CPL new teams speculation

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Not really. The problem with L1O is that there is no hope whatsoever of all those GTA youth clubs ever drawing a crowd and they are getting in because of the clout they hold in OSA terms rather than what they genuinely have to offer in pro soccer terms. It's a local amateur league masquerading as something it's not. To do something that might actually sustain some modest pro level contracts, I would focus initially on smaller cities somewhat distant from the three MLS markets like London and Victoria where teams like FC London and the Victoria Highlanders have been able to draw into four figures in a PDL context in the not so distant past as a way to build up a fully domestic D3 beneath USL and MLS. Halifax's Wanderers Ground pop-up plan would be ideal for something like this, basically, rather than the CFL stadia in Hamilton and Winnipeg.

Edited March 21, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[SpecialK]

2 hours ago, MtlMario said:

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

16 games home plus  exhibition  and or playoffs 

[mpg_29]

11 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 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.

Bus travel is only going to work for certain scenarios. The clever thing about NBL Canada is that they have clustered the teams into two divisions, Southern Ontario and Atlantic Canada,which I suspect cuts down on the amount of flights (ie fly in, bus around and play each team in the division, then fly out) 

The unfortunate thing about soccer long turnaround time between games. It's not like basketball or hockey where you can play 3 or 4 games a week.

Best case in CPL is a team could get two away games with one return flight. ex:team from halifax has game against Edmonton on Saturday March 24 and game against Calgary Saturday March 31. Fly in to edmonton, play, bus to calgary, play, fly out of calgary. Still significant expenses with hotels though, but probably less worse than two full return flights and all that additional flying time.

[deschamp86]

9 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Not really. The problem with L1O is that there is no hope whatsoever of all those GTA youth clubs ever drawing a crowd and they are getting in because of the clout they hold in OSA terms rather than what they genuinely have to offer in pro soccer terms. It's a local amateur league masquerading as something it's not. To do something that might actually sustain some modest pro level contracts, I would focus initially on smaller cities somewhat distant from the three MLS markets like London and Victoria where teams like FC London and the Victoria Highlanders have been able to draw into four figures in a PDL context in the not so distant past as a way to build up a fully domestic D3 beneath USL and MLS. Halifax's Wanderers Ground pop-up plan would be ideal for something like this, basically, basically rather than the CFL stadia in Hamilton and Winnipeg.

The issue with this is that you are not going to meet a 2500-3500 regular attendance with this model. You gave FC London as an example, now mind you I am only using Wikipedia for attendance numbers so they could be completely inaccurate, but London in 2015 had an everage attendance of 944 and in 2014 has an attendance of 777.

The league that I see you proposing, unless I am completely off the mark, seems to be a league that is about PDL level or slightly higher so if people weren't attending FC London PDL games before, I don't see 2 to 3 times more people coming out for a game that is only slightly higher of a level.

I do however agree with you that I am not a big fan of using the gigantic stadiums for CPL. Not a big fan of going to a Fury game and seeing an entire half of the stadium empty, but I guess you have to make due with what you have

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

19 minutes ago, deschamp86 said:

The issue with this is that you are not going to meet a 2500-3500 regular attendance with this model. You gave FC London as an example, now mind you I am only using Wikipedia for attendance numbers so they could be completely inaccurate, but London in 2015 had an everage attendance of 944 and in 2014 has an attendance of 777...

The OHL and NBL Canada can both draw 5000+ in London. Soccer could do better than it did with PDL with the right setup, because drawing that many for something as low level as PDL was actually quite an achievement. Throw in something like Windsor, Kitchener, Hamilton (not at Ivor Wynne obviously!) and a TFC III team and you have the makings of a regional bus travel division. Something similar could be done in the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City corridor, maybe also with the Maritimes cities but with a lower projected break even etc, and put a Canadian branding on the whole thing with a Memorial Cup type tournament at the end.

Edited March 21, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[m-g-williams]

. . . having regional bus travel divisions and a mix of pro- and semi-pro contracts still sounds a lot less like a D1 League and a lot more like the regional D3 Leagues in ON, QC and BC (with some obvious adjustments). Expanding it and slapping Canadian branding on the whole thing with a Memorial Cup type tournament at the end would really just make this a CHL-type equivalent, à la the Easton Report.

I get that you have serious concerns about how/if CPL will work, but if you're really more comfortable with a D3-type scenario than D1, just call a spade a spade and say it. Otherwise, we're going to keep having the same endless debates because your starting point seems fundamentally different from everyone else's.

And not to sound like a broken record, but while I get that we *all* (myself 100% included) just want to finally know how this is all going to unfold - when, where, how many, how much money - until there are more formal announcements made, I really don't see the point in getting so riled up over speculation and theory. Ninety-five percent of these discussions are going to be moot soon enough, and it's not like we're the ones calling the shots. So why not just wait and see how things unfold . . . in the next 60-90 days?

 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

8 minutes ago, m-g-williams said:

. . . but if you're really more comfortable with a D3-type scenario than D1, just call a spade a spade and say it...

I did.

1 hour ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

...where teams like FC London and the Victoria Highlanders have been able to draw into four figures in a PDL context in the not so distant past as a way to build up a fully domestic D3 beneath USL and MLS...

 

[Ansem]

^^^^

His signature says it all. No need to dig further than that.

[Rheo]

I'm telling you, ignoring does wonders to get out of endless arguments over the same crap   

[deschamp86]

46 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

The OHL and NBL Canada can both draw 5000+ in London. Soccer could do better than it did with PDL with the right setup, because drawing that many for something as low level as PDL was actually quite an achievement. Throw in something like Windsor, Kitchener, Hamilton (not at Ivor Wynne obviously!) and a TFC III team and you have the makings of a regional bus travel division. Something similar could be done in the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City corridor, maybe also with the Maritimes cities but with a lower projected break even etc, and put a Canadian branding on the whole thing with a Memorial Cup type tournament at the end.

The NBL CAN draw 5,000+ in London. But not consistently. The average attendance for this season is 4,318. The next highest is St. John's 3,301. After that it is Niagara with 2,061. So only two of those cities would be in your range for getting 2,500-3,500 average attendance for a regional league.

On the other hand, the CHL numbers are much higher. Though I think if the CPL was getting these average attendances at a national level rather than a regional level, everyone on this board would be pretty stoked. Here are the top 8 average attendances in CHL this past season:

Quebec (9002)
London (8959)
Edmonton (8154)
Calgary (7579)
Halifax (7210)
Kitchener (6912)
Regina (6076)
Victoria (5307)

Notice anything telling? A lot of these cities have been linked with CPL clubs, though they definitely aren't going to be getting anywhere near those kind of numbers for soccer in a regional league.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Even though they do manage it with regional U-20 bus travel leagues in the context of hockey? The Easton Report looked at what hockey does right to get hockey to work as a spectator sport on a relatively low budget in smaller markets, hence the suggested U-23 focus. Maybe it shouldn't have been so quickly ignored?

[deschamp86]

Just now, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Even though they do manage it with regional U-20 bus travel leagues in the context of hockey? The Easton Report looked at what hockey does right to get hockey to work as a spectator sport on a relatively low budget in smaller markets, hence the suggested U-23 focus. Maybe it shouldn't have been so quickly ignored?

Comparing hockey to soccer is apples and oranges. You want to focus on smaller towns and cities for a regional league but the truth is, smaller towns and cities generally don't care about soccer.

I grew up in a small town in Ontario and soccer was at best the third most popular sport, AT BEST. Regional leagues work for hockey in Canada because these small towns go nuts for getting out and supporting junior hockey. You can't compare soccer, where its most popular in the bigger cities, to that

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

1 minute ago, deschamp86 said:

I grew up in a small town in Ontario and soccer was at best the third most popular sport, AT BEST....

Good for you, but what does that have to do with London, Windsor, K/W and Hamilton? Cities of up to 500,000 or so that have large first generation immigrant communities from soccer loving countries cannot sensibly be described as "small town Ontario".

[SpecialK]

Buses ? Are you guys serious ? Do we want a real pro league that attracts fans, good players and makes money or some 3rd/2nd rate League? 

 

If flights are too pricy right away , why doesn’t the CPL get a  sponsorship with Via Rail. European teams travel my Rail. Québec City to Windsor is covered. A team can get a train car to themselves. 

[deschamp86]

4 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Good for you, but what does that have to do with London, Windsor, K/W and Hamilton? Cities of up to 500,000 or so that have large first generation immigrant communities from soccer loving countries cannot sensibly be described as "small town Ontario".

Your arguments seem to be all over the place and I can't exactly tell half the time what you are arguing for or against. You say there should be regional leagues that have "smaller" market teams in them. Then you name 3 of the 5 largest cities in Ontario that should be in it.

There is only a handful of cities in the entire country with the populations of the cities you named. So I bring up my experience in a smaller town, which would seem like it was relevant in what you were going for. But because it doesn't mesh in with your argument you brush it aside.

I imagine that you just hope to post enough for the other person to lose interest in engaging with you and consider it a victory for yourself.

Well bud, you did it. Congrats on your big win

[deschamp86]

2 minutes ago, SpecialK said:

Buses ? Are you guys serious ? Do we want a real pro league that attracts fans, good players and makes money or some 3rd/2nd rate League? 

Guys?? There were multiple people arguing in favour of that?? I must have missed it

[SpecialK]

2 minutes ago, deschamp86 said:

Guys?? There were multiple people arguing in favour of that?? I must have missed it

Sorry I have been read everything fast and maybe I missed stuff too 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Just now, SpecialK said:

Buses ? Are you guys serious ? Do we want a real pro league that attracts fans, good players and makes money or some 3rd/2nd rate League?  ...

Here's a question to ponder. If hockey is so popular in Canada why is there no real pro hockey league outside of the NHL markets and why did they opt to use junior hockey instead? Could it possibly be because that was the best way to deal with Canada's challenging geography on a relatively low budget?

1 minute ago, deschamp86 said:

Your arguments seem to be all over the place...

Have a look at your own arguments. One minute junior hockey is being used as an analogy for why D1 soccer can work in the exact same markets that do well with the CHL and the next minute when I suggest that maybe soccer should try to emulate the model that has actually worked for hockey in those markets it's a post about how unpopular soccer is in a small town in Ontario where you grew up despite the fact that there were no small towns in Ontario on the original list.

[Ansem]

9 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Here's a question to ponder. If hockey is so popular in Canada why is there no real pro hockey league outside of the NHL markets and why did they opt to use junior hockey instead? Could it possibly be because that was the best way to deal with Canada's challenging geography on a relatively low budget?

The NHL was founded in Canada. It was supposed to be all Canadian (National) until we invited the US. Why on earth should we abandon OUR league and OUR legacy? Bettman isn't eternal even after all the little shit head has done in trying to steal our sport.

 

* Personal Rant

Why do you think I just don't like to be implicated with Americans? They just have that need to take over and call the shoots...look at MLS, USL, PDL, NASL. Look how MLB got the Expos out of Montreal or how NBA let Vancouver move. Canada always comes second and all they want is our dollars. God I hope the CSA don't let NSWL in Canada and wait for CPL to make that happen on the women side. (end of rant)

 

Edited March 21, 2018 by Ansem

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

What does any of that have to do with the text you quoted?

[m-g-williams]

1 hour ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

I did.

 

 

Your previous response of "Not really" when challenged on this exact point made it seem pretty clear that you weren't willing to actually come out and say it, even with the comments thereafter. Forgive me if I (and others) have a hard time following your logic.

To my last point - and considering the state of this discussion - I'm thinking the following might be an idea worth everyone's consideration:

[LAK]

45 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Here's a question to ponder. If hockey is so popular in Canada why is there no real pro hockey league outside of the NHL markets and why did they opt to use junior hockey instead? Could it possibly be because that was the best way to deal with Canada's challenging geography on a relatively low budget?

I think in comparison to MLS, the NHL has seven teams in Canada and covers a great deal more of the country. Leaving out only Saskatchewan and the Maritimes...and a few other pockets, like quebec and southern Ontario. Whereas back in the 70's there were only three markets (same as MLS) and that's when the WHA was created and in addition to Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Quebec, two more franchises later. There was always hope to expand and there is still talk of it...even Saskatchewan back in the 80's was looking at bringing in the Blues.

MLS has been clear that they won't be expanding more into Canada. CPL can be the WHA. 

[MtlMario]

4 hours ago, SpecialK said:

16 games home plus  exhibition  and or playoffs 

There won't be any playoffs.

[SpecialK]

50 minutes ago, MtlMario said:

There won't be any playoffs.

As of right now who knows 

[BuzzAndSting]

27 minutes ago, SpecialK said:

As of right now who knows 

As of right we know. The commissioner of the league said so, specifically, multiple times.