CPL General

[Rheo]

-Fath has seemed to place as much emphasis on the market as he has the CPL business plan, from Sandor

• “Of all the years we have been in the league, how many times did we sell out?” he asked. (A couple of times.)

  So, is there a future for the Eddies? This is how Fath looks at it.

  “As for the Canadian Premier League, I love the idea, I think it’s important for Canada. But what we require is it to be sustainable. We need to be sustainable. Whatever we do, it won’t be USL. And the NASL is not sustainable in Edmonton.”

-The half season league was always presented as an equal possibility alongside a full season 2019 launch.  Stuff came up and they went with the 2019 launch.  May it also be pointed out that many people all over disliked the half season approach and questioned it.  

16 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

If everything was going smoothly according to what was expected last May the first kick off would only be six or seven months away now and we would be discussing all the returning Canadian players that would be being signed in the current transfer window and the progress of season ticket sales in each of the six cities that form part of the post-World Cup soft launch.

No we'd be sitting here reading your posts on how they're rushing the launch, how much of a horrible idea the half season is,    how all of it (and other factors) will lead to the failure of the league and that relying on the American system is the only sensible way forward for our country. 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

There's a lot of building work to do in not very much time, if that's going to happen. Surrey, Saskatoon, K/W and Calgary would probably need some sort of building work done to make an appearance in addition to Halifax, who are the only ones who have municipal level permissions close to approved, and the OSC leaves a lot to be desired if there really is a York Region team and would probably need to be upgraded a bit to avoid it looking as bush league as TFC II did at that location. The only place where shovels have hit the dirt at this point is the new Wanderers Ground in Halifax and even there only on a field, and this is with 15 months to go for an April 2019 kick-off. Something like Halifax, Ottawa (who may not even be on board), York Region, Hamilton, Winnipeg and maybe at a push Swangard for the Surrey team (?) could get them to six relatively painlessly so it's definitely not mission impossible to launch on a tight timeline, but it would be a whole lot easier for them with FC Edmonton on board right now to provide another ready to use as is stadium.

[Gopherbashi]

3 hours ago, Rheo said:

Roy's in Winnipeg

OH GOD NOW PAUL'S IN WINNIPEG TOO

THE LEAGUE IS BURNING BEFORE OUR VERY EYES

 

[toontownman]

First full team announcement maybe? I know they have already confirmed Winnipeg but maybe they are launching the teams one by one including team names, stadium, management maybe (too soon likely) and more info etc. Makes sense to start with the two places that are already ahead and give the other spots an extra few weeks to get their ducks in a row for launch. 

 

 

[mpg_29]

On 15/01/2018 at 4:44 PM, Gopherbashi said:

So basically what I said earlier; total expenses of $5m/year.

Yeah which is nuts imo. Hopefully every owner can take losing millions each year for years on end. 

I am all for this league and I think there is a market for pro soccer in Canada....but it isn't at the level of the numbers being thrown around for this league.

They should be operating on the assumption that there will be no TV money, that avg ticket prices need to be $20 (to attract families/casuals) and that avg attendance will probably be 2000. 

[lazlo_80]

27 minutes ago, Gopherbashi said:

OH GOD NOW PAUL'S IN WINNIPEG TOO

THE LEAGUE IS BURNING BEFORE OUR VERY EYES

 

We were conned. The CPL is just going to be a regional Winnipeg house league.

[toontownman]

1 hour ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

There's a lot of building work to do in not very much time, if that's going to happen. Surrey, Saskatoon, K/W and Calgary would probably need some sort of building work done to make an appearance in addition to Halifax, who are the only ones who have municipal level permissions close to approved, and the OSC leaves a lot to be desired if there really is a York Region team and would probably need to be upgraded a bit to avoid it looking as bush league as TFC II did at that location. The only place where shovels have hit the dirt at this point is the new Wanderers Ground in Halifax and even there only on a field, and this is with 15 months to go for an April 2019 kick-off. Something like Halifax, Ottawa (who may not even be on board), York Region, Hamilton, Winnipeg and maybe at a push Swangard for the Surrey team (?) could get them to six relatively painlessly so it's definitely not mission impossible to launch on a tight timeline, but it would be a whole lot easier for them with FC Edmonton on board right now to provide another ready to use as is stadium.

Certainly in Saskatoon there is the pitch to sort out and facilities. There is one big stand in place (provided they have permission and the go ahead to start at the Exhibition Grandstand). They will likely just put in temporary stands around the open 3 sides other than the grandstand. I don't see that taking long but I don't know what kind of timescale they need to sort the pitch surface out. Depends on if the permission there is done that might be more time consuming if not. 

[Complete Homer]

41 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

They should be operating on the assumption that there will be no TV money, that avg ticket prices need to be $20 (to attract families/casuals) and that avg attendance will probably be 2000. 

Unless things have changed, they are operating under the assumption of no TV money, $20-30 average ticket prices, and 4500-5500 average attendances. That's not that far off from your expectation 

[mpg_29]

1 hour ago, Complete Homer said:

Unless things have changed, they are operating under the assumption of no TV money, $20-30 average ticket prices, and 4500-5500 average attendances. That's not that far off from your expectation 

Uh yeah it is....mine estimates ~$40K ticket revenue/game and theirs ~$125K per game.

Even with their estimation they are a long way from covering $5M in expenses which just solidifies my point. The numbers are not realistic unless you assume owners accepting multi-million dollar losses each year.

I think the Edmonton FC owner not immediately jumping into CPL says a lot. 

[BuzzAndSting]

34 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Uh yeah it is....mine estimates ~$40K ticket revenue/game and theirs ~$125K per game.

Even with their estimation they are a long way from covering $5M in expenses which just solidifies my point. The numbers are not realistic unless you assume owners accepting multi-million dollar losses each year.

I think the Edmonton FC owner not immediately jumping into CPL says a lot. 

Or you assume to know the leagues complete business model.

[Macksam]

35 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Uh yeah it is....mine estimates ~$40K ticket revenue/game and theirs ~$125K per game.

Even with their estimation they are a long way from covering $5M in expenses which just solidifies my point. The numbers are not realistic unless you assume owners accepting multi-million dollar losses each year.

I think the Edmonton FC owner not immediately jumping into CPL says a lot. 

Come on, give us more than that. I'm curious as to what evidence (even if it's anecdotal) you're building your argument on. Not saying you're wrong, but just curious.

[BuzzAndSting]

1 minute ago, Macksam said:

Come on, give us more than that. I'm curious as to what evidence (even if it's anecdotal) you're building your argument on. Not saying you're wrong, but just curious.

Seeing as we don't even know how many games each team is going to play I think it's a little early for arm chair accountants to start drafting P&L statements.

[Gopherbashi]

Well, we know it's going to be an April-October season, so you've got a maximum of about 30 weeks.  I'd assume that April means "late April" since we aren't sadistic, so bring that down to 26 weeks or 13 home games.  Add in the odd midweek or V Cup match and assume you're somewhere around 16 home matches.

For the sake of argument, let's assume 4000 attendance per match (likely high, especially at the start, but let's go with the low end of the aspiration).  For reference, OFFC's first half-season at Lansdowne was 4400 *after* discounting their 16000 attendance for their home opener.  Similarly, let's assume $20/ticket on average - there will probably be many tickets more than this, but likely balanced out by youth tickets and discounted season seats.  That works out to $80k per match on attendance, or $1.3m per season.

Concessions and merchandising would also need to be considered, and it could be a big chunk of income.  If 1-in-2 buy an overpriced hot dog at $5 profit and 1-in-4 buy an overpriced beer at $5 profit, and 1-in-20 buy overpriced merch at $25 profit, that's an extra $20k a match, or an extra $320k a year.

Sponsorship and advertising would also be another important source of revenue.  According to this article, USL kit sponsors typically pay out something in "the low six figures annually".  Let's spitball and say it'll be roughly equal and that "low six figures" is somewhere around $200k.  Advertising would also contribute to this total, and while I'm starting to make assumptions that are way out of my experience level; 50 field-side ads at $2k a pop for the entire season seems somewhat reasonable, and $100k is a nice, round number to pop in here (if anyone has more experience involving advertising, feel free to fudge my numbers).

Stadium naming rights could also be a source of income if these teams are building the stadiums themselves (does anyone remember what the Halifax deal said about this?).  Naming rights for TD Place in Ottawa is suspected to have gone for about $1.2m/year, so accounting for no football games (50%) and the soccer-football attendance difference (25%), this could work out to about $150k/year.

There's also this question about our vague friend C-SUM, whatever that is - so vague that it's not even worth putting a figure on, but could end up being an additional revenue source.

All of these together work out to about $2m in income per year; slightly more if you include naming rights in that total.  Not close to being profitable, of course, but considering that part of this $5m/year budget includes "investment in fixed assets" as per the Forbes article (ie. single-time non-operating costs), it's not a complete dumpster fire either.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

What does the mythical "C-SUM" that Duane Rollins peddles from time to time have to sell that would attract significant rights fees when the most recent CMNT game was only available by webstream? The real SUM, which opened an office in Toronto recently and provides another explanation for Victor Montagliani's mention of a Canadian SUM, is driven to a large extent by Mexican teams playing games that have to be sanctioned by the USSF in the United States and is fueled by the spending power of 35 million Mexican-Americans that want to watch their national team, Chivas, America etc either live in the stadium or on channels like Univision. There is nothing equivalent to that in Canada and a startup soccer league beneath MLS, which is how it will be viewed by the mainstream viewer regardless of what sanctionings say, is more likely to have to pay for access than to receive a fee.

Are you aware that the city council in Halifax retained the rights to any naming fees where the pop-up was concerned in the proposal that was amended and then approved last summer? If you use somebody else's land as appears to be the plan in Surrey, Saskatoon, K/W and Halifax, the owner is likely to want a very large slice of the action on things like naming rights, concessions and any on-site parking revenues. Even in Hamilton, the terms of the stadium lease for soccer are currently in dispute with the city council with one side claiming a favourable deal tied into the legacy of the PanAm games is still in place, while the other claims it has expired.

Are you aware that OFFC offer massively discounted tickets through youth clubs that help to boost their attendance numbers but significantly deflate their average ticket receipts per spectator? The numbers that you see for leagues like the USL and the NASL (and in years past MLS) tend to be routinely inflated tickets distributed counts rather than actual paid tickets for spectators in the stadium. That means that they often include sizable numbers of freebies and no shows. Check out what happened to announced numbers for the NASL in Oklahoma City where the local school board that owned the stadium got the real ticket count. It was something like 1500 paid instead of 4500 announced and that's nothing hugely out of the ordinary for startup franchises in North American pro soccer.

The idea that ticket revenues only have to form a small part of the revenues for CanPL and that 5000 paying significantly more than a movie ticket price on average can reasonably be expected to show up straight away in relatively small markets is wishful thinking.

Edited January 17, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[HfxCeltic]

I've seen some posts on pitch preparation and stadium construction timelines and I don't think its the end all if these aren't started until spring this year for a launch in spring 2019. I'm using Halifax as a bench mark, so it might not be applicable across the country. The Wanderers Grounds was a mess before they re-laid the grass surface. They had to do some pretty significant excavation, grading, and then obviously seeding and sod laying with upkeep to make sure it rooted and grew well. It looked amazing once completed and I think this took about 3 or 4 months. SEA has consistently noted the use of a pop-up stadium around Wanderers Grounds. They have experience with throwing these things together with the Sandjam Volleyball Tournament on the Halifax Waterfront. The stadium for that event held around 2500 and was set up in 2 DAYS and torn down in 1 day. Obviously a soccer stadium holding 7000 is a bit bigger, but I don't think its unrealistic to have the venue together in a few weeks. I don't think timeline for infrastructure construction is that big of a deal - getting to construction might be a bit of a bigger one though.

I seriously doubt the folks behind these individual franchises would enter into an agreement with municipalities that would see them be on the shitty end of a stick in terms of revenue sharing. I think we need to give these folks a bit more credit that some here are. I have a bit more faith in the ability of some pretty successful business folks to pull together this league and individual franchises than I do in the skepticism I've seen on this board. Relax and have fun with this - no need to tear it down before it even starts.

 

 

[mpg_29]

5 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

What does the mythical "C-SUM" that Duane Rollins peddles from time to time have to sell that would attract significant rights fees when the most recent CMNT game was only available by webstream? The real SUM, which opened an office in Toronto recently and provides another explanation for Victor Montagliani's mention of a Canadian SUM, is driven to a large extent by Mexican teams playing games that have to be sanctioned by the USSF in the United States and is fueled by the spending power of 35 million Mexican-Americans that want to watch their national team, Chivas, America etc either live in the stadium or on channels like Univision. There is nothing equivalent to that in Canada and a startup soccer league beneath MLS, which is how it will be viewed by the mainstream viewer regardless of what sanctionings say, is more likely to have to pay for access than to receive a fee.

Are you aware that the city council in Halifax retained the rights to any naming fees where the pop-up was concerned in the proposal that was amended and then approved last summer? If you use somebody else's land as appears to be the plan in Surrey, Saskatoon, K/W and Halifax, the owner is likely to want a very large slice of the action on things like naming rights, concessions and any on-site parking revenues. Even in Hamilton, the terms of the stadium lease for soccer are currently in dispute with the city council with one side claiming a favourable deal tied into the legacy of the PanAm games is still in place, while the other claims it has expired.

Are you aware that OFFC offer massively discounted tickets through youth clubs that help to boost their attendance numbers but significantly deflate their average ticket receipts per spectator? The numbers that you see for leagues like the USL and the NASL (and in years past MLS) tend to be routinely inflated tickets distributed counts rather than actual paid tickets for spectators in the stadium. That means that they often include sizable numbers of freebies and no shows. Check out what happened to announced numbers for the NASL in Oklahoma City where the local school board that owned the stadium got the real ticket count. It was something like 1500 paid instead of 4500 announced and that's nothing hugely out of the ordinary for startup franchises in North American pro soccer.

The idea that ticket revenues only have to form a small part of the revenues for CanPL and that 5000 paying significantly more than a movie ticket price on average can reasonably be expected to show up straight away in relatively small markets is wishful thinking.

This is basically what I was trying to get at. Ticket revenue is going to be large part of overall revenue. And that if they want to try to reach their avg attendance goals there needs to be a lot of relatively decent seats in the $15-$20 range to have a chance at that.

But even when you take this into account it doesn't square with the reported operating expenses. Which is what has me concerned. I still get the feeling that are trying to shoehorn a CFL equivalent soccer league into the Canadian market right off the bat. Which is bad because A: They are going to be operating in a lot of markets smaller than CFL operates in and B: It's a new league/different sport that doesn't have the CFL's operating history in Canada.

[HfxCeltic]

Halifax example again.....sorry.

SEA has routinely stated ticket prices between $10 and $35. I think $10 was floated for the pitch end beer garden, while the $35 seats will be along the sides and close to the centre line. I think the supporters group section was on the lower end of ticket prices as well. This seems like ticket prices (in Halifax at least) will be affordable and on par with other sporting events in the city. This is a hopeful local speaking, but I'm somewhat confident Halifax will be pretty successful in terms of average attendeance (5500-6500) just based on the field location, the growth of soccer in Halifax over the last 10-15 years, and the general need for some professional sporting in the city. I really think the smaller markets like Halifax and Saskatoon will suprise a lot of people in terms of the level of fan support.

Something to consider for Halifax is the absence of any live sporting event competition during the majority of the proposed season. Q team and NBL team playing during the fall and winter, while the majority of the soccer schedule will be spring and summer. 

[MtlMario]

6 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

What does the mythical "C-SUM" that Duane Rollins peddles from time to time have to sell that would attract significant rights fees when the most recent CMNT game was only available by webstream? The real SUM, which opened an office in Toronto recently and provides another explanation for Victor Montagliani's mention of a Canadian SUM, is driven to a large extent by Mexican teams playing games that have to be sanctioned by the USSF in the United States and is fueled by the spending power of 35 million Mexican-Americans that want to watch their national team, Chivas, America etc either live in the stadium or on channels like Univision. There is nothing equivalent to that in Canada and a startup soccer league beneath MLS, which is how it will be viewed by the mainstream viewer regardless of what sanctionings say, is more likely to have to pay for access than to receive a fee.

Are you aware that the city council in Halifax retained the rights to any naming fees where the pop-up was concerned in the proposal that was amended and then approved last summer? If you use somebody else's land as appears to be the plan in Surrey, Saskatoon, K/W and Halifax, the owner is likely to want a very large slice of the action on things like naming rights, concessions and any on-site parking revenues. Even in Hamilton, the terms of the stadium lease for soccer are currently in dispute with the city council with one side claiming a favourable deal tied into the legacy of the PanAm games is still in place, while the other claims it has expired.

Are you aware that OFFC offer massively discounted tickets through youth clubs that help to boost their attendance numbers but significantly deflate their average ticket receipts per spectator? The numbers that you see for leagues like the USL and the NASL (and in years past MLS) tend to be routinely inflated tickets distributed counts rather than actual paid tickets for spectators in the stadium. That means that they often include sizable numbers of freebies and no shows. Check out what happened to announced numbers for the NASL in Oklahoma City where the local school board that owned the stadium got the real ticket count. It was something like 1500 paid instead of 4500 announced and that's nothing hugely out of the ordinary for startup franchises in North American pro soccer.

The idea that ticket revenues only have to form a small part of the revenues for CanPL and that 5000 paying significantly more than a movie ticket price on average can reasonably be expected to show up straight away in relatively small markets is wishful thinking.

....and all of these problems magically disappear if the teams are in American (USL) leagues.   

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

8 minutes ago, MtlMario said:

....and all of these problems magically disappear if the teams are in American (USL) leagues.   

Do I really need to walk people through this again? No of course not, but you don't need 8 Canadian teams for a stable league to emerge in that scenario because there are 30 American teams in place to provide stability. If it can only work in 4 or 5 Canadian markets you get it going in those markets and many more young Canadian players get their shot at breaking into the big time Jason Devos style. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

 

Edited January 17, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Rheo]

Canadian content pic

[mpg_29]

24 minutes ago, HfxCeltic said:

Halifax example again.....sorry.

SEA has routinely stated ticket prices between $10 and $35. I think $10 was floated for the pitch end beer garden, while the $35 seats will be along the sides and close to the centre line. I think the supporters group section was on the lower end of ticket prices as well. This seems like ticket prices (in Halifax at least) will be affordable and on par with other sporting events in the city. This is a hopeful local speaking, but I'm somewhat confident Halifax will be pretty successful in terms of average attendeance (5500-6500) just based on the field location, the growth of soccer in Halifax over the last 10-15 years, and the general need for some professional sporting in the city. I really think the smaller markets like Halifax and Saskatoon will suprise a lot of people in terms of the level of fan support.

Something to consider for Halifax is the absence of any live sporting event competition during the majority of the proposed season. Q team and NBL team playing during the fall and winter, while the majority of the soccer schedule will be spring and summer. 

The Halifax NBL team currently avg's 1400 a game. Care to reason why another non-hockey pro sport in Halifax will get 4X that in avg attendance ?

[Macksam]

29 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

The Halifax NBL team currently avg's 1400 a game. Care to reason why another non-hockey pro sport in Halifax will get 4X that in avg attendance ?

Besides the fact the NBL is a league that really serves no purpose for the most part, one sport's attendance doesn't indicate what another would get.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Macksam

[mpg_29]

6 minutes ago, Macksam said:

Besides the fact the NBL is a league that really serves no purpose for the most part, one sport's attendance doesn't indicate what another would get.

Serves no "purpose"? I'm not even sure what you mean but if it's to imply that loads of people will buy tickets for CPL because of some noble goal to develop Canadian players then you are disillusioned. It's like when people argue they'd pay more for products to support higher wages. That's not how the vast majority of people operate when it comes to actually making a purchase....it's gonna come down to how much do I want to go see this and how much does it cost. And imo have some actual real world numbers with NBL attendance of what the answer to that question is...at least in the smaller markets.

Sure it's possible that are 3X-4X as many people willing to pay for soccer than basketball but I'm sceptical.

[Macksam]

47 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Serves no "purpose"? I'm not even sure what you mean but if it's to imply that loads of people will buy tickets for CPL because of some noble goal to develop Canadian players then you are disillusioned. It's like when people argue they'd pay more for products to support higher wages. That's not how the vast majority of people operate when it comes to actually making a purchase....it's gonna come down to how much do I want to go see this and how much does it cost. And imo have some actual real world numbers with NBL attendance of what the answer to that question is...at least in the smaller markets.

Sure it's possible that are 3X-4X as many people willing to pay for soccer than basketball but I'm sceptical.

No, that’s not what I’m implying. 

Yes, you’re skeptical but the people that control the means of production aren’t and that’s all that matters. You and BBTB need to realize this important fact.

Posting and arguing about how this isn’t the direction to go in is useless. This is the direction we’re going in. Discussing how we can best work within those parameters is what you’ll need to engage in.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Macksam

[Complete Homer]

33 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Serves no "purpose"? I'm not even sure what you mean but if it's to imply that loads of people will buy tickets for CPL because of some noble goal to develop Canadian players then you are disillusioned. It's like when people argue they'd pay more for products to support higher wages. That's not how the vast majority of people operate when it comes to actually making a purchase....it's gonna come down to how much do I want to go see this and how much does it cost. And imo have some actual real world numbers with NBL attendance of what the answer to that question is...at least in the smaller markets.

Sure it's possible that are 3X-4X as many people willing to pay for soccer than basketball but I'm sceptical.

I can't speak to Halifax as a market, but Canadian viewership surveys tend to demonstrate that soccer has a wide lead on basketball especially in the demographics that tend to go out to games. Obviously youth participation numbers are on soccer's side, and even soft metrics like the number of twitter followers the leagues have gotten shows a disparity in interest...CPL has gotten 5000+ followers in 8 months while CBL barely cracked 1000 in 4 years. Throw in the fact that soccer won't have to compete with hockey season for entertainment dollars (though there's the looming spectre of CFL), I don't think 3x the attendance is delusional.

We obviously have to be careful with equating interest in soccer with interest in CPL, but in smaller markets a thousand kilometers from the nearest live pro game, I don't think they will have too much difficulty converting that interest into ticket holders. Besides, CBL obviously has the same issue with the NBA so it doesn't necessarily have a bearing on this discussion

Also interesting that interest in soccer also hit rock bottom among boomers, which likely plays into the dynamics of the discussions on this board