Ottawa CPL Club

[Cblake]

2 hours ago, Ansem said:

The podcast I posted earlier also said the same.

https://amp.reddit.com/r/CanadianPL/comments/9f1zf3/lcrv_159_fury_speculation_cpl_state_of_the_league/?__twitter_impression=true

Fury gambled that they could get in the league while stacking up all the best Canadian talents outside of top leagues and run with the CPL trophy (maybe). I'm surprised that CPL was willing to let them do that for year 1, but perpetuity? No way that would have made sense.

If the Fury gave them multi-year contracts, then they screwed themselves and might have ended up overpaying some of them. Even with all that spending, look where they are in the standings... Not really impressive.

Nothing wrong at making that gamble, but to me, the Fury are the inflexible party here and on top of that, messing up with the league's launch by having drones leaking numbers on line...This lowers the league's bargaining power.

I'm a broken record in regards to the Fury, but MLS didn't put up with a fraction of that in regards to the NY Cosmos. Clanachan talking multiple groups for Ottawa is a severe warning or threat.

I wonder if the Fury will still be at the table in CPL league meeting, just so if they do make the change the can hit the ground running , have a good understanding of the league. I assume they have until this point?

[Ansem]

1 hour ago, Cblake said:

I wonder if the Fury will still be at the table in CPL league meeting, just so if they do make the change the can hit the ground running , have a good understanding of the league. I assume they have until this point?

Personally, I think they burned their bridge with the league.

One thing successful leagues have in common is that ownership are all on the same page with the commissioner representing them. OSEG are not on the same page as the rest of CPL. When that happen, successful leagues keeps them out (NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL, name them). Allowing an ownership group like that among your group runs the risk of drama and being torn apart from the inside.

Who wants CSL 2.0?

I don't

 

[Keegan]

Take it for what it’s worth but I’ve heard that even some of the more prominent Fury players want out to the CPL if the numbers can work.

[Cblake]

6 hours ago, Ansem said:

It's the best course of action. It helps the league's bargaining power. Hence why people linked to the Fury front office leaking numbers was a huge mistake which must have made the league livid.

Very unprofessional behavior

The salary number will have to be available in some form by at least the Open Trials period as players and especially agents will have to know the lay of the land in evaluating their playing opportunities. Honestly if an agent is talking to a head coach even at this point there is no way he would not know something. 

[Complete Homer]

2 hours ago, Cblake said:

The salary number will have to be available in some form by at least the Open Trials period as players and especially agents will have to know the lay of the land in evaluating their playing opportunities. Honestly if an agent is talking to a head coach even at this point there is no way he would not know something. 

Right but realistically those trialists, unless a few happen to be out of contract pros, are going to get offers at league minimum. That wouldn't reveal a whole lot about the overall expenditure 

[1996]

5 hours ago, Cblake said:

I wonder if the Fury will still be at the table in CPL league meeting, just so if they do make the change the can hit the ground running , have a good understanding of the league. I assume they have until this point?

Ottawa could have had an MLS franchise Melynk was going to build a soccer stadium but city council voted for renovating the current CFL and USL stadium the two teams are sharing over Melynk and his MLS soccer stadium, he would have got an MLS franchise at a fraction of a cost that they are going for now, but city councillors basically voted for the Gridion type of football over the soccer kind of football, their decision went ok in the end I guess because the new Ottawa CFL team is doing fine with attendance, but I think if Melynk got an MLS franchise it would have also done well in the stands. 

[BuzzAndSting]

27 minutes ago, 1996 said:

Ottawa could have had an MLS franchise Melynk was going to build a soccer stadium but city council voted for renovating the current CFL and USL stadium the two teams are sharing over Melynk and his MLS soccer stadium, he would have got an MLS franchise at a fraction of a cost that they are going for now, but city councillors basically voted for the Gridion type of football over the soccer kind of football, their decision went ok in the end I guess because the new Ottawa CFL team is doing fine with attendance, but I think if Melynk got an MLS franchise it would have also done well in the stands. 

Well he wanted to build it in Kanata so who knows. Look at how his tenure as owner of the Sens has gone.

[mpg_29]

35 minutes ago, 1996 said:

Ottawa could have had an MLS franchise Melynk was going to build a soccer stadium but city council voted for renovating the current CFL and USL stadium the two teams are sharing over Melynk and his MLS soccer stadium, he would have got an MLS franchise at a fraction of a cost that they are going for now, but city councillors basically voted for the Gridion type of football over the soccer kind of football, their decision went ok in the end I guess because the new Ottawa CFL team is doing fine with attendance, but I think if Melynk got an MLS franchise it would have also done well in the stands. 

Garber has pretty much said there are no more MLS franchisees coming to Canada.

[BuzzAndSting]

3 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Garber has pretty much said there are no more MLS franchisees coming to Canada.

This was 7-8 years ago and Melnyk had a meeting with Garber and the MLS.

[mpg_29]

3 minutes ago, BuzzAndSting said:

This was 7-8 years ago and Melnyk had a meeting with Garber and the MLS.

There might have been a small window at one point but that rapidly closed...

[Cblake]

Plus an MLS coming to a city like Ottawa is completely different than it would be for a team in any other league. You can't compare then in any way MLS is the elite league in this part of the world, all you got to do is look at the capacity of the stadiums they play in.

Now how would the CPL be pervcied if say all the teams were playing in CFL stadiums where they could and TSN was involved as it was talked about early on? 

 

[Admin]

2 hours ago, BuzzAndSting said:

This was 7-8 years ago and Melnyk had a meeting with Garber and the MLS.

Fees had already jumped to crazy levels.

[Ansem]

From PLSQ website:

Commissioner of PLSQ Kambiz Ebadi, is saying

•that to operate a CPL club, you need to spend over $5M a year

•That clubs won't probably make profits for the first 5 years. Owners are already aware of that

Pour gérer une équipe comme celles de la PLC, il faut un budget d’opérations de plus de 5 millions $ par année. Les propriétaires des sept clubs déjà annoncés sont au courant de la situation, ils savent qu’il va y avoir des investissements à faire au début. Un jour, leur club et la ligue seront peut-être rentables ; mais il faut quand même être réaliste et réaliser qu’il ne faut pas s’attendre à (faire des profits) d’ici les cinq prochaines années.

That's the PLSQ Commissioner 

Edited September 13, 2018 by Ansem

[Protega]

5 hours ago, 1996 said:

Ottawa could have had an MLS franchise Melynk was going to build a soccer stadium but city council voted for renovating the current CFL and USL stadium the two teams are sharing over Melynk and his MLS soccer stadium, he would have got an MLS franchise at a fraction of a cost that they are going for now, but city councillors basically voted for the Gridion type of football over the soccer kind of football, their decision went ok in the end I guess because the new Ottawa CFL team is doing fine with attendance, but I think if Melynk got an MLS franchise it would have also done well in the stands. 

Ottawa was never actually in the mix for getting an MLS team.  MLS was playing that angle to get Montreal into the league when Saputo wasn't willing to pay the full expansion fee. 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

5 hours ago, Ansem said:

From PLSQ website:

•that to operate a CPL club, you need to spend over $5M a year

...that probably includes game day operations expenditures for things like concessions on a minimum of 14 x 8,000 projected crowds that in many/most cases would actually be handled by a stadium operations company. I wouldn't take that number too seriously.

Edited September 13, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Ansem]

4 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

...that probably includes game day operations expenditures for things like concessions on a minimum of 14 x 8,000 projected crowds that in many/most cases would actually be handled by a stadium operations company. I wouldn't take that number too seriously.

I should take Fury Fanatic more seriously than the PLSQ commissioner. Ok

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

A complete non-sequitur that adds nothing to the discussion. You normally don't behave like that. Maybe watching CanPL downscale from being a credible rival to MLS is unsettling you a little bit? Think you'll find that this sort of number came from David Clanachan originally and was described at that point as an "investment" but was later clarified to really be total annual expenditure including game day operations (where the expenditure should be more than balanced by revenues) when the Forbes magazine guy in Winnipeg looked into it a little bit.

Edited September 13, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Ansem]

48 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

A complete non-sequitur that adds nothing to the discussion. You normally don't behave like that. Maybe watching CanPL downscale from being a credible rival to MLS is unsettling you a little bit

Not at all. Always knew we'd be below MLS. 

48 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Think you'll find that this sort of number came from David Clanachan originally and was described at that point as an "investment" but was later clarified to really be total annual expenditure when the Forbes magazine guy in Winnipeg looked into it a little bit.

For a business to spend 500K on players out of $5M which represents 10% of overall yearly expenditures is a very strange business model when they account for so much on your expected return on investment.

Usually businesses, especially new ones, tends to spend more on staff...between 1/3 to half.

Going with the 1/3 Conservative figure, that's $1.6M. I don't buy the 500K for players. 

Still believing that it's around $1M with the difference going to staff operations.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Ansem

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

What I am explaining to you is that this $4 or 5 million figure (I've seen both over the last year or so) is being generated by throwing in every possible conceivable expenditure associated with the team under the best case projection scenario on crowds. If instead of doing that there was simply a stadium rental fee expense being used for game day operations then I strongly suspect that the $500k for players plus whatever it will be for coaches and front office would be in the ballpark for what you view as reasonable for the overall % on staff salaries.

[Ansem]

5 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

What I am explaining to you is that this $4 or 5 million figure (I've seen both over the last year or so) is being generated by throwing in every possible conceivable expenditure associated with the team under the best case projection scenario on crowds. If instead of doing that there was simply a stadium rental fee expense being used for game day operations then I strongly suspect that the $500k for players plus whatever it will be for coaches and front office would be in the ballpark for what you view as reasonable for the overall % on staff salaries.

The PLSQ Commissioner also pointed out that owners are fully aware they would be losing money for at least the first five years. Even if they aren't making money, expect them to spend that amount the first few years.

I think this $5M per year spending is accurate and I know what you mean by all expenditures. What I'm telling you is that salary is part of it and what's usually being spent on salary by businesses.

 

[BuzzAndSting]

Interesting to note that if the $5M figure is correct then the initial cap of $1.5M would make sense. In many different fields a labour cost of <30% is always the target. 

 

 

[Initial B]

6 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

A complete non-sequitur that adds nothing to the discussion. You normally don't behave like that. Maybe watching CanPL downscale from being a credible rival to MLS is unsettling you a little bit? Think you'll find that this sort of number came from David Clanachan originally and was described at that point as an "investment" but was later clarified to really be total annual expenditure including game day operations (where the expenditure should be more than balanced by revenues) when the Forbes magazine guy in Winnipeg looked into it a little bit.

6 hours ago, Ansem said:

Not at all. Always knew we'd be below MLS. 

For a business to spend 500K on players out of $5M which represents 10% of overall yearly expenditures is a very strange business model when they account for so much on your expected return on investment.

Usually businesses, especially new ones, tends to spend more on staff...between 1/3 to half.

Going with the 1/3 Conservative figure, that's $1.6M. I don't buy the 500K for players. 

Still believing that it's around $1M with the difference going to staff operations.

I think I remember running an analysis on Big Soccer on how much it would cost for transportation, accommodations, stadium game-day operating expenses, Front Office expenses, and a Salary Cap of $1-1.2 million. This was about 3 years ago when we first heard rumblings about the CPL. That sounds in the ballpark of what the Fury are spending now, so why not make the jump?

I wonder if this is actually how things went down:

• CPL Front Office makes overtures to the Ottawa Fury about being one of the anchors of the new league. The Fury are interested.
• Early on in the process in 2016, the CPL FO approach the Fury with a draft of how they expect teams to be constructed. The Fury blanch at the higher salary cap, but start to look at how they could configure their roster to comply with a 2018 start.
• Meanwhile, CPL FO is finding it harder than they thought to find owners willing to spend that much on salary and other requirements. They start modfiying the draft proposal based on feedback to get more ownership groups on board. Meanwhile, the Fury is working off the original assumptions and builds a team to the expected salary cap and domestic roster restrictions as was explained to them in 2016.
• It's now 2017 and the CPL FO still doesn't have enough teams willing to commit to the new league for the expected 2018 start date. The CPL FO realizes the clock is ticking and they're losing public credibility, enthusiasm and momentum with the continual postponement of the inaugural season. They further lower the league requirements and restrictions to a point where interested ownership groups buy-in. The Fury assume that all the ownership groups buy into the 2016 requirements and the CPL FO doesn't think to tell the Fury the requirements have changed.
• In spring 2018, all the prospective CPL ownership groups meet (in May in Yellowknife?) to go over the rules and requirements for the new league before the Media Hype Train gets rolling. This is the first chance the Fury have to see the new League requirements and discover that the CPL FO had lowered the bar on them without informing them. I'm sure that this point there were heated backroom discussions between the Fury and CPL FO as they tried to bridge the expectations gap this miscommunication had created.
• The CPL FO probably went back to the CPL owners an asked if they could raise some of the requirements, which was roundly kiboshed. The CPL FO had to go back to the Fury and say "no can do", at which point the Fury were left to mull over their options. Their fanbase had come to expect a certain quality of play over the last 5 years and they were worried that to lower that quality would lower the number of spectators/revenue. They knew at this point that probably they were not going to be able to join the league, but were hoping that another prospective city would step up and be able to take their place. Nobody did and eventually word got out and here we are.

Now, the above is all speculation on my part, but knowing the history of dysfunction in Canadian Soccer, I wouldn't be surprised if this is how it played out. Regardless, next year's Canadian Championships will prove out the quality of the respective Leagues. If the CPL team manages to defeat the Fury, then that will be a good look for the CPL and probably convince the Fury to join the CPL. If the Fury just barely defeat the CPL team, then the CPL can spin the upset narrative and the Fury could probably still be convinced to join the league in the near future as the quality is probably high enough. In the worst case, the Fury defeat the CPL team as badly as the Fury were defeated by TFC this year, dramatically highlighting the gap in quality between the two leagues. This would badly damage the CPL brand, which is something I don't think anyone but the Americans would want to see happen.

 

Edited September 13, 2018 by Initial B

[Ams1984]

8 hours ago, Initial B said:

I think I remember running an analysis on Big Soccer on how much it would cost for transportation, accommodations, stadium game-day operating expenses, Front Office expenses, and a Salary Cap of $1-1.2 million. This was about 3 years ago when we first heard rumblings about the CPL. That sounds in the ballpark of what the Fury are spending now, so why not make the jump?

I wonder if this is actually how things went down:

• CPL Front Office makes overtures to the Ottawa Fury about being one of the anchors of the new league. The Fury are interested.
• Early on in the process in 2016, the CPL FO approach the Fury with a draft of how they expect teams to be constructed. The Fury blanch at the higher salary cap, but start to look at how they could configure their roster to comply with a 2018 start.
• Meanwhile, CPL FO is finding it harder than they thought to find owners willing to spend that much on salary and other requirements. They start modfiying the draft proposal based on feedback to get more ownership groups on board. Meanwhile, the Fury is working off the original assumptions and builds a team to the expected salary cap and domestic roster restrictions as was explained to them in 2016.
• It's now 2017 and the CPL FO still doesn't have enough teams willing to commit to the new league for the expected 2018 start date. The CPL FO realizes the clock is ticking and they're losing public credibility, enthusiasm and momentum with the continual postponement of the inaugural season. They further lower the league requirements and restrictions to a point where interested ownership groups buy-in. The Fury assume that all the ownership groups buy into the 2016 requirements and the CPL FO doesn't think to tell the Fury the requirements have changed.
• In spring 2018, all the prospective CPL ownership groups meet (in May in Yellowknife?) to go over the rules and requirements for the new league before the Media Hype Train gets rolling. This is the first chance the Fury have to see the new League requirements and discover that the CPL FO had lowered the bar on them without informing them. I'm sure that this point there were heated backroom discussions between the Fury and CPL FO as they tried to bridge the expectations gap this miscommunication had created.
• The CPL FO probably went back to the CPL owners an asked if they could raise some of the requirements, which was roundly kiboshed. The CPL FO had to go back to the Fury and say "no can do", at which point the Fury were left to mull over their options. Their fanbase had come to expect a certain quality of play over the last 5 years and they were worried that to lower that quality would lower the number of spectators/revenue. They knew at this point that probably they were not going to be able to join the league, but were hoping that another prospective city would step up and be able to take their place. Nobody did and eventually word got out and here we are.

Now, the above is all speculation on my part, but knowing the history of dysfunction in Canadian Soccer, I wouldn't be surprised if this is how it played out. Regardless, next year's Canadian Championships will prove out the quality of the respective Leagues. If the CPL team manages to defeat the Fury, then that will be a good look for the CPL and probably convince the Fury to join the CPL. If the Fury just barely defeat the CPL team, then the CPL can spin the upset narrative and the Fury could probably still be convinced to join the league in the near future as the quality is probably high enough. In the worst case, the Fury defeat the CPL team as badly as the Fury were defeated by TFC this year, dramatically highlighting the gap in quality between the two leagues. This would badly damage the CPL brand, which is something I don't think anyone but the Americans would want to see happen.

 

Your theory is an interesting one, but as you say, is rife with speculation. 

 

The fly in the ointment for me, is that your assuming that Ottawa would be uncomfortable presumably spending a bit less, and still possibly improving in stature in a new national league, and of course that’s assuming that the CPL cap will be lower than their current expenditure of which I’m not convinced. To me, that theory doesn’t end up holding water because either a) the Fury would be able to lower expenditure and simultaneously be a better team relative to the new competition if such were the case, or b) the expenditure isn’t materially different and it has nothing to do with their decision.

To me, it’s more likely that Ottawa doesn’t want to bet on the success of the new league because it doesn’t believe in it. Their calculus might be that their better off staying where they are because a brand new league is a high risk venture, and joining it would require them to leave a situation that they appear to be comfortable with. 

In my opinion, this is a serious miscalculation though. I believe that the CPL will succeed, it has realistic financial goals and it sounds like the clubs will be keeping overhead reasonably low for the first few years while the league gets established. 

If the CPL gets a national TV deal, which I believe it will (remember, their intellectual property, branding, and TV rights are bundled with the CMNT, the CWNT, and the Voyageurs Cup) then the Fury will quickly be left behind to rot in the ignominy of lower division soccer. What’s more, I’m also confident that within a few years, if the Fury don’t come around and ask to join the league, the CPL will find another Ottawa based ownership group to do so, and they’ll be the final nail in the Fury’s coffin. 

 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

8 hours ago, Ams1984 said:

...To me, it’s more likely that Ottawa doesn’t want to bet on the success of the new league because it doesn’t believe in it...

Think that's what it boils down to. Not in terms of the overall concept so much on that last bit though more on its execution over the last 18 months or so. They probably strongly suspect that there won't be a stable league available for them to enter by 2021 while in contrast they expect USL to go from strength to strength by that point, so if any of the entities involved in the OSEG partnership are legally required to act in the best interests of their shareholders that would make CanPL entry highly problematic.

As for why CanPL would downscale its business plan, I suspect that the prime suspect is Tom Fath and his stated need for sustainability before FCE would return, which appeared on the surface at least to be no sure thing well into this year. If Ottawa were likely out from a point back in May around the time of the CSA AGM when FCE were probably finally deciding whether or not to participate and "Port City" was being used as a placeholder so the Surrey group could shift to Victoria after being accepted into membership, the St John's rumours we were subsequently being told about by Nfld posters can be viewed in a new light as one of the ways they may have attempted to try to reach 8 for 2019. The absence of announcements even for 2020 prior to Ottawa going public on their 2019 plans suggests that they are not finding it easy to move beyond 7.

Edited September 14, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Ams1984]

5 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Think that's what it boils down to. Not in terms of the overall concept so much on that last bit though more on its execution over the last 18 months or so. They probably strongly suspect that there won't be a stable league available for them to enter by 2021 while in contrast they expect USL to go from strength to strength by that point, so if any of the entities involved in the OSEG partnership are legally required to act in the best interests of their shareholders that would make CanPL entry highly problematic.

As for why CanPL would downscale its business plan, I suspect that the prime suspect is Tom Fath and his stated need for sustainability before FCE would return, which appeared on the surface at least to be no sure thing well into this year. If Ottawa were likely out from a point back in May around the time of the CSA AGM when FCE were probably finally deciding whether or not to participate and "Port City" was being used as a placeholder so the Surrey group could shift to Victoria after being accepted into membership, the St John's rumours we were subsequently being told about by Nfld posters can be viewed in a new light as one of the ways they may have attempted to try to reach 8 for 2019. The absence of announcements even for 2020 prior to Ottawa going public on their 2019 plans suggests that they are not finding it easy to move beyond 7.

So, do you feel as I do that the Fury have made a miscalculation? Or do you believe that they’ll be vindicated by the league not paning out?