Ottawa CPL Club

[matty]

 

[Gopherbashi]

Does anyone know how many season ticket holders Ottawa has?  I'm wondering how it compares to Hamilton or Winnipeg's numbers

[C2SKI]

20 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

Well this is brutal. At whom do I direct my wrath?

I finally understand why they call themselves the Fury.

[Kent]

To add to gopherbashi’s question, does anybody know how much Ottawa is spending on player salaries this season? Not average USL numbers, but actual salaries paid by Ottawa?

[JamboAl]

10 minutes ago, Gopherbashi said:

Does anyone know how many season ticket holders Ottawa has?  I'm wondering how it compares to Hamilton or Winnipeg's numbers

Educated guess is around 1,500, maybe 2,000 max.  But I don’t think they disclose the number.

[BuzzAndSting]

5 hours ago, Kent said:

Can I get explicit opinions from Ottawa fans on this. What would you rather:

1. Keep the team together and stay in USL?

 Or

2. Split the team apart, starting over again at a likely lower level, in the CPL?

Split the team and move to the CPL 100%.

[Blackjack15]

There is not Team 8

How can it be possible to launch in 2019 with 7 clubs? ?

[Viruk42]

56 minutes ago, JamboAl said:

Educated guess is around 1,500, maybe 2,000 max.  But I don’t think they disclose the number.

Further to this, the average attendance for their (so far) 15 USL home games is 4,661 with a low of 2,781, so make of that what you will. 

[Protega]

My first thought was that CPL could have made it happen if they wanted to, simply by increasing the salary cap to something more reasonable (logically, Fury's payroll has to be well above the $500k rumoured for CPL, because there's no way they could pay an average of $20k - $25k and attract most of the players they have).  There's no reason that every team needs to spend up to the cap.  If people need league-wide parity as a condition of their support, well...

But the more I think about it, CPL should have put off its start by a year or two.  Lots of pretty important pieces missing (they haven't even announced a salary cap yet, for Christ sake!).  A tv deal would have gone a long way as well.  League sponsorship?  There's a lot of shit (important shit) that needs to be in place well before spring.  Fury's decision aside, this league is looking like a disaster.

[Ansem]

14 minutes ago, Protega said:

My first thought was that CPL could have made it happen if they wanted to, simply by increasing the salary cap to something more reasonable (logically, Fury's payroll has to be well above the $500k rumoured for CPL, because there's no way they could pay an average of $20k - $25k and attract most of the players they have).  There's no reason that every team needs to spend up to the cap.  If people need league-wide parity as a condition of their support, well...

But the more I think about it, CPL should have put off its start by a year or two.  Lots of pretty important pieces missing (they haven't even announced a salary cap yet, for Christ sake!).  A tv deal would have gone a long way as well.  League sponsorship?  There's a lot of shit (important shit) that needs to be in place well before spring.  Fury's decision aside, this league is looking like a disaster.

We don't know if the salary thing is true. That's one guy making that claim

[C2SKI]

26 minutes ago, Protega said:

My first thought was that CPL could have made it happen if they wanted to, simply by increasing the salary cap to something more reasonable (logically, Fury's payroll has to be well above the $500k rumoured for CPL, because there's no way they could pay an average of $20k - $25k and attract most of the players they have).  There's no reason that every team needs to spend up to the cap.  If people need league-wide parity as a condition of their support, well...

But the more I think about it, CPL should have put off its start by a year or two.  Lots of pretty important pieces missing (they haven't even announced a salary cap yet, for Christ sake!).  A tv deal would have gone a long way as well.  League sponsorship?  There's a lot of shit (important shit) that needs to be in place well before spring.  Fury's decision aside, this league is looking like a disaster.

Hopefully it'll be easier with the Fury out of the way. Seems likely this decision could have been delaying negotiations.

[Zem]

5 hours ago, Kent said:

Can I get explicit opinions from Ottawa fans on this. What would you rather:

1. Keep the team together and stay in USL?

 Or

2. Split the team apart, starting over again at a likely lower level, in the CPL?

#2 without question; even if FuryFanatic's source is completely accurate, the CPL and Canadian soccer in general are far more important than one club's short-term benefit.

Moreover, Ottawa has had a single-digit number of returning players for the last three off-seasons in a row. The odds of that happening again regardless are pretty good given fans' disappointment with the team's performance this year and the rumours of locker room unrest that have been circulating. Also, playing at a lower level against first-team sides in a first divison league would be a huge improvement over playing against American reserve teams. And considering the club's falling attendances, staying is far from a guarantee of stability.

 

 

Not directly related, but I also don't buy the financial excuse for staying, as it makes little sense given OSEG's previous operation of the team. Cutting the women's team, shutting down the academy and moving to the USL were all billed as necessary cost-saving measures because the club was (and still is) losing millions every season. The notion that OSEG doesn't want to move to the CPL because they temporarily wouldn't be allowed to spend as much on players' wages is completely ludicrous.

[rob.notenboom]

Purposefully avoided this thread. Pleasantly surprised. Not nearly as much of a gong show as I imagined. 

A couple things:

1) The $500K salary cap number is baseless. But from what I’ve heard it will not be as high as I think it should be. But it will still be higher than the wage bills of the vast majority of USL teams, which brings me to ...

2) The comment about CanPL being L1O level is off base in my opinion. Any reasonable analysis of the player pool (and there have been a few done) would show that there’s enough talent available at an average wage of $40K a year to put the lie to that idea. 

3) I keep hearing this ‘destroy what we’ve built’ idea floated here and elsewhere in relation to the Fury. Honestly, what have they built? Most of their team was put together this year. They’re currently 9th in their division, 18th out of 33 overall and have a goal difference of -10. I love that they are giving Canadians tons of minutes. But with what they’ve built, I might consider tearing it down and starting over. 

4) This is a failure, no doubt. The league clearly wanted them in for 2019. Not shocking that there are bumps in the road so hopefully people will move on despite the setback. But whose failure it ultimately is (the league’s or the Fury’s) is incredibly opaque. I’m not sure it’s even worth commenting on due to significant lack of information. But I don’t think it’s a ridiculous idea that both the Fury and CanPL might share some responsibility for not getting the deal done.

One final thing ... much of the social media discussion from those supporting the Fury has been very prejudicial against CanPL. Case in point is the L1O comment. I have to assume, since Fury Fanatic has gleaned all of this from an inside source (or sources), that much of the other talking points floating around are also coming from the Fury. So that’s a lot of very negative pieces of ‘information’ coming from the Fury and being spread around. But how much of it is accurate if the L1O comment is not accurate (and it’s not). Is it accurate that housing costs will be counted against the CanPL salary cap? Is it accurate that CanPL has no sponsorship deals (ok, I know that that one is false and it’s become obvious to many)? Is it accurate that there’s no TV deal?

Lots of speculation. Not enough facts.

I wonder when CanPL and the CSA will decide to comment. Or if.

Anyway. Back to your regularly scheduled CanSoc meltdown. 

[Cheeta]

And to be fair we're hearing only one side of the story right now.

As much as parts of it feel like they may have a ring of truth to it (for no other reason then we're all Canadian soccer fans and conditioned to be cynical) maybe we need to be a bit more patient and wait for the fuller picture to develop.

Things in this CanPL may not be evolving as brightly or smoothly as we were all hoping but there could be plenty of blame to go around as far as all this nonsense is concerned.

[Toronto Ruffrider]

2 hours ago, Viruk42 said:

Further to this, the average attendance for their (so far) 15 USL home games is 4,661 with a low of 2,781, so make of that what you will. 

I always take these figures with a grain of salt. An average attendance of 4,661 by itself sounds respectable, but we don't know how many freebies are included in that. For that matter, it's possible that the clubs in USL that draw more fans to games than the Fury may give away even more tickets...

Edited September 6, 2018 by Toronto Ruffrider

[Viruk42]

4 minutes ago, Toronto Ruffrider said:

I always take these figures with a grain of salt. An average attendance of 4,661 by itself sounds respectable, but we don't know how many freebies are included in that. For that matter, it's possible that the clubs in USL that draw more fans to games than the Fury may give away tickets...

Oh for sure - the season low is far more useful in determining how many season ticket holders they have than the average for that reason. For instance, one thing I thought about adding was that youth soccer players get in free to any Fury game, but I have no idea if they are counted in the attendance (though I assume they are) or how many of them go. Other team tickets are also a good point (the high for the season was May 2nd against NY Red Bulls II, while the lows were against Bethlehem on May 25th and Cincinnati on April 28th - interestingly the high was a Wednesday while the two lows were Friday and Saturday, respectively, whereas I would have assumed the opposite?).

[Gopherbashi]

3 hours ago, JamboAl said:

Educated guess is around 1,500, maybe 2,000 max.  But I don’t think they disclose the number.

If this is an accurate ballpark, then... I actually find it kind of promising for most of the CanPL teams based on their membership numbers.  Sure, the odd member might not buy seasons tickets, but many may buy a pair (and the odd one even more than that).

Winnipeg and Hamilton are already near that range, and the other three promising teams would likely be over a thousand once multiples come into play.  Not horrible for a start.

[Gopherbashi]

19 minutes ago, Viruk42 said:

Oh for sure - the season low is far more useful in determining how many season ticket holders they have than the average for that reason. For instance, one thing I thought about adding was that youth soccer players get in free to any Fury game, but I have no idea if they are counted in the attendance (though I assume they are) or how many of them go. Other team tickets are also a good point (the high for the season was May 2nd against NY Red Bulls II, while the lows were against Bethlehem on May 25th and Cincinnati on April 28th - interestingly the high was a Wednesday while the two lows were Friday and Saturday, respectively, whereas I would have assumed the opposite?).

That Wednesday high may have been their school-invite day, where they partnered with a bunch of schools in town to get a ton of students in for that game.

[C2SKI]

Passing up a damn good shot at a championship for another season in Div 2 football. I understand financial pragmatism, but give your fans something to cheer for. That's a minor league mentality. 

Edited September 6, 2018 by C2SKI

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, Gopherbashi said:

If this is an accurate ballpark, then... I actually find it kind of promising for most of the CanPL teams based on their membership numbers.  Sure, the odd member might not buy seasons tickets, but many may buy a pair (and the odd one even more than that).

Winnipeg and Hamilton are already near that range, and the other three promising teams would likely be over a thousand once multiples come into play.  Not horrible for a start.

Actually, the correct answer was "Ottawa far surpasses both Winnipeg and Hamilton (even combined) in season tickets, because Winnipeg and Hamilton have sold zero."  Or so I'm told by people who keep saying "membership numbers aren't an accurate measure of season tickets, so don't look at the teams that have very low numbers". ?

[Macksam]

5 hours ago, mpg_29 said:

Right but this is where things aren't adding up for me. Even with the lowest rumored CPL salary cap it would still be in the upper range of USL salary budget. So I'm confused when people are saying the reason the Fury aren't joining is because the salary cap is too small. 

Either the Fury are currently well above USL payroll average or there is much more to it than just the salary cap issue when it comes to them joining the CPL...

Yeah, I’m beginning to find it harder and harder to believe that the Fury are hesitant to move to Can PL because of the lack of ability to spend money based on all their previous cost cutting measures. 

4 hours ago, Protega said:

My first thought was that CPL could have made it happen if they wanted to, simply by increasing the salary cap to something more reasonable (logically, Fury's payroll has to be well above the $500k rumoured for CPL, because there's no way they could pay an average of $20k - $25k and attract most of the players they have).  There's no reason that every team needs to spend up to the cap.  If people need league-wide parity as a condition of their support, well...

But the more I think about it, CPL should have put off its start by a year or two.  Lots of pretty important pieces missing (they haven't even announced a salary cap yet, for Christ sake!).  A tv deal would have gone a long way as well.  League sponsorship?  There's a lot of shit (important shit) that needs to be in place well before spring.  Fury's decision aside, this league is looking like a disaster.

I wonder who’s behind this post?

 

[JamboAl]

1 hour ago, Gopherbashi said:

That Wednesday high may have been their school-invite day, where they partnered with a bunch of schools in town to get a ton of students in for that game.

Your statement is 100% accurate.  I remember that being an 11 am kickoff - season ticket holders were offered a place in the box suites; no separate "supporters" section, no alcohol available.  Just a whole load of young children.  

The Fury offered me an extra ticket for another match; I have not taken them up on it.  

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Think the CSA would have had to sign off on the Fury being on the USL's list of clubs for 2019 that would be submitted to the USSF at around this time of year, so it's credible that this sanctioning has already happened.

[grande]

8 hours ago, rob.notenboom said:

4) This is a failure, no doubt. The league clearly wanted them in for 2019. Not shocking that there are bumps in the road so hopefully people will move on despite the setback. But whose failure it ultimately is (the league’s or the Fury’s) is incredibly opaque. I’m not sure it’s even worth commenting on due to significant lack of information. But I don’t think it’s a ridiculous idea that both the Fury and CanPL might share some responsibility for not getting the deal done.

I have to say, it feels like a failure of the league to me. It was CPL's and CSA's job to sell the Fury on the league and, clearly, they were unable to. This has, more than anything, shaken my belief of what the CPL will be; I was sure it would be better by all measures to the USL, but if our one and only USL team isn't willing to jump ship well... where does that leave us?

I'm not panicking yet, but if the salary cap really is $500k, what's the point?

[Lord Bob]

1 hour ago, grande said:

I'm not panicking yet, but if the salary cap really is $500k, what's the point?

To have a domestic soccer league.