CPL General

[harrycoyster]

29 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

Forgive me for struggling to transition away from the completely opposing topic of the week (owners of CPL clubs funneling money from a non-profit organization) towards this completely flipped perspective, but why does every CPL detractor point towards MLS as their shining star? As far as I can tell most MLS clubs still lose substantially more money every season than all the CPL clubs combined. There must be better models we can look at, unless sports teams aren't always about making money?

Regardless, CPL is growing, there are teams waiting in the wings to join, existing owners are starting new teams, and infrastructure is being improved in several markets this offseason. 

We already have Div 3 teams and MLS Next teams for investors interested. It's mad to say there's no upside to the product or fan experience by having teams in Halifax, Victoria, Calgary etc. These are some of our best markets. 

Taking into account franchise worth, there isn't a team in MLS that isn't generating tens of millions of dollars a year. MLS teams that were worth $100mil ten years ago sell for $400mil now. That's because at any point MLS teams could curtail spending and make millions a year. The teams don't do that because their yearly losses are creating long-term value. Billionaires are okay with losing $5mil a season on operations if the team will be worth $100mil more in ten years.

Outside of the cozy feeling of being a coast-to-coast league, Victoria is a negative for the league in every economic sense. The per game ticket sales don't cover the teams' travel let alone salaries. The fact that Pacific was going to be a money pit was obvious to anybody with knowledge of the Whitecaps II's books. If Langley isn't a success, both teams are gone in three years (fwiw I think Langley will draw).

31 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

but agree that they went for the wrong economic model and should have worked cooperatively with MLS rather than viewing it as the enemy.

I can't imagine anybody involved that is speaking honestly wouldn't admit this.

[SthMelbRed]

Fuck me! He's actually found himself a friend.

[narduch]

One thing I don't get if Pacific is such a money suck why would you go ahead and buy a 2nd team?

[EnigMattic1]

45 minutes ago, narduch said:

One thing I don't get if Pacific is such a money suck why would you go ahead and buy a 2nd team?

At the risk of sounding clueless (it is probably a few pages back), what 2nd team?

[Kingston]

2 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

At the risk of sounding clueless (it is probably a few pages back), what 2nd team?

Vancouver FC

[narduch]

6 minutes ago, EnigMattic1 said:

At the risk of sounding clueless (it is probably a few pages back), what 2nd team?

Pacific's owners also own Vancouver CPL team.

If Pacific was such a failure why double down?

A few posts up Harry is stating Pacific losing tons of money 

Edited February 17, 2023 by narduch

[Kingston]

1 hour ago, harrycoyster said:

Outside of the cozy feeling of being a coast-to-coast league, Victoria is a negative for the league in every economic sense. The per game ticket sales don't cover the teams' travel let alone salaries. The fact that Pacific was going to be a money pit was obvious to anybody with knowledge of the Whitecaps II's books. If Langley isn't a success, both teams are gone in three years (fwiw I think Langley will draw).

Question: Is there some reason you mention Victoria specifically?  Their attendance is about the same as Calgary, Hamilton, and Winnipeg.

[harrycoyster]

Just now, Kingston said:

Question: Is there some reason you mention Victoria specifically?  Their attendance is about the same as Calgary, Hamilton, and Winnipeg.

It's just the situation I'm the most familiar with since I spent some time around BC soccer suits before moving to work in the NCAA system. It also happens to be the most expensive flight for the eastern teams.

Attendance numbers can be misleading as almost every team outside Edmonton was moving gate through giveaways and discounts last year. Pacific's paid ticket attendance was under 3k last season. That's standard procedure in all of North American soccer, but it's more significant when attendance is low to begin with.

[Unnamed Trialist]

21 minutes ago, harrycoyster said:

It's just the situation I'm the most familiar with since I spent some time around BC soccer suits before moving to work in the NCAA system. It also happens to be the most expensive flight for the eastern teams.

Attendance numbers can be misleading as almost every team outside Edmonton was moving gate through giveaways and discounts last year. Pacific's paid ticket attendance was under 3k last season. That's standard procedure in all of North American soccer, but it's more significant when attendance is low to begin with.

So you are saying you worked at Moore's on the Granville Mall, congrats. And that is why you have such a powerful perception of how the team in Victoria is doing.

[Aird25]

3 hours ago, harrycoyster said:

Pacific's paid ticket attendance was under 3k last season.

I'm skeptical of that. I don't recall many giveaways last season, unless it was for youth players (maybe a match or two) but it's still significantly higher than Whitecaps 2 ever had, even at the best of times, and tickets aren't given away to other season ticket holders or sold for $10. You also have to account for all the ticket holders that don't go to every game (which I imagine is quite a few based on my experience). Isn't there also the added revenue streams outside of gate in terms of sponsorships (big talking point lately), broadcast, and player sales (approx. half of player salaries last season) etc.

Has the CPL franchise worth also not grown?

4 hours ago, narduch said:

If Pacific was such a failure why double down?

And continue to improve the stadium, training facilities, and 5 aside infrastructure in the city.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Aird25

[EnigMattic1]

1 hour ago, Kingston said:

Vancouver FC

 

1 hour ago, narduch said:

Pacific's owners also own Vancouver CPL team.

If Pacific was such a failure why double down?

A few posts up Harry is stating Pacific losing tons of money 

Yeah, it was me being dumb. I knew about them and Vancouver having the same owners, I was thinking they had done something else like buying an affiliate or something like that.🤦‍♂️

[Kingston]

48 minutes ago, harrycoyster said:

Attendance numbers can be misleading as almost every team outside Edmonton was moving gate through giveaways and discounts last year. Pacific's paid ticket attendance was under 3k last season. That's standard procedure in all of North American soccer, but it's more significant when attendance is low to begin with.

Their reported average attendance last year was 3176 (interestingly, this was exactly the same as the league's overall average).  So, sure, it wouldn't take much in the way of freebies to drop their paid attendance below 3000.

Since none of us have any information on paid versus distributed tickets, I prefer just to look at the attendance numbers as presented.  The key thing is whether the numbers are going up and how quickly as most CPL teams need to increase their attendance to achieve sustainability. 

I'm very interested in this year's numbers as a second consecutive season where covid isn't totally messing things up.  I think we'll know a lot by the end of this season about which teams are on track and which aren't.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Kingston

[An Observer]

Personally, I think HFX is the only club that has hit on the sustainable model. Small intimate stadium, centrally located, close to bars for pre and post game, and that they fill most matches which creates an atmosphere plus the ticket scarcity that feeds it.  Others (eg Pacific, Calgary) have small stadiums but not centrally located; or some that are fairly centrally located but large and as such little atmosphere (eg Hamilton, Ottawa).  I am interested to see if Vancouver can make it work in the burbs to see if there is another model for the 3 big cities (clearly York hasn’t but may give them hope for Woodbine). At the end of the day, I think in 10 years the vast majority of surviving clubs will be clustered around the HFX model (and possibly the VFC model if it works) even if that means more failures like FC Edmonton that may need to sit out a few years before new owners are found to invest in a centrally located modular stadium. I am sure it will be a somewhat painful process as the MLS found in the early going but hopefully they get there.  Honestly, I would take 8 HFX’s if that is all we could get in Canada over 10-14 of an extension of the current hodgepodge of mediocre business models. 

Edited February 18, 2023 by An Observer

[ted]

30 minutes ago, An Observer said:

Personally, I think HFX is the only club that has hit on the sustainable model. Small intimate stadium, centrally located, close to bars for pre and post game...

I will never not boost this idea. It is THE ONLY WAY to achieve independent sustainability long-term IMO. To be fair, the CFL/CanPL combo is a close second that MAY end up working long-term.

 

[Watchmen]

14 hours ago, ted said:

I will never not boost this idea. It is THE ONLY WAY to achieve independent sustainability long-term IMO. To be fair, the CFL/CanPL combo is a close second that MAY end up working long-term.

 

100% agree, but as @An Observerpoints out that's not quite the direction CPL is going.  They're hitting on a few of the key features but not all of them, and they're locking in to it long-term.

[m-g-williams]

18 hours ago, An Observer said:

Personally, I think HFX is the only club that has hit on the sustainable model. Small intimate stadium, centrally located, close to bars for pre and post game, and that they fill most matches which creates an atmosphere plus the ticket scarcity that feeds it.  Others (eg Pacific, Calgary) have small stadiums but not centrally located; or some that are fairly centrally located but large and as such little atmosphere (eg Hamilton, Ottawa).  I am interested to see if Vancouver can make it work in the burbs to see if there is another model for the 3 big cities (clearly York hasn’t but may give them hope for Woodbine). At the end of the day, I think in 10 years the vast majority of surviving clubs will be clustered around the HFX model (and possibly the VFC model if it works) even if that means more failures like FC Edmonton that may need to sit out a few years before new owners are found to invest in a centrally located modular stadium. I am sure it will be a somewhat painful process as the MLS found in the early going but hopefully they get there.  Honestly, I would take 8 HFX’s if that is all we could get in Canada over 10-14 of an extension of the current hodgepodge of mediocre business models. 

As a multi-year season ticket holder, I can assure you that the atmosphere for Atletico Ottawa is top notch. It's honestly better now than it ever was with the Ottawa Fury. 

When it comes to stadia, bigger doesn't always mean badder (I know the right word is "worse", but come on - alliteration). 

[Ftduck]

1 hour ago, m-g-williams said:

As a multi-year season ticket holder, I can assure you that the atmosphere for Atletico Ottawa is top notch. It's honestly better now than it ever was with the Ottawa Fury. 

When it comes to stadia, bigger doesn't always mean badder (I know the right word is "worse", but come on - alliteration). 

Hamilton too. A little lack luster when only 3000 in attendance but when it gets to 5000ish it gets electric. 

[DoyleG]

7 hours ago, m-g-williams said:

As a multi-year season ticket holder, I can assure you that the atmosphere for Atletico Ottawa is top notch. It's honestly better now than it ever was with the Ottawa Fury. 

When it comes to stadia, bigger doesn't always mean badder (I know the right word is "worse", but come on - alliteration). 

The main thing being that its location more than makes up for the size. Along with the fact that one has a team that even a casual fan can really cheer for.

The games that I've attended in Winnipeg have that potential as well when you have a couple of thousand more people. You aren't that far from the playing field.

Victoria has always had a good atmosphere. The comment of it not being "centrally located" is rather misleading. The Westshore communities have a population level not far from Victoria's itself (Saanich is the biggest in the CRD). I had no issues travelling for games there by bus for either Pacific or when the Highlanders played there. Victoria hasn't been viewed as being sport friendly in it's own right, which is much why you won't be seeing RAP playing a role in the future.

The same can be said for Calgary, which has also done a good job in getting the support out. Spruce Meadows is a well known name in Calgary even if you don't follow soccer or equestrian. Much like Victoria, Calgary isn't going to be friendly to sports needs given how the council has treated the whole Flames arena situation.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by DoyleG

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

 

[Kingston]

On 2/18/2023 at 3:36 PM, m-g-williams said:

As a multi-year season ticket holder, I can assure you that the atmosphere for Atletico Ottawa is top notch. It's honestly better now than it ever was with the Ottawa Fury. 

When it comes to stadia, bigger doesn't always mean badder (I know the right word is "worse", but come on - alliteration). 

Having been to a number of games in Ottawa, I agree.  I was actually very pleasantly surprised how good an atmosphere the stadium has with a crowd that is far from capacity for that venue.  I was expecting a cavernous feeling but that was not it at all.

So there can be successful alternatives to the Halifax model if everything lines up.  Overall, however, if I was starting a CPL team, I'd be looking at Halifax's approach, for sure.  It is, to continue your grammatical slant, a gooder option.

[Kent]

On 2/17/2023 at 12:28 PM, harrycoyster said:

I can't imagine anybody involved that is speaking honestly wouldn't admit this.

Do you really think it's impossible for people to honestly think it might be a bad idea to replace Pacific FC (3,176 average attendance last year), Cavalry (3,492), Valour (3,111) and the upcoming Vancouver FC team, with TFC II (from what I can find online, 0 attendance last year?), and Montreal II (which didn't exist from 2015 to 2021, and joined PLSQ last season)?

Montreal didn't even have a team to put in the league, and TFC didn't even want to put their 2nd team in, but rather their highest level youth team. So then you have 2 teams drawing far fewer fans than York and Edmonton drew, and that makes up a 3rd of your now 6 team league. No doubt that would also lower the value of any sponsorship deals the league has gotten thus far. I doubt the reserve teams would raise the attendance of the non-reserve teams in the league. Costs cut, sure, but revenue cut as well likely.

You can have your opinion. But don't try to claim that everybody must secretly share the same opinion.

[MM3/MM2/MM]

38 minutes ago, Kent said:

Do you really think it's impossible for people to honestly think it might be a bad idea to replace Pacific FC (3,176 average attendance last year), Cavalry (3,492), Valour (3,111) and the upcoming Vancouver FC team, with TFC II (from what I can find online, 0 attendance last year?), and Montreal II (which didn't exist from 2015 to 2021, and joined PLSQ last season)?

Montreal didn't even have a team to put in the league, and TFC didn't even want to put their 2nd team in, but rather their highest level youth team. So then you have 2 teams drawing far fewer fans than York and Edmonton drew, and that makes up a 3rd of your now 6 team league. No doubt that would also lower the value of any sponsorship deals the league has gotten thus far. I doubt the reserve teams would raise the attendance of the non-reserve teams in the league. Costs cut, sure, but revenue cut as well likely.

You can have your opinion. But don't try to claim that everybody must secretly share the same opinion.

Agree that take on the CPL is one of the worst I've seen on here, no understanding of the importance and impact of the CPL on soccer in Canada with much more to come.    I was telling a friend who is into soccer and somewhat ATO, that by 2030 (and definitely 2034) it is probably that at least half of the players on the CMNT will have played in the CPL.

[Ed_S]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:24 PM, An Observer said:

Personally, I think HFX is the only club that has hit on the sustainable model. Small intimate stadium, centrally located, close to bars for pre and post game, and that they fill most matches which creates an atmosphere plus the ticket scarcity that feeds it.  Others (eg Pacific, Calgary) have small stadiums but not centrally located; or some that are fairly centrally located but large and as such little atmosphere (eg Hamilton, Ottawa).  I am interested to see if Vancouver can make it work in the burbs to see if there is another model for the 3 big cities (clearly York hasn’t but may give them hope for Woodbine). At the end of the day, I think in 10 years the vast majority of surviving clubs will be clustered around the HFX model (and possibly the VFC model if it works) even if that means more failures like FC Edmonton that may need to sit out a few years before new owners are found to invest in a centrally located modular stadium. I am sure it will be a somewhat painful process as the MLS found in the early going but hopefully they get there.  Honestly, I would take 8 HFX’s if that is all we could get in Canada over 10-14 of an extension of the current hodgepodge of mediocre business models. 

I'm originally from Ottawa and their stadium is about as centrally located as you can get. 

[shermanator]

On 2/17/2023 at 7:24 PM, An Observer said:

Personally, I think HFX is the only club that has hit on the sustainable model. Small intimate stadium, centrally located, close to bars for pre and post game, and that they fill most matches which creates an atmosphere plus the ticket scarcity that feeds it.  Others (eg Pacific, Calgary) have small stadiums but not centrally located; or some that are fairly centrally located but large and as such little atmosphere (eg Hamilton, Ottawa).  I am interested to see if Vancouver can make it work in the burbs to see if there is another model for the 3 big cities (clearly York hasn’t but may give them hope for Woodbine). At the end of the day, I think in 10 years the vast majority of surviving clubs will be clustered around the HFX model (and possibly the VFC model if it works) even if that means more failures like FC Edmonton that may need to sit out a few years before new owners are found to invest in a centrally located modular stadium. I am sure it will be a somewhat painful process as the MLS found in the early going but hopefully they get there.  Honestly, I would take 8 HFX’s if that is all we could get in Canada over 10-14 of an extension of the current hodgepodge of mediocre business models. 

Halifax looks great on paper because you see sold out stands with people buying dirt cheap tickets and think that it's a cash cow that will forever be the envy of the league. The issue with Halifax sustainability wise is that there is little opportunity for revenue growth in their current situation, outside of raising ticket prices or new sponsorships. How do you improve the club's financial situation to keep up with increasing player salaries, travel costs and other inflationary pressures? What happens if people stop showing up because Halifax doesn't win for yet another year? What you have with Halifax right now is as good as it's going to get, until you build a new stadium to get more people into the stands. That bottom line deteriorates over time.

Speaking to the stadium point, centrally located stadiums are significantly more expensive to build, or require partnerships that see the club not receive all the money spent on the product they put out. It's fine if you have the money to light on fire to build a new centrally located stadium, but we've seen in this country that people with a lot of money either don't want to spend that kind of money, or want public money to build those stadiums. Wouldn't you rather be a club that owns your stadium and gets every penny through the door, albeit in a less desirable location? 

I would argue that Cavalry are the club that's actually sustainable. Smaller crowds and less desirable stadium, but that smaller crowd spends a lot more per game and Cavalry get every penny through the door. They are the only club growing their attendance from year 1 by any real margin and still have lots of room to grow in the stands. 

[Big_M]

Hfx wasnt even at full capacity having around 5800 in a 6500 so still room for more...and missing in there is you likely have more merchandise sale than the one who gets 2000 less in attendance...and when you see their plans for u18-23 programs you know its doing well financially...anyway new stadium time is coming pretty soon for them and it will probably be around 10k capacity

Do we have numbers of who spends what per game? Would be nice to see