation as a spring board will need to overpay even for young/unproven players, with the possible exception of players coming to Canada for standard of living improvement. Down the line that would hopefully change a bit

edit: To be clear, none of this should be taken as an argument that CPL will be unwatchable/unable to attract a crowd. I'm just tempering my expectations in V-Cup games to be "hope to not get blown out + expect an occasional upset"

I think all this talk of salaries is putting the cart before the horse. If CPL is run by owners who have a clue, they will pay what they can afford: which will be driven by how many people show up, not the other way around.

Furthermore, I don't think anybody is going to use team salary to decide whether to buy a ticket.

[Complete Homer]

2 minutes ago, dsqpr said:

I think all this talk of salaries is putting the cart before the horse. If CPL is run by owners who have a clue, they will pay what they can afford: which will be driven by how many people show up, not the other way around.

Furthermore, I don't think anybody is going to use team salary to decide whether to buy a ticket.

Definitely. Note my premise above, "if CPL's spending is actually reaching what has been reported by Milton". 

That said, I don't think they can afford to be reactive. This isn't personal finance, it is a venture. They ought to invest what they need to to make it a success in the long term and adjust later if it is unsustainable. 

To your second point, I agree, that was actually my entire point. I was illustrating that people came out in droves in 2007 for TFC and if the salary numbers for CPL are comparable (at least from what has been reported), there is no reason to believe that people in Saskatoon or Halifax will be sticking their nose up at CPL's on-field quality. I'm sure that would be true at a lower salary figure too, I was just using available examples to counter the notion that people in distant markets would be turned off by sub-MLS quality players

[Ansem]

2 hours ago, SpecialK said:

Central, Caribbean and African young talent. Also CPL should be taking on loans of young players from other teams. Steven Gerrard said Young English players should be looking at the MLS. Well CPL should  promoting as a option for them. Same with young Scotlish, Irish,  Welsh players. 

There also might be some gems in northern countries like Iceland, Faroe Islands etc
 

Euro leagues are already all over Africa. That's why I didn't mentioned it. Same for South America although MLS are getting there, leaving CONCACAF and Caribbean nations for the taking.

You're right about taking loans from team for talented young players.

Being different and unique is the key for CPL.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Complete Homer said:

To your second point, I agree, that was actually my entire point. I was illustrating that people came out in droves in 2007 for TFC and if the salary numbers for CPL are comparable (at least from what has been reported), there is no reason to believe that people in Saskatoon or Halifax will be sticking their nose up at CPL's on-field quality. I'm sure that would be true at a lower salary figure too, I was just using available examples to counter the notion that people in distant markets would be turned off by sub-MLS quality players

This is what I believe too. The ticket pricing will need to be right but other than that I don't think anybody is expecting to see Lionel Messi.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

So eventually as it always does it all comes back to TFC in 2007. The main anchor investors even hired Paul Beirne probably with the thought that he can recreate whatever he did there, so it's probably even the case with some of the people on the inside to a certain extent. TFC's resounding box office success was an enigmatic mystery to the corporate sports media at the time who had believed their own propaganda that soccer could never succeed in Canada, so a false narrative of young people going for the party rather than the soccer had to be created to try to explain it all away.

In reality, back in 2007 people were expecting to see David Beckham at BMO Field on an alleged $250 million contract that created a seismic shift in the way MLS was viewed by the core of soccer's following in the GTA. That signing and all the hype that went with it massively boosted the pace of season season ticket sales at pretty much the perfect time in a Toronto context and it's debateable whether the consistent year one sellouts would have happened without the credibility boost that it gave the league. You actually would need someone like Messi as a marquee player on one of the teams in CanPL to recreate what happened, and although the 2007 TFC roster was less than stellar overall, you would still need each team to have a high profile coach that played at a very high level (Mo Johnston), signing players with recent Premiership experience (Carl Robinson and Andy Welsh) and CMNT starters (Jim Brennan and Chris Pozniak) and fringe players (Adam Braz and Marco Reda) to have something directly comparable. That's not what is likely to happen except possibly for the last bit and let's bear in mind both Braz and Reda were well out of their depth in MLS as it was eleven years ago, so they would be complete road kill now at that level in the era of TAM signings. A CanPL launch would almost certainly be more like what happened with FC Edmonton and the Ottawa Fury, which was a recipe in both cases for acres of empty seats (when CFL sized stadia are used) and seven figure financial losses.

Beyond that Toronto has a massive first generation immigrant soccer crowd that grew up with the sport overseas and although it doesn't get talked up that played a large part in TFC's success as well, because the latent potential was always there for high quality pro soccer due to high immigration rates going back as far as the early 1960s when Toronto City and Toronto Italia drew large crowds in the ECPSL when it was Danny Blanchflower, Stanley Matthews and Johnny Haynes rather than David Beckham providing the credibility. Demographically and culturally Toronto is very different from a city like Halifax, so it's not safe to assume that because they are both in Canada things would unfold the same way. To provide an analogy, if you could suddenly persuade a team with top players from countries like India and England to play in one of the existing T20 cricket competitions in a Toronto context you could draw a large crowd of avid cricket fans without having to do very much beyond the TFC 2007 scenario of launching a website and waiting for sales to come in, but good luck with a new lower budget domestic T20 cricket operation in a city out on the Prairies without doing a lot of marketing and being willing to be patient for many years in a similar way to the Fath brothers with financial losses as an audience slowly grows for a sport that most people locally hadn't watched much previously.

Edited March 21, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Alex D]

David Beckham's impact on TFC is minimal at best. They had already sold over 7,000 season tickets before his announced move and it's not like sales were slowing. Did sales speed up? Sure, but there was already a buzz about this team. It was a success from day one, with or without Beckham.

Also, Toronto is definitely the only city in Canada with immigrants. Everywhere else is 1952. 

[MtlMario]

15 hours ago, SpecialK said:

 At $50 a ticket and 8000 seat stadium = $400,000 a game x roughly 20 home games = $ 8 million a season just in tickets.

 

 

 

20 HOME games? That's quite a long season for CPL.

[Bison44]

"A CanPL launch would almost certainly be more like what happened with FC Edmonton and the Ottawa Fury, which was a recipe in both cases for acres of empty seats (when CFL sized stadia are used) and seven figure financial losses." BBTB

BBTB: you are using Ottawa and Edmonton as examples of the kind of failure that the CPL is probably heading for.  But those teams both launched into the american system and an american league.  Isnt that one of your main arguments on this, that we dont have to reinvent the wheel and we can have more teams in Canada within the exisiting american frameworks/structure with much less risk/hassle??  FCE couldnt make a go of it, Ottawa had to drop down a division and strike up a partnership with Montreal and 2 out of the 3 CDN farm team USL sides went under, and even more insulting, Vancouver thought it was better to use a US team as a USL affliate.  How does the recent failures of our teams within the american system (except for our 3 biggest markets in the marquee american league) suggest that pro soccer will spread to any new areas in Canada??  Will the people of Alberta, the praires, the martimes just have to accept that we will never have any kind of decent soccer?  MLS isnt putting another team in Canada, I am not sure the USL even wants any more CDN clubs.  Where do we go from here if we dont try and start our own league?  

[MtlMario]

24 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

 How does the recent failures of our teams within the american system (except for our 3 biggest markets in the marquee american league) suggest that pro soccer will spread to any new areas in Canada??  Will the people of Alberta, the praires, the martimes just have to accept that we will never have any kind of decent soccer?  MLS isnt putting another team in Canada, I am not sure the USL even wants any more CDN clubs.  Where do we go from here if we dont try and start our own league?  

..........AND you can say the same things about the NHL.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

On a domestic league, if Canadian players are going to be the main focus (and why bother otherwise?) I would adjust the budgets to fit a 2500 to 3500 break even maximum with regional bus travel oriented divisions and a mix of pro and semi-pro contracts. I would lower the stadium requirements considerably so, for example, K/W United at Wilfred Laurier would have been potentially viable with Nexturf tiles and even London, Ont's German Club would be potentially doable for a team like FC London, if expanded bleacher seating could be put in. I would be open to USL being used in larger million plus markets like Ottawa potentially with MLS affiliations, but this CanPL thing will obviously have to reach whatever resolution it is going to reach before options like that would potentially be considered again by the CSA, if as I suspect it ultimately turns out to have been unrealistic.

Edited March 21, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[deschamp86]

16 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

On a domestic league, if Canadian players are going to be the main focus (and why bother otherwise?) I would adjust the budgets to fit a 2500 to 3500 break even maximum with regional bus travel oriented divisions and a mix of pro and semi-pro contracts. I would lower the stadium requirements considerably so, for example, K/W United at Wilfred Laurier would have been potentially viable with Nexturf tiles and even London, Ont's German Club would be potentially doable for a team like FC London, if expanded bleacher seating could be put in. I would be open to USL being used in larger million plus markets like Ottawa potentially with MLS affiliations, but this CanPL thing will obviously have to reach whatever resolution it is going to reach before options like that would potentially be considered again by the CSA, if as I suspect it ultimately turns out to have been unrealistic.

So basically just replicating League1 Ontario and hoping for higher attendance should be the goal...