CPL Twitter

[youllneverwalkalone]

I spend very little time paying attention to twitter, other than to follow obscure soccer players and leagues. (Typical Voyageur?) I couldn't help but notice there are currently 2,500 or so followers of the CPL 3 weeks in. NASL and USL have about 41k. CFL has 208k. MLS 3m. NFL 23m.

A few points:

-I realize there's not much to follow per se, but surely anyone remotely interested in attending a match, who also uses twitter, should be following.

-What's a realistic target for a pro league in Canada? I'm thinking 300k, given that soccer should have a younger demographic and twitter or facebook may play an early role in broadcasting matches.

-Some surprising people not following: new Steve Reed president handle, Jason DeVos, President Vic and Canada Soccer itself. What's going on here?

On the flipside, Derek Rae is following for some reason. I went through my soccer people and found Marc Bircham wasn't following. Being the most influential guy I follow (proving my opening statement), I gave him a quick shout and he got on board, being the class guy that he is. 

I understand people like Luke Wileman or Will Johnson might be conflicted, but I think the more influential people in Canadian soccer should get on board. Why not?

[Diamondium]

If CFL is at 208k and NASL/USL have 41k, I would be expecting 20k-50k by the time it launches, 100k max within the first few seasons if it's really good at getting followers. Especially if twitter continues to dwindle compared to other social media platforms.

The league, while public now, has still not made a formal announcement yet really. The day they sit down and say "Here's our league, here's the plan, here are the teams, here is when we launch" is when the subscriber count starts picking up, so I wouldn't be too worried on that note as of right now.

[matty]

There's loads of Canadian soccer power players following the league so don't worry on that end.

I'd expect in the 10-20k range at the start with it capping at maybe 100k by 2026 if it's still under 10 teams and not on a major sports network and without a USA TV deal.

Twitter may still die so wait and see

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

A lot of people use hashtags rather than following specific accounts so I wouldn't read anything into somebody not following a twitter account.

[Complete Homer]

There's so many people who just have not heard of the league. They're not really advertising yet, which is fine since there isn't much to advertise yet, but I think there will be a bigger wave once the ball gets rolling a bit more

[Metroimpact]

Feel Australia A-League is a good benchmark:

Twitter: 143K https://twitter.com/ALeague

Facebook: 398K https://www.facebook.com/aleague/

Instagram: 74K https://www.instagram.com/thealeague/

 

Poland has a similar population to Canada and their top league does:

Twitter: 72K https://twitter.com/_Ekstraklasa_ 

Facebook: 206K https://www.facebook.com/Ekstraklasa.org

Instagram: 33K https://www.instagram.com/ekstraklasa_official/

Basically, half of the A-League

 

[GuillermoDelQuarto]

I wouldn't concern myself so much with the initial follower numbers as much as the growth rate.

it's been what, a month?

 

 

[GuillermoDelQuarto]

I think a proper benchmark is actually the NBL - although I fully expect to surpass it within a fairly short time frame(2-3 years)

[Macksam]

5 hours ago, GuillermoDelQuarto said:

I think a proper benchmark is actually the NBL - although I fully expect to surpass it within a fairly short time frame(2-3 years)

I expect this thing to surpass NBL pretty quick, like a month. The coast to coast launch and big marketing push is something the NBL of Canada never had. 

[GuillermoDelQuarto]

9 minutes ago, Macksam said:

I expect this thing to surpass NBL pretty quick, like a month. The coast to coast launch and big marketing push is something the NBL of Canada never had. 

I hope you're right, but I'm suspicious that it'll be that quick.  

It's a case where I wouldn't mind being wrong though

[Macksam]

26 minutes ago, GuillermoDelQuarto said:

I hope you're right, but I'm suspicious that it'll be that quick.  

It's a case where I wouldn't mind being wrong though

The one big thing the CPL will have that the NBL still doesn't, besides the aforementioned things, is a clear identity and purpose. CPL is a Canadian professional soccer league that will develop Canadian players, coaches, etc while providing living wages to keep players in the sport and help improve the national team. Perfect, nothing more needs to said. It's the league's vision statement.

The NBL of Canada doesn't provide living wages, and isn't interested in developing young Canadian players. Not saying that has to be the identity but the one it did adopt was half assed in nature, it was pretty much this "Yeah, we're providing cheap affordable entertainment....come bring the family?" Like the wtf, seriously? If this league was forced to be high on Cancon (I would have so gotten behind a Brampton team playing a bunch of local kids) or at the very least had a quota that said 1 u20 Canadian player has to be on the court at all time like having Jamal Murray, Rowan Barret and Andrew Nemhardt playing against adults, it would draw more Canadian basketball enthusiasts to it. I would even argue the lack of vision even caused a rival in the CBL to emerge.

[Gopherbashi]

8 hours ago, Macksam said:

The one big thing the CPL will have that the NBL still doesn't, besides the aforementioned things, is a clear identity and purpose. CPL is a Canadian professional soccer league that will develop Canadian players, coaches, etc while providing living wages to keep players in the sport and help improve the national team. Perfect, nothing more needs to said. It's the league's vision statement.

The NBL of Canada doesn't provide living wages, and isn't interested in developing young Canadian players. Not saying that has to be the identity but the one it did adopt was half assed in nature, it was pretty much this "Yeah, we're providing cheap affordable entertainment....come bring the family?" Like the wtf, seriously? If this league was forced to be high on Cancon (I would have so gotten behind a Brampton team playing a bunch of local kids) or at the very least had a quota that said 1 u20 Canadian player has to be on the court at all time like having Jamal Murray, Rowan Barret and Andrew Nemhardt playing against adults, it would draw more Canadian basketball enthusiasts to it. I would even argue the lack of vision even caused a rival in the CBL to emerge.

Yeah but at least they want 24 teams across the country, right?

http://www.nblcanada.ca/blog/100126/growth-is-good

[Blackdude]

9 hours ago, Macksam said:

 or at the very least had a quota that said 1 u20 Canadian player has to be on the court at all time 

That makes zero sense. No aspring Canadian basketball player would want to play there if he wants to play at a higher level. Now, you can argue that the NCAA isn't the best way to develop players, but it's proven to be the best way from looking at players who make it to the NBA which is the goal of every young basketball player. If I didn't want to play NCAA, I would think of playing in Australia before playing in that league. It's not saying that we can't produce great players, but you need a culture shift to make something like that happen and the NBL of Canada can't do it alone. 

[ironcub14]

When it comes to following sports, none of the existing social media platforms will be overtaking twitter for quite some time, it's as good a barometer as any you're going to see. It ain't going to be Instagram or Reddit.

Still roll my eyes when I see sports-related accounts try pushing their Snapchat accounts.

 

[RS]

Facebook is, and always has been, far bigger than Twitter.

[ironcub14]

Yep of course, FB's the original and always the most important platform for anything social media-related. But if anything, I would take a guess that FB's importance, when it comes to sports-related accounts, is the biggest among all platforms, but slowly declining as a share compared to Twitter.

As in, people are slowly but gradually shifting from Facebook to Twitter in how they follow TFC or CanMNT or CPL. But I'd assume far more people follow these teams on FB than they do on twitter.

[Macksam]

1 hour ago, Blackdude said:

That makes zero sense. No aspring Canadian basketball player would want to play there if he wants to play at a higher level. Now, you can argue that the NCAA isn't the best way to develop players, but it's proven to be the best way from looking at players who make it to the NBA which is the goal of every young basketball player. If I didn't want to play NCAA, I would think of playing in Australia before playing in that league. It's not saying that we can't produce great players, but you need a culture shift to make something like that happen and the NBL of Canada can't do it alone. 

I'm thinking having them as amateur players so their NCAA eligibility doesn't get effected. Didn't Thon Maker play a few games for the Orangeville A's before getting drafted?

1 hour ago, Gopherbashi said:

Yeah but at least they want 24 teams across the country, right?

http://www.nblcanada.ca/blog/100126/growth-is-good

Don't get me wrong, the league has potential to be something special.

[Rheo]

8 minutes ago, Macksam said:

I'm thinking having them as amateur players so their NCAA eligibility doesn't get effected. Didn't Thon Maker play a few games for the Orangeville A's before getting drafted?

If they played pro then they wouldn't be able to play in the NCAA.  Soccer wise Sigma is a club and I know NCAA players come back and play in the offseason without losing eligibility.  But with hockey the NCAA classifies the CHL as a pro league so once you go there you're dead to the NCAA.

I'm not totally familiar with Maker but I believe he was able to skip the NCAA and go to the draft because he graduated and played club ball for the Orangeville team for an extra year.

Also woooo to my hometown becoming a basketball super power

[Blackdude]

5 minutes ago, Macksam said:

I'm thinking having them as amateur players so their NCAA eligibility doesn't get effected. Didn't Thon Maker play a few games for the Orangeville A's before getting drafted?

Do you want the whole league to be as amateur players? NCAA doesn't allow players to play with professionals. 

[RS]

4 hours ago, Blackdude said:

Do you want the whole league to be as amateur players? NCAA doesn't allow players to play with professionals. 

That's an old rule that has been changed ages ago.

[Blackdude]

2 minutes ago, RS said:

That's an old rule that has been changed ages ago.

When was that? I'm just going from there. 

 

http://www.ncaa.org/amateurism

[RS]

33 minutes ago, Blackdude said:

When was that? I'm just going from there. 

 

http://www.ncaa.org/amateurism

It's been at least 5 years, if not longer. NCAA's rules for soccer are a lot looser than its "bigger" sports, hence why (for example) Sergio Camargo was able to play for TFC in a friendly against Liverpool in 2012 before going on to a college career.

[Macksam]

10 hours ago, Blackdude said:

Do you want the whole league to be as amateur players? NCAA doesn't allow players to play with professionals. 

I thought it was changed like RS stated but that might just be for soccer.