CPL TV Contract

[yellowsweatygorilla]

5 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

 

It also mentions that they currently have the league rights in relatively small markets, if that were a doubt, like Slovenia, Kenya, Angola, Bolivia, so they seem to be willing to work with more modest scales along with heftier ones. 

In case people are curious about the production value in the broadcast of these leagues:

Slovenia (please note: commentary was fan added):

Kenya:

Bolivia:

Angola:

 

[Kent]

6 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

If you look at the press release calculating 2000 games, right now we are looking at something like 150 games a year in CPL (I have not done the exact numbers). So they are calculating that on the basis of more teams, effectively an average of over 12 teams . Unless Ontario L10 is part of that, because MNT would only be a dozen a year if that. 

Your estimates are a bit off. For year 1 there will be 98 CPL regular season games. With a 12 team league, if it's still a 28 game season it would be 168 games. To get to over 200 games a season, assuming 28 per team, you would need 15 teams.

But yeah, the deal also includes CMNT, CWNT, and Voyageurs Cup games. I'm not sure if L1O is included in their number above. Last year L1O men's division played 136 games. The women's division played 78. Plus cup games, and playoff to see who goes to Voyageurs Cup. So that's already solidly over 200 games a year, so you could get 2000 just with L1O by itself if they are doing every game.

[dyslexic nam]

13 minutes ago, BuzzAndSting said:

That’s all speculation and opinion, who knows what will happen down the road.

Yeah, with the info we have, it is impossible to know what would be more economical from a broadcaster's perspective - buying a ready-to-air product from mediaPRO for a higher price, or having to produce the product in-house from the ground up.  Economics aside, the former option certainly seems like a simpler path for any broadcaster that think the potential viewership warrants the cost. 

In the end, this may or may not get a lot of games on TSN or Sportsnet, but it is impossible for someone without huge inside knowledge to say that it won't be a good opportunity for those channels - and other potential broadcasters.

[Tigers]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Usually the league would decide on what clubs get. There would, first, be a minimum for each, annually. Then, in function of what viewer ratings are, they could be scaled, as happens in all leagues in the world (except maybe a place like China, though I do not know). But that may take until a second year to determine who rates higher and gets a higher coefficient in tv rights payments. Right now, what club would be the biggest tv draw? I believe this: if there were a team in Montreal/Laval next year, that team would likely be #1, as it would most clearly corner a large, specifically defined market. 

Otherwise, if a club wants a bigger share of tv rights, it would have to do any of a few things: be a winner; have some higher profile players; have a great home atmosphere; create narratives that attract audiences (the old Cinderella story, for example). Those things may also cost more to a team, as it tries to merit a greater tv right cut.

Is this actually normal?  I don't know anything about soccer deals, but I'm quite sure the CFL is split equally 10 ways regardless of ratings. (9 teams + league)

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Remember that as the league adds teams, the relative % going to any one club would actually decrease over the years, so that if you don't want to do that, you have to reserve for later years. 

I'd assume there a clauses laying out exactly what happens as teams are added, that would have been agreed upon,  so I don't think this aspect is anything to worry about. 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Tigers said:

Is this actually normal?  I don't know anything about soccer deals, but I'm quite sure the CFL is split equally 10 ways regardless of ratings. (9 teams + league)

I'd assume there a clauses laying out exactly what happens as teams are added, that would have been agreed upon,  so I don't think this aspect is anything to worry about. 

My guess is that the $200m will not be $20m per year for 10 years, but more like $10-15m in year one and increasing each following year to a total of $200m over the 10 years.

[Unnamed Trialist]

17 minutes ago, Tigers said:

Is this actually normal?  I don't know anything about soccer deals, but I'm quite sure the CFL is split equally 10 ways regardless of ratings. (9 teams + league)

Well I have no problem with splitting tv deals almost equally, especially in a league like CPL. I seriously doubt we are going to be in a situation where one team is massively more followed than the rest.

The thing is: if a team finds that for some reason its games get bigger audiences, which means it is contributing more to any revenue streams (advertising mostly), it could legitimately request to get a bigger cut. Or: you could decide that being watchable is actually a virtue of the club, on or off the field, and should be rewarded. Like by applying modest incentives based on such "performance". 

[ted]

31 minutes ago, dsqpr said:

My guess is that the $200m will not be $20m per year for 10 years, but more like $10-15m in year one and increasing each following year to a total of $200m over the 10 years.

Could be. My source was being cagey and I got no details beyond the $$ amount which I understood was "the deal" for the CanPL. 

I'm just sitting here in Victoria stunned by the size, scope, and partner of the deal, after already being floored by the signing of Marcel de Jong.

If this doesn't shut up the doubters, they are just trolls.

[Vince193]

my only worry is MediaPro doesn't seem very above board in how they operate here, but really that's par for the course in this part of the world when it comes to soccer. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/florida-media-company-pleads-guilty-bribing-soccer-officials-spanish-parent-company

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by Vince193

[Unnamed Trialist]

12 minutes ago, Vince193 said:

my only worry is MediaPro doesn't seem very above board in how they operate here, but really that's par for the course in this part of the world when it comes to soccer. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/florida-media-company-pleads-guilty-bribing-soccer-officials-spanish-parent-company

 

Good find, that really stinks. I was looking at names and see the exec in charge of Canada operations is not mentioned. 

Are you suggesting that Media PRO won the CPL contract by bribing officials at the CSA or the CSB entity linked to CPL? Or that there may be a culture of kickbacks involved?

[ted]

8 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Or that there may be a culture of kickbacks involved?

Football + Caribbean = Corruption

It's like you have forgotten Jack Warner already. LOL

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

1 hour ago, ted said:

...I'm just sitting here in Victoria stunned by the size, scope, and partner of the deal, after already being floored by the signing of Marcel de Jong.

If this doesn't shut up the doubters, they are just trolls.

If Mediapro are on the hook to produce live broadcasts of every CanPL game for ten years at their expense that in and of itself is a win for the league given the expenses that would be involved in doing that themselves. What people have been questioning in this thread is the idea that the CanPL teams have upwards of $2 million coming their way each season in the form of a rights fee.

Edited February 21, 2019 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Shway]

Im happy with the media deal, and the revenue and professionalism it brings to the league. 

... But what i want to know is will fans be able to watch these games on TV? I hate streaming matches or the process to get  a stream on a TV. 

[Tigers]

It's pretty easy with a chromecast.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

4 minutes ago, Jahinho Guerro said:

... But what i want to know is will fans be able to watch these games on TV? I hate streaming matches or the process to get  a stream on a TV. 

The details are unclear at this point, but judging from the press releases and newspaper articles they seem to be pushing a new 7 days a week Canadian soccer channel with both games and news/documentary type content that would be on a webstream app that fans would have to subscribe to in order to access all of the content.

Edited February 21, 2019 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Ansem]

17 hours ago, matty said:

I don't know whether that fee will be big enough to counter the yearly loss like if it's 50/50 now between cpl and csa and each team gets $1.2m (as the league saves $1.5m a year) it wouldn't take long for that amount to be $500k a team if expansion is aggressive (as chan likes to predict). live numbers will need to be strong to justify charging say $2m expansion fees because it sounds like they might not have much control over ad revenue

I agree the league won't be crap long and fury better give a timeline

One thing that wouldn't shock is if this actually slows expansion

Maybe I wasn't too far off saying that this deal just increased the expansions fees. 

That also makes sense that the expansion fees rises as those getting in gets a piece of that revenue while the original teams cash in on expansion checks which helps compensate the decrease in media rights revenue as the league increases in size.

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by Ansem

[Rocket Robin]

18 hours ago, lazlo_80 said:

Didn’t hear the presser but this article is an interesting read and has all sorts of details.  Sounds like they also get rights to league 1 Ontario games too. 

 

Last season all L1O games were captured on video on downloaded within a day or two and watchable for free on You Tube.  The production mostly was a single camcorder on a pole operated like a submarine periscope with just person tilting the angle and silence except for crowd noise.  Maybe one or two games per weekend were broadcast live with a single commentator like Gavin Day reading from the roster sheets.  No possibility of replays of the goals nor slow-mo nor zoom-in (however I could just mouse click back a minute in the video and replay the goal on my computer).  

Sounds like production will really pick up HOWEVER the league did show the full video of all games which with men's and women's teams added up came to maybe 20 per weekend.  I can't see big production trucks covering the games in great detail for decades if ever.      

[Ansem]

33 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

If Mediapro are on the hook to produce live broadcasts of every CanPL game for ten years at their expense that in and of itself is a win for the league given the expenses that would be involved in doing that themselves. What people have been questioning in this thread is the idea that the CanPL teams have upwards of $2 million coming their way each season in the form of a rights fee.

Why is that thought so unbelievable? That's how it usually works in terms of media rights. Why would Canada be the only sport jurisdiction where media fees don't go to clubs or only pocket change trickle down to them?

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

See the Bobby McMahon tweet above.

[Ansem]

2 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

See the Bobby McMahon tweet above.

He doesn't know the details either. He was asking Schaad on Twitter about the details which Schaad confirms were fees not "added value".

So the league is getting cash.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Ansem

[yellowsweatygorilla]

9 minutes ago, Rocket Robin said:

Last season all L1O games were captured on video on downloaded within a day or two and watchable for free on You Tube.  The production mostly was a single camcorder on a pole operated like a submarine periscope with just person tilting the angle and silence except for crowd noise.  Maybe one or two games per weekend were broadcast live with a single commentator like Gavin Day reading from the roster sheets.  No possibility of replays of the goals nor slow-mo nor zoom-in (however I could just mouse click back a minute in the video and replay the goal on my computer).  

Sounds like production will really pick up HOWEVER the league did show the full video of all games which with men's and women's teams added up came to maybe 20 per weekend.  I can't see big production trucks covering the games in great detail for decades if ever.      

I've just been calling for/hoping they'd put together regular highlight packages ... not just random player skills/goal highlights, but game highlights, so that we can actually follow the narrative of the competition.

[johnyb]

17 hours ago, matty said:

the deal is not all CPL's also as expansion happens that amount will drop greatly once you reach 16 teams before the deal expires

Any future expansion fees will take this into account. That's why I have no issue with Ottawa joining in future years. Surely the cost to join just went up.

[mpg_29]

Why do people keep bringing up expansion fees? I didn't think CPL was a franchise-based league...

[KW519]

Why are there expansion fees? Does any league in the world other than MLS charge expansion fees? 

[dyslexic nam]

1 minute ago, KW519 said:

Why are there expansion fees? Does any league in the world other than MLS charge expansion fees? 

No, but that is usually under a pro/rel regime where teams start at the bottom and earn their way to the top.  In the absence of a pro/rel structure, it is hard to say if anyone can just pull up a chair and join the league, or if the kinds of investment we are seeing warrants some sort of fee.  If I was one of the 7 founding clubs taking the risk, and Ottawa approached wanting 1/8 the investment money (thereby reducing my share) after they have clearly and explicitly sat on the sidelines to avoid that risk, I might be annoyed if they got a free pass into the league.

[Unnamed Trialist]

4 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Why do people keep bringing up expansion fees? I didn't think CPL was a franchise-based league...

I agree.

I mean, it is true a new team should buy in relatively similar terms to the founding clubs. But if it is in all teams' interest to get up to  a minimum D1 number, say 12, or 14, then you are not going to start behaving like a trust and force new clubs to do anything excessive. 

Mind you, one thing makes sense: with this tv deal, you say to potential ownership groups, "okay, if you get in for 2020, or 2021 at the latest, your fee is significantly lower than what we might consider later." Use it as leverage to get proposals moving. I am sure it already has had this effect.