CPL General

[Aird25]

38 minutes ago, youllneverwalkalone said:

I've always felt we were the Portugal of Canada.

Perhaps I should know this already but who is ‘we’ here? I could very well have missed something but you seem to be sporting a Pacific logo with a Liverpool (?) username in a discussion about Edmonton. 

[shorty]

It’s a joke about the map of Canada superimposed on Europe. Vancouver island is about where Portugal is (and relatively comparable in size). We is Vancouver Island.
 

(I am assuming you didn’t get the map joke, but I could be wrong. Pretty sure I’ve seen you post about PFC so I may have missed your joke in return)

Edited January 3, 2022 by shorty

[Unnamed Trialist]

11 hours ago, youllneverwalkalone said:

I've always felt we were the Portugal of Canada.

Agreed, and still can't get over the fact they drew the lines for BC without including the Azores.

[Aird25]

5 hours ago, shorty said:

It’s a joke about the map of Canada superimposed on Europe. Vancouver island is about where Portugal is (and relatively comparable in size). We is Vancouver Island.
 

(I am assuming you didn’t get the map joke, but I could be wrong. Pretty sure I’ve seen you post about PFC so I may have missed your joke in return)

I totally missed the post about superimposing Canada on Europe but that clears it up. I skipped most of the conversation after reading the sentence about fans not even being aware they’re playing the same 3 teams over and over again. 

[yellowsweatygorilla]

14 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

I totally missed the post about superimposing Canada on Europe but that clears it up. I skipped most of the conversation after reading the sentence about fans not even being aware they’re playing the same 3 teams over and over again. 

You are misreading my post - it's not about playing the same 3 teams... it's about whether playing teams closer to home would register as a problem for casual fans. This whole conversation about regionalization presupposes an admittedly wishful consequence that smaller markets would become feasible when costs go down and the league would enlarge. Now, I have no clue what the actual finances about travel area so obviously speculative. So it's a question of playing 8 teams nationwide, or mostly (not only) playing 8 teams in the East or West of the country in a 16 team league. I suggested for example, that people that go watch TFC (or any of the other North American leagues) aren't really turned off by the fact that they aren't playing every team in the league?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

If the CSA had followed the recommendations of the Easton Report the main emphasis in domestic pro league sanctioning terms would have been placed on a mainly U-23 league like PDL that would have revolved around regionalized conferences with bus travel. Not what many people crave emotionally but likely to be highly doable and sustainable and hence relatively low risk.

Instead, Bob Young came along with a PanAm games pro soccer legacy pledge to fulfill where the money for THF was concerned and Victor Montagliani was not getting along at all well with MLS, so they shelved the report and pushed the old dream from the 1980s and the CUSL blueprint of having a fully professional soccer clone of the CFL. Great if it works but there is a much higher risk of failure.

If they had managed to average 6500 paid or so consistently from coast-to-coast, the travel expenses involved wouldn't make or break the league, they could have drawn in higher calibre imports than the U-23 guys from the agency, and paid reasonable salaries even to younger domestic signings without too much difficulty and with less scope for labour relations strife, but reality has been well short of that so far everywhere except Halifax, unfortuately.

If there's nobody willing to blow well into the tens of millions on this league in multiple cities over the next decade Phil Anshutz style, they will probably have to evolve into something significantly closer to what was envisaged in the Easton Report to survive.

They've already done some of it by moving towards a lower salary budget with more of a U-23 sort of focus than the vision that was originally being peddled but having teams in larger markets playing in CFL stadia with CFL owners running the show makes it difficult to go much further.

Don't think there are any easy answers on this but they will need to find a revised business model that can be rolled out much more easily into mid-sized markets so they can move to a bus travel format that is sustainable in front of smaller crowds than they had originally hoped for in a manner closer to what CEBL have been able to do or the road ahead could be very bumpy.

[youllneverwalkalone]

If only they had listened to Easton.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-easton-78470b3a/

 

[Aird25]

3 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

If the CSA had followed the recommendations of the Easton Report the main emphasis in domestic pro league sanctioning terms would have been placed on a mainly U-23 league like PDL that would have revolved around regionalized conferences with bus travel. Not what many people crave emotionally but likely to be highly doable and sustainable and hence relatively low risk.

Instead, Bob Young came along with a PanAm games pro soccer legacy pledge to fulfill where the money for THF was concerned and Victor Montagliani was not getting along at all well with MLS, so they shelved the report and pushed the old dream from the 1980s and the CUSL blueprint of having a fully professional soccer clone of the CFL. Great if it works but there is a much higher risk of failure.

If they had managed to average 6500 paid or so consistently from coast-to-coast, the travel expenses involved wouldn't make or break the league, they could have drawn in higher calibre imports than the U-23 guys from the agency, and paid reasonable salaries even to younger domestic signings without too much difficulty and with less scope for labour relations strife, but reality has been well short of that so far everywhere except Halifax, unfortuately.

If there's nobody willing to blow well into the tens of millions on this league in multiple cities over the next decade Phil Anshutz style, they will probably have to evolve into something significantly closer to what was envisaged in the Easton Report to survive.

They've already done some of it by moving towards a lower salary budget with more of a U-23 sort of focus than the vision that was originally being peddled but having teams in larger markets playing in CFL stadia with CFL owners running the show makes it difficult to go much further.

Don't think there are any easy answers on this but they will need to find a revised business model that can be rolled out much more easily into mid-sized markets so they can move to a bus travel format that is sustainable in front of smaller crowds than they had originally hoped for in a manner closer to what CEBL have been able to do or the road ahead could be very bumpy.

This is miles from my own conclusions. Anyone else?

[brianjc]

2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

If the CSA had followed the recommendations of the Easton Report the main emphasis in domestic pro league sanctioning terms would have been placed on a mainly U-23 league like PDL that would have revolved around regionalized conferences with bus travel. Not what many people crave emotionally but likely to be highly doable and sustainable and hence relatively low risk.

Instead, Bob Young came along with a PanAm games pro soccer legacy pledge to fulfill where the money for THF was concerned and Victor Montagliani was not getting along at all well with MLS, so they shelved the report and pushed the old dream from the 1980s and the CUSL blueprint of having a fully professional soccer clone of the CFL. Great if it works but there is a much higher risk of failure.

If they had managed to average 6500 paid or so consistently from coast-to-coast, the travel expenses involved wouldn't make or break the league, they could have drawn in higher calibre imports than the U-23 guys from the agency, and paid reasonable salaries even to younger domestic signings without too much difficulty and with less scope for labour relations strife, but reality has been well short of that so far everywhere except Halifax, unfortuately.

If there's nobody willing to blow well into the tens of millions on this league in multiple cities over the next decade Phil Anshutz style, they will probably have to evolve into something significantly closer to what was envisaged in the Easton Report to survive.

They've already done some of it by moving towards a lower salary budget with more of a U-23 sort of focus than the vision that was originally being peddled but having teams in larger markets playing in CFL stadia with CFL owners running the show makes it difficult to go much further.

Don't think there are any easy answers on this but they will need to find a revised business model that can be rolled out much more easily into mid-sized markets so they can move to a bus travel format that is sustainable in front of smaller crowds than they had originally hoped for in a manner closer to what CEBL have been able to do or the road ahead could be very bumpy.

CEBL ramps up for another summer of success - ON POINT BASKETBALL

The CEBL hopes to be exception to challenging past for Canadian basketball leagues: ‘There’s no fear of failure’ | The Star

According to the CEBL Commissioner, he is saying 16 teams by 2025 in East Central and West divisions.

[Ansem]

1 hour ago, brianjc said:

According to the CEBL Commissioner, he is saying 16 teams by 2025 in East Central and West divisions.

[Watchmen]

4 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

If the CSA had followed the recommendations of the Easton Report the main emphasis in domestic pro league sanctioning terms would have been placed on a mainly U-23 league like PDL that would have revolved around regionalized conferences with bus travel. Not what many people crave emotionally but likely to be highly doable and sustainable and hence relatively low risk.

Except we are getting that league as well - that's the emphasis on the League 1s. Regionalised leagues with a U-23 emphasis. And it's what the country needs as well.

I'm in the camp (still) that I don't think the CPL lasts long term. But, full credit to the owners and individuals attempting to make a go of it. Hope it does work out. And frankly the "but the CEBL is doing this too!" argument doesn't sway me because I'm not sold on that league lasting either.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

2 hours ago, brianjc said:

CEBL ramps up for another summer of success - ON POINT BASKETBALL

The CEBL hopes to be exception to challenging past for Canadian basketball leagues: ‘There’s no fear of failure’ | The Star

According to the CEBL Commissioner, he is saying 16 teams by 2025 in East Central and West divisions.

CEBL probably not an apt comparison, considering salary cap is less than $200,000 and many players play in Europe in the off season. Also most teams are owned by the league. If anything CEBL is closer to Easton's original recommendation

[Unnamed Trialist]

The real question regarding FCE that everyone is missing: Media Pro money is not getting thrown at the clubs. We thought having a supposed multi million per year deal meant that'd make the league viable. Now we see it's not bailout money for individual club owners. 

I actually prefer it to be this way. It suggests another way of managing those assets, and maybe another schedule. Good on the CPL. 

[longlugan]

11 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

If the CSA had followed the recommendations of the Easton Report the main emphasis in domestic pro league sanctioning terms would have been placed on a mainly U-23 league like PDL that would have revolved around regionalized conferences with bus travel. Not what many people crave emotionally but likely to be highly doable and sustainable and hence relatively low risk.

Instead, Bob Young came along with a PanAm games pro soccer legacy pledge to fulfill where the money for THF was concerned and Victor Montagliani was not getting along at all well with MLS, so they shelved the report and pushed the old dream from the 1980s and the CUSL blueprint of having a fully professional soccer clone of the CFL. Great if it works but there is a much higher risk of failure.

If they had managed to average 6500 paid or so consistently from coast-to-coast, the travel expenses involved wouldn't make or break the league, they could have drawn in higher calibre imports than the U-23 guys from the agency, and paid reasonable salaries even to younger domestic signings without too much difficulty and with less scope for labour relations strife, but reality has been well short of that so far everywhere except Halifax, unfortuately.

If there's nobody willing to blow well into the tens of millions on this league in multiple cities over the next decade Phil Anshutz style, they will probably have to evolve into something significantly closer to what was envisaged in the Easton Report to survive.

They've already done some of it by moving towards a lower salary budget with more of a U-23 sort of focus than the vision that was originally being peddled but having teams in larger markets playing in CFL stadia with CFL owners running the show makes it difficult to go much further.

Don't think there are any easy answers on this but they will need to find a revised business model that can be rolled out much more easily into mid-sized markets so they can move to a bus travel format that is sustainable in front of smaller crowds than they had originally hoped for in a manner closer to what CEBL have been able to do or the road ahead could be very bumpy.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You remind me of the propaganda posters I used to see in East Germany whenever I was there. And since you also seem the type to rat out family to the Stasi I'm starting to see where you got your indoctrination methodology from. Never change Ozzball.

[Watchmen]

4 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

The real question regarding FCE that everyone is missing: Media Pro money is not getting thrown at the clubs. We thought having a supposed multi million per year deal meant that'd make the league viable. Now we see it's not bailout money for individual club owners. 

I actually prefer it to be this way. It suggests another way of managing those assets, and maybe another schedule. Good on the CPL. 

Maybe, though I think it implies more that the value of the deal is more "services" than "cash".

But this did get me thinking - the value in MLS isn't in the clubs, it's in SUM.  The CPL has set up a similar arrangement with the CSB.  If the Faths walked away from the club, it also implies that they don't necessarily see the value in CSB long term.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

10 hours ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

CEBL probably not an apt comparison, considering salary cap is less than $200,000 and many players play in Europe in the off season. Also most teams are owned by the league. If anything CEBL is closer to Easton's original recommendation

...that last bit was basically my point. By starting at a more modest and readily sustainable level of operations they have been able to enter markets like the Fraser Valley, Saskatoon, Montreal and St John's more quickly than CanPL has and talk of reaching 16 teams in a few years by filling in the obvious gaps is actually credible in their case.

4 hours ago, Watchmen said:

...If the Faths walked away from the club, it also implies that they don't necessarily see the value in CSB long term.

If anything, Bob Young announcing that Stelco now have 40% of the Forge's CSB share and making it sound like it's the first step to handing over the reins was even more significant given he's the league's founder.

11 hours ago, Watchmen said:

...I'm in the camp (still) that I don't think the CPL lasts long term. But, full credit to the owners and individuals attempting to make a go of it. Hope it does work out...

League launches that ultimately fail spectacularly can poison the wells on other attempts for up to a generation until people finally start to forget what happened the previous time. I'm in the camp of coming down out of the stratosphere, finding an economic model that will actually be sustainable and then sticking with it and letting it grow organically over time. There's still time for CanPL to successfully evolve into that rather than following the CSL's 1987-92 trajectory but after what just happened with Edmonton the clock is very much ticking...

Edited January 5, 2022 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Ansem]

ah yes... this argument again

[Kingston]

On 1/4/2022 at 10:50 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

If they had managed to average 6500 paid or so consistently from coast-to-coast, the travel expenses involved wouldn't make or break the league, they could have drawn in higher calibre imports than the U-23 guys from the agency, and paid reasonable salaries even to younger domestic signings without too much difficulty and with less scope for labour relations strife, but reality has been well short of that so far everywhere except Halifax, unfortuately.

If there's nobody willing to blow well into the tens of millions on this league in multiple cities over the next decade Phil Anshutz style, they will probably have to evolve into something significantly closer to what was envisaged in the Easton Report to survive.

 

As others have pointed out, the Easton Report model is being accomplished with L1O, PLSQ, and L1BC (and hopefully more to come).  That part is actually working out quite well, at least in part, I think, because it is happening fairly organically.

As you point out, the CPL teams need to draw 6500 or so to survive long term.  Maybe as low as 5000 under certain circumstances and if CSB has real value.  I'm not sure it is travel costs that would really sink the league, though.  It's going to be the ability to pay players enough to make it worth while.  They need to make at least enough to live while they pursue their soccer dreams.  There's a reason a lot of the better young players are willing to ride the bench at the Canadian MLS teams rather than play in the CPL.  The CPL will need to at least double its cap, and I don't see how it can do that unless they figure out how to get the attendance levels up substantially.

[Aird25]

2 hours ago, Kingston said:

 

As others have pointed out, the Easton Report model is being accomplished with L1O, PLSQ, and L1BC (and hopefully more to come).  That part is actually working out quite well, at least in part, I think, because it is happening fairly organically.

As you point out, the CPL teams need to draw 6500 or so to survive long term.  Maybe as low as 5000 under certain circumstances and if CSB has real value.  I'm not sure it is travel costs that would really sink the league, though.  It's going to be the ability to pay players enough to make it worth while.  They need to make at least enough to live while they pursue their soccer dreams.  There's a reason a lot of the better young players are willing to ride the bench at the Canadian MLS teams rather than play in the CPL.  The CPL will need to at least double its cap, and I don't see how it can do that unless they figure out how to get the attendance levels up substantially.

Anyone that can earn a better contract in another league should, if CPL is not providing liveable salaries for all their players. The sample size may be minute but CPL exports to date haven't done anyone favours. They've been pretty dire as far as I can tell, and this really hamstrings salary discussions

Edit: People just need to watch the league. If that doesn't happen we're doomed. It's all pretty simple.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Aird25

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

13 hours ago, Kingston said:

...As others have pointed out, the Easton Report model is being accomplished with L1O, PLSQ, and L1BC (and hopefully more to come).  That part is actually working out quite well, at least in part, I think, because it is happening fairly organically...

None of these leagues have a specific U-23 focus as far as I'm aware. They are largely local in scope to Metro Vancouver, the GTA and the Montreal area and are primarily a vehicle for enabling suburban youth clubs to sideline ethnic clubs by implementing a franchise format rather than simply using pro/rel.

CanPL likes to talk up the role of these leagues but with the obvious exception of what the Smyrniotis brothers achieved with Sigma, it's mainly the three MLS academies that are doing the heavy lifting on pro level player development and that's likely to continue given the way CanPL is very much in Brentford mode at the moment.

The actual obvious parallel with the Easton Report recommendations would have been with USL League Two which was formerly called PDL and the short summer season collegiate league approach from baseball that it emulates. That league has been actively sidelined in sanctioning terms in southern Ontario and Quebec and now presumably will be in BC as well.

CEBL is basically a slightly souped up version of PDL's business model marketed as a national pro league. Would be great if CanPL's initial business model would work, but if the cold hard reality is that it's not going to, a downsizing to another more sustainable format along those sorts of lines would be preferrable to an outright death spiral.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[ted]

9 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

... it's mainly the three MLS academies that are doing the heavy lifting on pro level player development and that's likely to continue given the way CanPL is very much in Brentford mode at the moment.

See this is why you annoy people. Statements like this that would be understandable from someone who literally just "discovered" professional soccer in Canada but seem to be purposely obtuse and sometimes trolling coming from a long-standing participant.

Of COURSE the MLS academies are, "doing the heavy lifting" because that is what they were created to do and they have been operating in one form or another for over a decade. The CanPL has been added to the mix only recently and has not had time to do ANY "lifting" given they started up and then the next two years were in pandemic-survival mode. League One level is almost entirely amateur and will never do any, "heavy lifting" unless that changes.

Player development is a long-term project involving building an interconnected network. I would think you should know that since I'm pretty sure ten years (or more) ago you made the same arguments but about how MLS teams weren't doing enough for development.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

2 minutes ago, ted said:

...League One level is almost entirely amateur and will never do any, "heavy lifting" unless that changes...

One word, Sigma.

[Watchmen]

12 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

The actual obvious parallel with the Easton Report recommendations would have been with USL League Two which was formerly called PDL and the short summer season collegiate league approach from baseball that it emulates. That league has been actively sidelined in sanctioning terms in southern Ontario and Quebec and now presumably will be in BC as well.

Which top players have come through the PDL system? And the PDL in Canada was based largely on similar metro areas that the L1 cover. Exceptions, of course. But in BC the PDL was in Victoria, Burnaby, and Abbotsford. L1 covers the same territory plus adds Kamloops.

[ted]

3 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

One word, Sigma.

Not amateur and not terribly relevant to the point about MLS clubs carrying more than their share of the burden according to you. If anything it undermines your thesis. LOL

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

17 hours ago, Watchmen said:

Which top players have come through the PDL system? And the PDL in Canada was based largely on similar metro areas that the L1 cover. Exceptions, of course. But in BC the PDL was in Victoria, Burnaby, and Abbotsford. L1 covers the same territory plus adds Kamloops.

Who said anything about top players? My point was related to pro player development and that covers CanPL as things stand at the moment in a Canadian context. CanPL is doing a Brentford by not investing in academies so the status quo scenario of the three MLS academies doing most of the heavy lifting on developing players that sign fully pro contracts in CanPL is likely to continue.

Sigma is an outlier in terms of what the D3 sanctioned leagues have been able to provide in that context precisely because they also have run a successful elite academy format that attracted a lot of the top prospects from across the GTA and gave them the best possible level of coaching:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_FC

That's something the GTA suburban youth clubs that pull the OSA's strings were not at all keen on and from what I remember they have actively tried to block elite academies like Sigma from ever getting into the Ontario Player Development League.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Soccer_Association#Ontario_Player_Development_League

Having clarified the context a bit let's wind things back to PDL. An obvious example of a Canadian NCAA scholarship player who used playing PDL (with FC London which is why I remember) as a summer job on the way to playing fully pro is Carl Haworth. One full CMNT cap along the way and mentioned on here recently as a possibility for Atletico Ottawa next season now that he is no longer with Indy Eleven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Haworth

FC London were eventually forced to join L1O and that has led to a substantial drop in spectator interest as far as I am aware (working away from London, Ont these days but plan to return) because games against a series of GTA suburban clubs are not as easy to market as PDL games were previously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_London

In contrast, no effort was made to force the Thunder Bay Chill to do the same:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Bay_Chill

because they are simply way too far away for players with regular jobs and family commitments to travel there for a regular season game in the context of a conventional open age format D3 pro-am league centred on Toronto like L1O.

The key to USL League Two and CEBL's short summer season format is you can persuade a bunch of college/university kids to move out from major metropolitan areas to smaller cities for a summer job where they can actually draw a crowd. They also have the time on their hands to do the 10+ hour bus trips that junior hockey teams also do with student athletes.

This helps to make a continental regional conference format leagues viable in front of relatively small crowds. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USL_League_Two

Lower salaries + lower travel costs = actually sustainable = no need for another 1992 CSL death spiral

Edited January 7, 2022 by Ozzie_the_parrot