CPL General

[dyslexic nam]

1 hour ago, mtlsab said:

Should we force the others canadian teams playin in US leagues to join the canadian structure?

I know a few have advocated this, but I don't see it ever happening.

- The fees paid to join MLS are too high, so the "property rights" of being in that league are huge.  

- The teams also joined the league when there was no other option, and presumably with whatever blessing was needed from the CSA - if the CSA now turned around and mandated a change that resulted in huge financial losses, they would be exposed to massive legal liability.

- Incorporating those teams, in the absence of some extremely forceful equalization mechanisms, would immediately set them up to essentially dominate CPL forever.  

- Finally, I also like having 3 Canadian teams in MLS, which realistically will be a much higher level for the foreseeable future.   With the kind of stepwise progression MLS has made in overall player quality, salaries, and exposure in the media market, I do think it has the potential to eventually become a tier 1 league in the global context.  And as much as I fully support and advocate for a strong and healthy CPL, I don't see it achieving that level anytime soon - and probably never.  There is just far more money in the US market, and if MLS succeeds in elevating itself to be on par with the other US sports leagues (and I see no reason why it eventually won't) the financial numbers speak for themself.

 

[mtlsab]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

I know a few have advocated this, but I don't see it ever happening.

- The fees paid to join MLS are too high, so the "property rights" of being in that league are huge.  

- The teams also joined the league when there was no other option, and presumably with whatever blessing was needed from the CSA - if the CSA now turned around and mandated a change that resulted in huge financial losses, they would be exposed to massive legal liability.

- Incorporating those teams, in the absence of some extremely forceful equalization mechanisms, would immediately set them up to essentially dominate CPL forever.  

- Finally, I also like having 3 Canadian teams in MLS, which realistically will be a much higher level for the foreseeable future.   With the kind of stepwise progression MLS has made in overall player quality, salaries, and exposure in the media market, I do think it has the potential to eventually become a tier 1 league in the global context.  And as much as I fully support and advocate for a strong and healthy CPL, I don't see it achieving that level anytime soon - and probably never.  There is just far more money in the US market, and if MLS succeeds in elevating itself to be on par with the other US sports leagues (and I see no reason why it eventually won't) the financial numbers speak for themself.

 

I wasnt talkin about the MLS team for the moment, put the one playin in USL, PDL, etc. 
I know MLS team payed a lot, so if they should join CPL, I guess it will be a long term plan

[mtlsab]

2 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

 

Sorry, i'm a french speaking, I don't get it

[CDNFootballer]

6 hours ago, mtlsab said:

.Do you think CAN MLS teams will have a reserve team in CPL?

Should we force the others canadian teams playin in US leagues to join the canadian structure?

Since the Canadian Premier League is Canada's Division 1 Pro league they should never have Mls reserve teams in the league. Thankfully that's the stance of the CPL as well.

 

As for forcing the Canadian MLS franchises to join, I'd say no, just let them decide for themselves down the line as CPL grows and then maybe they sell their MLS "business unit/franchise" spot back to MLS to resell that spot to a US market and the Canadian team joins CPL.

[Complete Homer]

Interesting article on Indy 11, makes it clear how hard it is to break even when you don't own your own stadium, even when you are pulling in 10k crowds

https://www.indianapolismonthly.com/features/ersal-ozdemirs-11th-hour/

[Watchmen]

Maybe, but it doesn't say that the team would make money with it's own stadium either.  Just that they worked hard to get their own stadium and that he's lost a lot of money over the years and that joining MLS was the only way the owner thinks would be viable for him to make money at some point.

And there's a warning to potential CPL owners in here too.  The Indy owner has done everything right, the club is well supported at 9-11k per year, and he's still lost over $10 million in 5 years.  CPL owners can say they're prepared for "the long haul" but I wonder how many of them really are (or understand how long it might be).

[mpg_29]

8 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

And there's a warning to potential CPL owners in here too.  The Indy owner has done everything right, the club is well supported at 9-11k per year, and he's still lost over $10 million in 5 years.  CPL owners can say they're prepared for "the long haul" but I wonder how many of them really are (or understand how long it might be).

Agree, however CPL should theoretically have a leg up on NASL/USL in that it will be a tier 1 domestic league. Therefore the potential for things like TV/sponsorship deals *should* be higher.

[Complete Homer]

13 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

Maybe, but it doesn't say that the team would make money with it's own stadium either.  Just that they worked hard to get their own stadium and that he's lost a lot of money over the years and that joining MLS was the only way the owner thinks would be viable for him to make money at some point.

And there's a warning to potential CPL owners in here too.  The Indy owner has done everything right, the club is well supported at 9-11k per year, and he's still lost over $10 million in 5 years.  CPL owners can say they're prepared for "the long haul" but I wonder how many of them really are (or understand how long it might be).

It's pretty clear though that no stadium=strong chance of folding for him. Given the multiple new revenue streams you get with your own stadium and (apparently) high rent Indy 11 deal with, I don't think it's hard to come to the conclusion that stadium ownership is the main drag on viability 

I doubt they would really be going in blind, there's ample case studies to learn from at this point, especially in the past few years, and I don't think many people get to the position of being able to own a soccer team by being negligent. 

Edited April 8, 2018 by Complete Homer

[Watchmen]

44 minutes ago, Complete Homer said:

It's pretty clear though that no stadium=strong chance of folding for him. Given the multiple new revenue streams you get with your own stadium and (apparently) high rent Indy 11 deal with, I don't think it's hard to come to the conclusion that stadium ownership is the main drag on viability 

I doubt they would really be going in blind, there's ample case studies to learn from at this point, especially in the past few years, and I don't think many people get to the position of being able to own a soccer team by being negligent. 

Do we know what the stadium ownership is for most of these teams then?  Isn't Tim Hortons Field owned by the city of Hamilton, for instance?

I don't think any of them are necessarily going in blind, but I think most owners (in all sports) think that because they've been successful elsewhere that of course they'll be successful in sports as well.  And that's frequently not the case.  A team is going to finish at the bottom every year.  Is an owner prepared for that?  What if it happens multiple times?  I have my doubts on the number of owners fully prepared to actually lose money for long amounts of time.

[Watchmen]

49 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Agree, however CPL should theoretically have a leg up on NASL/USL in that it will be a tier 1 domestic league. Therefore the potential for things like TV/sponsorship deals *should* be higher.

Sure, but I also suspect most teams won't hit 10k average, so you're attendance could very likely be much lower in a number of markets.

[Complete Homer]

27 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

Do we know what the stadium ownership is for most of these teams then?  Isn't Tim Hortons Field owned by the city of Hamilton, for instance?

I don't think any of them are necessarily going in blind, but I think most owners (in all sports) think that because they've been successful elsewhere that of course they'll be successful in sports as well.  And that's frequently not the case.  A team is going to finish at the bottom every year.  Is an owner prepared for that?  What if it happens multiple times?  I have my doubts on the number of owners fully prepared to actually lose money for long amounts of time.

From my limited understanding, most stadiums built as public-private partnerships tend to have very favourable leases (like BMO Field and TFC). Though it's not clear that the Hamilton team will get similar terms as the TiCats with the state of current relations with city council.

With Beirne saying there will be at least  3 stadiums built and another refurbished, I think it's reasonable to assume that a good portion of the league will own their own stadiums and others (Winnipeg, Hamilton) have existing leases that could probably eventually be bundled together. May be a few with less favourable arrangements (Cuddy Shark reporting that the York team would play out of YorkU before building their own stadium). 

Also fair point on your second paragraph. I like to think that careful vetting and close attention to the factors that have caused so many teams to fail this decade (of which stadium ownership issues I still think are key) will ensure that only those willing and actually able to pull through are involved, but we really won't know until we actually see them persevere. 

[Gian-Luca]

1 hour ago, Watchmen said:

Sure, but I also suspect most teams won't hit 10k average, so you're attendance could very likely be much lower in a number of markets.

What I have been told is the the break even attendance figure is anticipated to be 6K. I wasn't told anything about the expected ticket prices however.

[Complete Homer]

4 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

What I have been told is the the break even attendance figure is anticipated to be 6K. I wasn't told anything about the expected ticket prices however.

I think Beirne said 4500-5500 is "sustainable" (ie probably not break even yet) with a general target of $20-30 seats plus premium seating. That second part my have been Derek Martin, not too sure

[Watchmen]

41 minutes ago, Complete Homer said:

I think Beirne said 4500-5500 is "sustainable" (ie probably not break even yet) with a general target of $20-30 seats plus premium seating. That second part my have been Derek Martin, not too sure

You're right, there was talk about 5k being sustainable.  I'd be fascinated to see the finances of everything in that case, if 5k in one league is sustainable and 10k in another is "losing millions".  Even with stadium ownership issues, that's a heck of a difference.

[Complete Homer]

29 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

You're right, there was talk about 5k being sustainable.  I'd be fascinated to see the finances of everything in that case, if 5k in one league is sustainable and 10k in another is "losing millions".  Even with stadium ownership issues, that's a heck of a difference.

If it helps, one of the writers covering Indy 11 was saying on Twitter today that the team's finances are very different now that they are in USL. 

Obviously a lot of that is the lower salary figures in USL, but you also have to remember that NASL was not very lean in several ways. I talked to Kartik Krishnayer a while back about his time in the NASL front office, his big point was that many NASL teams were wasteful and overspent off the field even more than they did on the field, in large part because the teams refused to centralize some easily shared costs. Few (none?) controlled their stadium either. 

[mpg_29]

43 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

You're right, there was talk about 5k being sustainable.  I'd be fascinated to see the finances of everything in that case, if 5k in one league is sustainable and 10k in another is "losing millions".  Even with stadium ownership issues, that's a heck of a difference.

Some of us have repeatedly questioned the economics of it. But it's "frowned upon" here.

The counter argument is that the owners are willing take losses and things like sponsorships and TV deals will offset some of the need for ticket revenue.

[BuzzAndSting]

2 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Some of us have repeatedly questioned the economics of it. But it's "frowned upon" here.

The counter argument is that the owners are willing take losses and things like sponsorships and TV deals will offset some of the need for ticket revenue.

It's not frowned upon to question the CPL business plan. It's frowned upon to do it repeatedly and without any real insight, which none of us have. 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

So in other words it's "frowned upon". I'm glad we cleared that up.

Something worth keeping an eye on this season is how the Ottawa Fury get on given JdG has signed a roster with many of the sort of Canadian players most on here seem to envisage as mainstays in a CanPL context. They got annihilated by the Tampa Bay Rowdies this weekend, which is a bit depressing to see but not altogether surprising, unfortunately:

The 6000 breakeven appears to me to have been arrived at based primarily on what you need to draw to make the numbers work on 20+ full-time contracts that are well above burger flipping territory. If there is one thing to learn from earlier failures on pro leagues it is that no amount of marketing and appeals to patriotism will get people to pay in large numbers to watch a third rate entertainment product and that genuinely D1 level soccer can't just be wished into existence if the player pool isn't there to sustain it. 

[Complete Homer]

There's a big difference between @Watchmen's reasonable doubts and preemptively dancing on the league's grave 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

If there is one thing to learn from earlier failures on pro leagues it is that no amount of marketing and appeals to patriotism will get people to pay in large numbers to watch a third rate entertainment product and that genuinely D1 level soccer can't just be wished into existence if the player pool isn't there to sustain it. 

In the Southern League Premier in England the typical ticket price is £10 (roughly $18 CAD). This is tier 7 (seven). In a country where a tier 1 (EPL) team is never too far away.

I'm sure people will pay a reasonable price to support a league they believe in. They will not do it for patriotism, they will do it because they enjoy watching football and like the idea of having a local team to watch, and they won't care that it isn't EPL standard.

And I like the suggested $20-$30 ticket price point. That is what the Manitoba Moose charge for AHL hockey and they are doing very nicely, thank you very much, in spite of competition from the NHL Jets.

Edited April 8, 2018 by dsqpr

[BuzzAndSting]

A movie ticket is now upwards of $20 + tax so something similar for a professional soccer match isn’t unreasonable at all.

[mpg_29]

10 minutes ago, BuzzAndSting said:

A movie ticket is now upwards of $20 + tax so something similar for a professional soccer match isn’t unreasonable at all.

Yup, but I wouldn't go much higher.

[Gian-Luca]

4 hours ago, Complete Homer said:

I think Beirne said 4500-5500 is "sustainable" (ie probably not break even yet) with a general target of $20-30 seats plus premium seating. 

That probably fits with what I heard. It’s also worth mentioning that I was told the owners for this league generally speaking (ie not just first two that have been announced but the ones that are about to be - I am told, FWIW, 4 more will be announced soon) have deeper pockets than the CSL owners did so they may not be expecting to hit 6k across the board in year one, two or even three. There was a general sense of growing this league in steps rather than an MLS style launch of being “big” (in terms of stadium size, attendance and even broadcasting coverage) right away. 

Which is good because I don’t see the York Region based team having a venue by April 2019 that can get a 5 or 6k attendance figure.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

11 hours ago, BuzzAndSting said:

A movie ticket is now upwards of $20 + tax so something similar for a professional soccer match isn’t unreasonable at all.

That's debatable. You can still watch a top blockbuster movie in 3D for $15 + tax (or less for children) in London, Ont. at the cinema I sometimes go to, so I suspect it very much depends on what city you are in and the average income locally. Some people will only go on discount Tuesdays when prices can be under $10. Expecting a family of four to spend over $100 regularly once concessions are factored in to watch relatively low quality pro soccer is expecting a lot in a sport that is still skewed in interest terms towards recent immigrants and young adults on low incomes who tend to be more spendthrift than the rest of the population. There are legitimate reasons behind why Steven Sandor sometimes blogs about the soccer demographic being notoriously cheap in the eyes of marketing exceutives. It's not safe to assume soccer fans will respond the same way CFL or hockey fans would and investors in soccer in Canada have often found that out the hard way.

Ottawa have used massively discounted groups sales to youth soccer to boost their attendance stats so it is not safe to assume that the listed attendance numbers at USL or NASL games have all been paying upwards of $20+ on average. Youth soccer group sale discounts along with copious amounts of freebies being distributed in some cities is part of why it's still possible to lose big money at D2 level even with apparently impressive looking announced numbers. Another issue that the NASL specifically has had was operating without a salary cap and allowing teams like the NY Cosmos and FC Miami to spend crazily to try to compete with MLS in the US Open Cup. At that point the other teams have to substantially overspend as well relative to their revenue streams to remain competitive.

10 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

...Which is good because I don’t see the York Region based team having a venue by April 2019 that can get a 5 or 6k attendance figure.

In Kitchener, the local newspaper was told a few weeks ago that 8000 to 10000 seats with expandability is the entry point on stadiums and that the existing 6000 capacity university stadium at Wilfred Laurier, which I think is larger than the stadia at York U, would not be suitable for a pro team. I guess they might be more flexible when it is the GTA that is involved in a North York Rockets at Esther Shiner sort of way, but that can be a one way ticket to being viewed as bush league.

Edited April 9, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[grasshopper1917]

2 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

That's debatable. You can still watch a top blockbuster movie in 3D for $15 + tax (or less for children) in London, Ont. at the cinema I sometimes go to, so I suspect it very much depends on what city you are in and the average income locally. Some people will only go on discount Tuesdays when prices can be under $10. Expecting a family of four to spend over $100 regularly once concessions are factored in to watch relatively low quality pro soccer is expecting a lot in a sport that is still skewed in interest terms towards recent immigrants and young adults on low incomes who tend to be more spendthrift than the rest of the population. There are legitimate reasons behind why Steven Sandor sometimes blogs about the soccer demographic being notoriously cheap in the eyes of marketing exceutives. It's not safe to assume soccer fans will respond the same way CFL or hockey fans would and investors in soccer in Canada have often found that out the hard way.

 

Locally our Jr Hockey team in Halifax charges 20$ for adults and 10$ for kids. They also have multi pack and family deals. I think getting the pricing right will be a big thing for the league. Too expensive and no one will go - too cheap and everyone will just view it as small time.

However BBTB has touched on a good point regarding the cost for a family. I think if this is going to be successful the teams will need to draw in families and it has to be affordable for a family of 3 or 4 to go to. Im sure he price point will vary but I have the feeling in Halifax 20$-25$ is going to be about the max you can charge for an adult ticket unless your in a top notch/luxury seat.