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Possible CPL Salary Cap Discussion


Initial B

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4 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

Canadian Premier League offers first look at its bottom line

The league says this season each team will operate with a $1.2-million salary cap, which covers both players and coaching/technical staff.

Player spending must fall between $650,000 and $850,000 while the coach/technical range is between $350,000 and $550,000. Combined, the two must fall under $1.2 million.

The cap includes salaries, housing and travel allowances and individual player bonuses but not "league or club accomplishment bonuses." The league says, on average, the salary cap accounts for some 57 per cent of team revenue — and could reach some 70 per cent factoring in bonuses.

The league says, on average, it takes more $4 million a year to run a CPL team.

There will be a minimum player salary of $22,000 in 2021, which including other compensation is expected to reach $26,000.

The league says it had a "target" minimum salary in the past but is now "raising and codifying it."

The minimum does not cover those on U-Sports contracts, who play during the summer while not at school. Clanachan said those deals would be in the range of $10,000 to $12,000.

Options on player contracts come with 15 per cent raises on average, according to the league.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/canadian-premier-league-offers-first-200032560.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANryBSTUC-qUbOMnZTXXI7HxODBsBI3G0laBEtxupUhuSbHV7Kjo40loqLgmxQKXe4c2JicEDKZyJzhjShzpeSxwzBSnbdLUogtELnTGl3qSrPJl_ChUvuEvhj3oYTPC7sJjrX6txTu6Ofaqo3rh5Wv4ci6UxLjzy19Yn9cLM4K0

 

If the cap is 57% revenue, that makes revenue about $2.1m per team.  If it takes more than $4m a year to run a CPL team, that means on average each team is losing about $2m per year.

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4 hours ago, An Observer said:

If the cap is 57% revenue, that makes revenue about $2.1m per team.  If it takes more than $4m a year to run a CPL team, that means on average each team is losing about $2m per year.

You need significantly north of 5000 paying spectators to make this sort of league work well. There's a long hard slog ahead before CanPL is going to become economically viable. Hopefully the investors involved have the same level of resilience that Phil Anschutz and Lamar Hunt had in an MLS context.

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So just spit-balling here, but I'm wondering if this is a possible breakdown of a squad based on what we know:

Assuming an average club player salary total of $750,000 for 23 roster spots. A team might have 4 young players on U-sports contracts ($10-12k) for a total of about $44,000. The team might also have another 4 players on the league minimum ($22-26k) for another $96,000. That would leave $610,000 to distribute among 15 player contracts, which would average out to about $40,000 per player. That sounds respectable, but I'd expect the salary range of Gameday List players to be be broken down further, with 3 bench players earning $30k each, 4 fringe starters earning $35k each, 4 regular starters earning $40k each, 2 veteran starters earning $50k each, and 2 star players earning $60k each. In my mind, that's a team respectable quality in their starters, which drops off the further down the depth chart you go.

Edited by Initial B
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1 hour ago, Initial B said:

So just spit-balling here, but I'm wondering if this is a possible breakdown of a squad based on what we know:

 

I was going to post something very similar, if a team wanted to go to the max, they would have another 100,000 to pay for some top talent.  I would assume Forge, Cavalry and maybe HFX are the top spending teams in the league right now.  I would think that Atletico would have the money to move into the upper echelon if they chose to do so.

Edit: Just found this on the CPL site, about as open as could be without naming the teams:

https://canpl.ca/article/exclusive-director-of-football-oliver-gage-reviews-cpl-compensation-approaches

Club Wages Signing Bonuses Onboarding Housing Performance
Bonuses
Total
Club #1 82.89% 1.52% 3.79% 6.95% 4.85% $723,290
Club #2 89.66% 1.32% 1.49% 5.86% 1.67% $720,943
Club #3 84.10%

0.28%

7.23% 8.22% 0.17% $711,661
Club #4 91.98% 0.00% 3.04% 3.95% 1.03% $708,850
Club #5 75.28% 0.28% 5.58% 18.69% 0.17% $725,590
Club #6 73.96% 3.24% 2.66% 16.56% 3.85% $678,225
Club #7 83.25% 0.82% 5.40% 10.42% 0.11% $734,198
Edited by MM3/MM2/MM
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2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Would be interesting to find out how club #5 managed to spend $140,175 on housing in a single season.

There could be many factors. No housing for a new team in a city that doesn't have much population movement, or facilities.  You may have to put players up at university campuses for the season or rent whole houses. A smaller city like Langley or Halifax comes to mind, but there could be others.

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13 hours ago, Kent said:

Conversely, I was thinking (without actually looking at rosters) that a team like York might have a lot of players living with parents, but a team like Wanderers might have a lot of out of towners coming in needing accommodations.

I thought the two highest for accommodation would be HFX and Pacific, with #5 being HFX and #6 being Pacific.

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  • 2 years later...

I'm resurrecting this thread because I have thoughts on this after watching CF Montreal vs Forge

 

Observations

  • I think it was at the state of the league that Noonan said they were open at formulas somewhat similar at MLS. No, I'm not advocating for copying MLS but I don't think the status quo makes sense
  • One of the things MLS and really, most leagues out there does is that their internationals significantly improve the overall quality of the roster. For the life of me, this is a rarity in CPL since it launched and that's a problem because how can your domestic guys especially young ones leap forward if they aren't push by much better quality? You need proven guys and yes they will cost more.
  • When I look at the CONCACAF league ranking, the performances of Central American top clubs have a lot to do with the ranking and performances in continental competition. While I get the push for a parity league, even MLS is moving away from that with all those side roster rules. Next point
  • What helped MLS bridge that gap with Liga MX? DP, TAM, GAM and green cards facilitating adding more quality as domestics on rosters (our Canadian clubs are at a disadvantage on that). Last I checked, the "official cap" is aroud $5.2M I think (feel free to correct me). If they dropped all the gimmick and stuck purely to the cap, they aren't winning CCL or competing with Liga MX who have no cap, just like the top clubs of Central America like Olimpia.
  • While I think the "starting 6 Canadians is still good" - I don't think sticking to a hard cap is enough, even MLS realized that. As we enter a new era where we'll be sending a minimum of 2 clubs in CCL, we need to change.

 

Suggestion

  1. Allow clubs both able and willing to spend more to do so. Their ability to generate more revenues through the gates or local sponsorship should be rewarded. I suggest a "soft cap" in the spirit of the CFL who fines clubs exceeding the cap to start. The fines could go to a dedicated fund to either help less fortunate clubs like NHL is doing or for an infrastructure fund or boost marketing - however the league deems it appropriate.
  2. While I agree that a minimum of 6 Canadians should play for each squads, I don't think that they should necessarily start. I propose "at least 6 Canadians must have played throughout the game" to allow more tactical flexibility for coaches.
  3. Don't touch the mandatory U21 domestic minutes.
  4. I'm not willing to go full DP, GAM, TAM yet since the soft cap should be a good place to start but there should be LOTS of flexibility to sign Canadian Internationals playing in MLS or Europe at higher wages counting against a % of the cap like our U21 are doing currently. This way you still maintain the "Canadian content" of the roster/league but inject much need quality, leadership, experience etc.

 

Last thoughts for now (cause the Pacific/Whitecaps game is about to start)

I think if there's someone willing to go there, it's Noonan and he alluded during the State of the league interview that there was openness to look at new ways to build rosters. We all want league exposure and growing fanbase but it won't be handed to CPL. They have to not only do it right off the pitch but most importantly on the pitch. Winning/competing against MLS & in CCL while playing much better football via signing better players is what gets casuals and media attention. Hoping at the time I'm writing this, this is what Pacific will be doing in 5 minutes but Forge couldn't keep up and we keep lacking composure and clinical last touch.

I'm not against 2 or 3 clubs concentrating the better domestic talent in their rosters. We already have the "you know who" spending at cap (or somehow beyond according to some) and the rest who either spends less than cap or near the minimum cap. Might as well let top clubs do it transparently and give stiffer competition to smaller club so those players get used to play higher level of football which helps them develop. Who can argue that this league isn't already Forge/Calvary (include Pacific) vs the rest? If they can afford it without going belly up - let them be an Olimpia or Saprissa of Canada and eventually top clubs in the region. If that inspires other clubs to step up, than good.

I'd rather CPL be a same 10 serious clubs-league than artificially growing to 20 clubs with most of them operating at minimum cap and saturating our weekends with "meh" football.*

*You can already guess that I no longer watch all the games, I pick and choose according to who's playing for the quality of football.

PS: Hoping that Pacific does better and makes me rethink this.

 

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Adding to my post, this was the comment from Bobby Smyrniotis implying the league will indeed adjust

  • There is a gap between the two teams and it's called money. The gap will narrow when we start playing the Champions League

 

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For me it's clear that MLS should get rid of their salary cap. The convoluted rules they have means the cap isn't there to stopo teams from overspending themseleves into oblivion, and it also means the cap isn't there for parity. It's just there to keep the lower end players cheaper, taking advantage of the least fortunate in the clubs (not that they are living all that bad these days. Much better than it was 10 or 15 years ago).

For CPL I am less sure. Is the money better spent on the field, or in marketing? I honestly don't know. Forge's situation is a bit sobering to be honest. They have had LOTS of big games. Proving themselves in CONCACAF League, aside from this week they have had competitive games with MLS teams, and they have won a championship (league or playoffs) every year so far. And yet, their average attendance is still a shade under 5000 this season. If they double their team salary they will still be much lower budget than MLS and Liga MX teams, will it lead to getting 8 or 10k in the stands? Probably not. Is there a better way to market the team to get them up to 8 or 10k in the stands? I don't know, that's a world I have no expertise in.

We might need slow growth for a while before we start ramping up the spending on players significantly. Rather than spending a bunch of money on players before most potential fans even know the league exists.

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Ansem, you raise some interesting ideas and possibilities.

I think you are probably a bit ahead of the game, however.  I'd rather get to the point where we have eight to ten stable teams and then start loosening things up.

I don't think we're going to get into the money range to really compete with LMX/MLS for a long time anyway, so going part way with a couple of teams might hurt the rest of the teams and still not let those couple of teams succeed.

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