CPL League Future Format and Table Structure

[Initial B]

One of the arguments I hear about the MLS is that it's not a 'real' First division because there's too many teams and no pro/rel. One of the arguments against CPL I hear in various forums is that it won't be a 'real' First division because of the so much better top divisions worldwide. It got me to thinking what makes a typical first division so I thought I'd do some digging to determine what the average first division looks like

I've been spending some of my spare time reviewing the professional structures of the various countries around the world from First to Third division to see what we could learn and implement for Canada. I reviewed the top 5 ranked countries of CAF, AFC, and CONEMBOL; the top ten ranked countries of UEFA; and most of the major CONCACAF countries. In my analysis I gathered data on stadium sizes, number of teams at each level, season length and format, and Promotion/Relegation formats. I then ranked those nations based on how similar they were to Canada's population (as an indicator of talent potential), Land area (as an indicator of increased operational costs), and Human Development Index (as an indicator of how much money a nation has to throw at a problem and discretionary income). I weighted Land area a little greater than the other two factors and came up with a score out of 10, with the results shown in the attached chart.

There were some interesting conclusions I drew from the data:

• The majority of leagues in Europe, Asia, and Africa play a single season, while CONCACAF is almost completely Apertura/Clausura format. South American leagues are an even mix of the two styles.
• The average number of clubs in top flight is 15, with the majority holding between 12 and 20 clubs depending on how robust the structure of the national league is. Smaller leagues tend to use the Apertura/Clausura system to give the seasons some meaning.
• Almost all the Div 1 leagues are single table, except for the US and Cuba. Even all the Second Divisions in Europe and South America are single table. However, in Africa and Asia (and almost all of CONCACAF) you start to see second Divisions broken down into 2 or 3 regional groups, with playoffs to determine who gets promoted. By the time you get down to the Third division, most of the leagues are split into several regional groups that have playoffs for the right to join the second division, but then they have to meet the financial and logistical standards to be approved for promotion. Some of these leagues still have a problem with the financial dissolution of clubs at the end of a season, which can mess up the Pro/Rel expectations. 
• Season lengths vary from a low of 18 (India) to a high of 44 (Costa Rica). 80% of the leagues I reviewed have a season of average between 26 and 38 games. Of those leagues, the winner is usually the team that stands at the top of the table after all the games are complete, but there are a couple of leagues (and most of CONCACAF) that hold playoffs to determine the league winner. A small proportion of leagues have a Championship round to determine the league winner.
• There are a handful of leagues that don't have any pro/rel from their first division, the majority relegate between 12% to 20% of their clubs every season, with a slightly higher proportion of pro/rel between second and third divisions. Most of the relegations are automatic, but promotions often involve some sort of playoffs.
• Most of the top clubs in each league play in stadiums of over 50,000, with poorer countries having at least a capacity of 15,000. But on the low end of the scale, some teams have stadium capacities of less than 5,000 - even in the richer nations.

So how does this relate to the CPL? Well, we have a cold climate without room for a long season, but it doesn't look like a league has to play a lot of games to still develop national-level players. Playoffs aren't necessarily an anathema to the world soccer order, either. So if you guys were to dream, what would you envision as being the ultimate form of the Canadian Soccer leagues structure?

For myself, I would like to see a 10-team First Division playing a 27-game season, with the top of the table being declared champion and the top 3 places winning CCL spots (the fourth spot would go the the Voyageurs Cup winner). The bottom two clubs would be relegated to their respective regional Division 2 Conference. The 18-team, 2-Conference, Division 2 league would also play a 27-game season, playing one game against each team in the opposing Conference and the remaining games in their home conference. The opposing conference games would be half at home and half away, to keep operating costs down, but show that they can handle the additional costs in Division 1 if promoted. The Conferences themselves would be fluid, with one possibly having more than the other depending on the location of the promoted/relegated teams each season. Regardless, the bottom Div 2 team at the end of each season would be in danger of being relegated to it's respective Division 3, if that Div 3 Champion team meets the fiscal and logistical requirements of promotion. I forsee L1O, LPSQ and a yet-to be formed Western league being the Div 3 incubators for new teams that want to climb the Pyramid, with size and format limitations set by each individual league. The Voyageurs Cup would be open to all teams at the three levels of the Pyramid and would provide additional games to bring the total number of competitive games played each season to 30 or more. I think 28 pro clubs and any number of semi-pro/amateur clubs is sustainable in a nation like Canada. What do you think?

 

[Kent]

5 hours ago, Initial B said:

Smaller leagues tend to use the Apertura/Clausura system to give the seasons some meaning.

This is the first time I have heard a reason that makes some sense to me why anyone would want an Aperture/Clausura system (aside from just familiarity with it). If you have to play the same teams 3 to 5 times a year, you might as well do it for a couple championships.

That being said I still don’t want the system, but I appreciate the insight. Surprising data in the snippet of the table you provided includes Saudi Arabia relegating 5 out of 16 teams, and South Korea averaging only 5,200 fans per game.

[Symp_Res]

6 hours ago, Initial B said:

For myself, I would like to see a 10-team First Division playing a 27-game season, with the top of the table being declared champion and the top 3 places winning CCL spots (the fourth spot would go the the Voyageurs Cup winner). The bottom two clubs would be relegated to their respective regional Division 2 Conference. The 18-team, 2-Conference, Division 2 league would also play a 27-game season, playing one game against each team in the opposing Conference and the remaining games in their home conference. The opposing conference games would be half at home and half away, to keep operating costs down, but show that they can handle the additional costs in Division 1 if promoted. The Conferences themselves would be fluid, with one possibly having more than the other depending on the location of the promoted/relegated teams each season. Regardless, the bottom Div 2 team at the end of each season would be in danger of being relegated to it's respective Division 3, if that Div 3 Champion team meets the fiscal and logistical requirements of promotion. I forsee L1O, LPSQ and a yet-to be formed Western league being the Div 3 incubators for new teams that want to climb the Pyramid, with size and format limitations set by each individual league. The Voyageurs Cup would be open to all teams at the three levels of the Pyramid and would provide additional games to bring the total number of competitive games played each season to 30 or more. I think 28 pro clubs and any number of semi-pro/amateur clubs is sustainable in a nation like Canada. What do you think?

 

 

Thanks for all your research.  Very interesting.  I agree with you that 28 pro clubs is about what Canada can handle when you look at population centres and travel concerns.  I do have an issue though with your proposed structure.  With a 10 team top division, a 27 game schedule is 3 games against each team.  To me, this is not a balanced schedule (homa and away) and declaring a champion after an unbalanced schedule doesn't feel right.  That to me would suggest that there should be playoffs.

If you cut the 28 pro clubs down the middle...14 div 1/14 div 2...that provides a neat 26 game, home and away balanced schedule where you can declare a champion.  Throw in Canadian Championship games and relegation/promotion playoffs and you are around 28 games a season = 28 weeks = mid April to end of October.  Of course, that would be contingent on 28+ clubs, including regional div 3, that have the infastructure and funds to play in a nation wide league without having to play in conferences to keep travel costs down.  That would be the biggest concern for me.

 

[Ams1984]

No apertura/clausura, it feels gimmicky and silly to me. I’ve spent time in Central America before (where they do have it), and a lot of the fans that I spoke to there were not in favor of it either; I’m not sure if it’s more because the local football federations are constantly arbitrarily changing the format which seems to piss these fans off, or whether it’s because those fans tend to watch and want to emulate European leagues, they expressed both sentiments to me on many ocasions. 

I think we should look to the best leagues in the world for inspiration, not to barely professional leagues that struggle on every level. I’d rather model the CPL after the EPL than the Costa Rican League. 

[KW519]

I highly doubt Canada goes from 1 to 4 CCL berths anytime soon. 2 is realistic considering we barely have 10 fully pro clubs up and running.

If the 2nd tier is gonna be considered fully professional, and marketed as such, I don't see a reason for splitting the league into conferences. For 3rd and 4th tier amateur/semi pro clubs with no money and little infrastructure it makes sense to have regional conferences. 

[Initial B]

14 hours ago, Kent said:

Surprising data in the snippet of the table you provided includes Saudi Arabia relegating 5 out of 16 teams, and South Korea averaging only 5,200 fans per game.

You might be more surprised by the variation in K-League First Division attendance - the top attended game had over 30,000 people but the lowest attended game had just under 300 spectators. South Korea is ranked 53rd in the world right now, so we probably shouldn't fret if some teams don't have really high attendance, so long as they're financially viable. Heck even in La Liga the High-Low attendance marks were 98,000 and 4,000 respectively. I think CPL was wise to suggest that all teams have stadiums of 6-8K capacity as that seems to be a decent size when comparing global minimums. In the future, I would suggest that Div 2 clubs should have at least a 5K capacity stadium, while Div 1 clubs should require an 8-10K minimum capacity stadium (very similar to some of those 10K small European stadiums that CPL executives visited this year).

13 hours ago, Symp_Res said:

With a 10 team top division, a 27 game schedule is 3 games against each team.  To me, this is not a balanced schedule (homa and away) and declaring a champion after an unbalanced schedule doesn't feel right.  That to me would suggest that there should be playoffs.

If you cut the 28 pro clubs down the middle...14 div 1/14 div 2...that provides a neat 26 game, home and away balanced schedule where you can declare a champion.  Throw in Canadian Championship games and relegation/promotion playoffs and you are around 28 games a season = 28 weeks = mid April to end of October.  Of course, that would be contingent on 28+ clubs, including regional div 3, that have the infastructure and funds to play in a nation wide league without having to play in conferences to keep travel costs down. 

For comparison, Argentina (Ranked 11) has their teams play a single game against each club in Div 1, with the Champion at the top of the table at season's end being Boca Juniors. Australia (#41), Finland (#58) and Kazakhstan (#120) have each club play each other three times, with Finland and Kazakhstan declaring the top of the table their champion while Australia has a playoff to determine the winner. I suppose the CPL could do end-of-season playoffs if they wanted, but that would detract those top clubs from preparation for Concacaf League Final/Semi-Final games that would be occurring around the same time.

As for the two single table ideas, I don't think both levels would have enough clubs to sustain the travel expenses. I recall working out that plane flights alone would cost a club over $40K per round-trip flight, as opposed to about $5K for round-trip bus/train travel within 8 hours of their home stadium. If Div 2 clubs could save up to $300K on travel, that could help their long term viability.

3 hours ago, Ams1984 said:

I think we should look to the best leagues in the world for inspiration, not to barely professional leagues that struggle on every level. I’d rather model the CPL after the EPL than the Costa Rican League. 

The 45 leagues I researched were either local to our confederation, have a land area of over 2 million square km, or ranked Top 5 in their own confederations (except Oceania, which is mostly really, really small nations). I don't think we should try and emulate any one league, but find an amalgamation of ideas that would work and be a globally familiar format, but uniquely Canadian.

1 hour ago, KW519 said:

I highly doubt Canada goes from 1 to 4 CCL berths anytime soon. 2 is realistic considering we barely have 10 fully pro clubs up and running.

Remember i'm talking future state, which could be 10, 20 or 50 years down the road. There is talk of increasing the CCL to 32 clubs in 8 group stages, much of it predicated around the arrival of the CPL. In the short term, I imagine that the CPL would only get one of the three Concacaf League slots currently given to the CFU, and start working their way to regional respectability from there.

If you want to look at everything, I've attached my spreadsheet I used for analysis below.

 

 

NationSoccerComp201811.xlsx

Edited December 7, 2018 by Initial B
Later Version of Spreadsheet

[Ams1984]

41 minutes ago, Initial B said:

You might be more surprised by the variation in K-League First Division attendance - the top attended game had over 30,000 people but the lowest attended game had just under 300 spectators. South Korea is ranked 53rd in the world right now, so we probably shouldn't fret if some teams don't have really high attendance, so long as they're financially viable. Heck even in La Liga the High-Low attendance marks were 98,000 and 4,000 respectively. I think CPL was wise to suggest that all teams have stadiums of 6-8K capacity as that seems to be a decent size when comparing global minimums. In the future, I would suggest that Div 2 clubs should have at least a 5K capacity stadium, while Div 1 clubs should require an 8-10K minimum capacity stadium (very similar to some of those 10K small European stadiums that CPL executives visited this year).

For comparison, Argentina (Ranked 11) has their teams play a single game against each club in Div 1, with the Champion at the top of the table at season's end being Boca Juniors. Australia (#41), Finland (#58) and Kazakhstan (#120) have each club play each other three times, with Finland and Kazakhstan declaring the top of the table their champion while Australia has a playoff to determine the winner. I suppose the CPL could do end-of-season playoffs if they wanted, but that would detract those top clubs from preparation for Concacaf League Final/Semi-Final games that would be occurring around the same time.

As for the two single table ideas, I don't think both levels would have enough clubs to sustain the travel expenses. I recall working out that plane flights alone would cost a club over $40K per round-trip flight, as opposed to about $5K for round-trip bus/train travel within 8 hours of their home stadium. If Div 2 clubs could save up to $300K on travel, that could help their long term viability.

The 45 leagues I researched were either local to our confederation, have a land area of over 2 million square km, or ranked Top 5 in their own confederations (except Oceania, which is mostly really, really small nations). I don't think we should try and emulate any one league, but find an amalgamation of ideas that would work and be a globally familiar format, but uniquely Canadian.

Remember i'm talking future state, which could be 10, 20 or 50 years down the road. There is talk of increasing the CCL to 32 clubs in 8 group stages, much of it predicated around the arrival of the CPL. In the short term, I imagine that the CPL would only get one of the three Concacaf League slots currently given to the CFU, and start working their way to regional respectability from there.

If you want to look at everything, I've attached my spreadsheet I used for analysis below.

NationSoccerComp201811.xlsx

Your analysis is interesting and researched for sure, I’m just saying that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we have a century or more of control to observe, and we have some very obviously successful models to study. I don’t think it’s especially useful for us to analyze what the Congo or Belize etc do. 

[KW519]

@Initial B fair play. I guess i was looking at it more short term. 

[Initial B]

1 hour ago, Ams1984 said:

Your analysis is interesting and researched for sure, I’m just saying that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we have a century or more of control to observe, and we have some very obviously successful models to study. I don’t think it’s especially useful for us to analyze what the Congo or Belize etc do. 

Believe it or not, Congo is the 11th largest country in the world and Top 5 FIFA Ranked in Africa, 30 spots higher than us. We might learn something from what they do considering they are much poorer than we are so that could translate into similar transportation and accommodation difficulties for teams that we have here in Canada. I agree about Belize, though. 

Edited December 7, 2018 by Initial B

[CDNFootballer]

22 hours ago, Kent said:

This is the first time I have heard a reason that makes some sense to me why anyone would want an Aperture/Clausura system (aside from just familiarity with it). If you have to play the same teams 3 to 5 times a year, you might as well do it for a couple championships.

NASL moved to an Aperture/Clausura system and it actually worked quite well for them with the Spring and Fall seasons, most clubs were in the championship race over each season and it produced more meaningful games thru the seasons than the previous setup did.

[Alex D]

I dont hate the Spring/Fall season idea. Top clubs from each half meet in a championship match. Bottom from each half meet in a relegation match.  

[ted]

4 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

NASL moved to an Aperture/Clausura system and it actually worked quite well for them...

The NA-what-now?!?

I'm not sure that anything has, "worked for them" lately.

[Impactsupporter]

On ‎12‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 3:53 PM, Initial B said:

I think 28 pro clubs and any number of semi-pro/amateur clubs is sustainable in a nation like Canada. What do you think?

I am not sure if 28 is a sustainable number for pro teams.  I was talking with a soccer coach in my hometown on the south shore of Montreal(name withheld by request) and he felt that 12 teams could work, up to a maximum of 16.

 

I know that CPL commissioner mentioned places like Durham, Mississauga, Kitchener Waterloo, Kelowna, Moncton, Montreal/Laval that were looking to land a CPL team.  Outside of the 7 CPL teams already in place, what other 21 areas do you envision that could have CPL teams that would be capable of travelling coast to coast??

[KW519]

11 minutes ago, Impactsupporter said:

I am not sure if 28 is a sustainable number for pro teams.  I was talking with a soccer coach in my hometown on the south shore of Montreal(name withheld by request) and he felt that 12 teams could work, up to a maximum of 16.

 

I know that CPL commissioner mentioned places like Durham, Mississauga, Kitchener Waterloo, Kelowna, Moncton, Montreal/Laval that were looking to land a CPL team.  Outside of the 7 CPL teams already in place, what other 21 areas do you envision that could have CPL teams that would be capable of travelling coast to coast??

The only thing stopping any club from travelling is money. As long as a club has a sustainable business model and good support any decently populated area could work. In Ontario alone you have London, Windsor, St Catharines-Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Kingston, Barrie, Brampton, and Guelph in addition to Sauga Durham and KW. There's also potential for a multiple Toronto clubs(Etobicoke, Scarborough, North York etc..) Quebec City, Regina, Red Deer, Saskatoon, Lethbridge. Greater Vancouver could also support a number of clubs if this thing takes off, it really just depends on how us the fans in Canada receive and support the league.

[Complete Homer]

1 hour ago, Impactsupporter said:

I am not sure if 28 is a sustainable number for pro teams.  I was talking with a soccer coach in my hometown on the south shore of Montreal(name withheld by request) and he felt that 12 teams could work, up to a maximum of 16.

 

I know that CPL commissioner mentioned places like Durham, Mississauga, Kitchener Waterloo, Kelowna, Moncton, Montreal/Laval that were looking to land a CPL team.  Outside of the 7 CPL teams already in place, what other 21 areas do you envision that could have CPL teams that would be capable of travelling coast to coast??

This is where I think pro/rel and a loose definition of what "pro" means comes into the picture 

Minor league sports often have a hard time, but what would it look like if X struggling AHL team was playing for the chance to compete in the NHL? I think it would mitigate a lot of the stigma of minor leagues and boost overall interest in local teams.

I would suspect that teams operating below the top tier would have a looser definition of professional, not really earning full time wages and eventually being regionallzed. By the time there's actually enough teams to attempt a second division hopefully there's enough centralized revenue (TV rights, sponsors, side businesses like Stadium Digital rolled in, etc) that could prop up teams from smaller communities that manage to make a Cinderella run and get promoted. If not they would have to put financial barriers in place for promotion, which isn't unheard of.

[Impactsupporter]

6 hours ago, KW519 said:

The only thing stopping any club from travelling is money. As long as a club has a sustainable business model and good support any decently populated area could work. In Ontario alone you have London, Windsor, St Catharines-Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Kingston, Barrie, Brampton, and Guelph in addition to Sauga Durham and KW. There's also potential for a multiple Toronto clubs(Etobicoke, Scarborough, North York etc..) Quebec City, Regina, Red Deer, Saskatoon, Lethbridge. Greater Vancouver could also support a number of clubs if this thing takes off, it really just depends on how us the fans in Canada receive and support the league.

Maybe it would be better to have a regional CPL (similar to Junior Hockey) as suggested by Carlo Corazzin   East Central West, national playoffs.

https://twitter.com/thecanplhub/status/865661688632266752

Just a thought.

[Bison44]

3 hours ago, Impactsupporter said:

Maybe it would be better to have a regional CPL (similar to Junior Hockey) as suggested by Carlo Corazzin   East Central West, national playoffs.

https://twitter.com/thecanplhub/status/865661688632266752

Just a thought.

Good thought, but like some others have commented on, you would need 6-8 teams per east/west/central.  And I dont know if we have 20-25 soccer towns that will bring in the 5 to 10g fans needed to have a decent product on the field even with restricted travelling with 3 regional conferences.  I still think if we can get 10-12 bigger centers with deeper pockets and larger fans bases being the entire CPL we should be happy.  And hopefully below that we can still have thriving L1ON, PQ league with the addition of a western and maritime circuit.  10-20 years down the road, HAHA.  

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

2 hours ago, Bison44 said:

Good thought, but like some others have commented on, you would need 6-8 teams per east/west/central.  And I dont know if we have 20-25 soccer towns that will bring in the 5 to 10g fans...

Very soon now this will be determined by reality rather than being in the realm of aspiration. If after the initial wave of enthusiasm wears off, around 3,000 paid turns out to be closer to the norm a regional format with bus travel and a U-23 focus makes more sense. If they were to get 8,000+ in multiple markets (unlikely but so was the surge in interest in Cincinnatti) then I suspect an ongoing national format as more of a rival to MLS would probably be favoured by some of the investors that are already on board and by the Ottawa group that steered clear.

Edited December 9, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Bison44]

8 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Very soon now this will be determined by reality rather than being in the realm of aspiration. If after the initial wave of enthusiasm wears off, around 3,000 paid turns out to be closer to the norm a regional format with bus travel and a U-23 focus makes more sense. If they were to get 8,000+ in multiple markets (unlikely but so was the surge in interest in Cincinnatti) then I suspect an ongoing national format as more of a rival to MLS would probably be favoured by some of the investors that are already on board and by the Ottawa group that steered clear.

We wont know very much.  Things take time to build.  Cinncinati and Atlanta didnt start drawing 20,000 plus without Houston, Dallas, New York, Columbus, Seattle, LA, etc al struggling for years before.  If the original 7 can keep things going, slowly build the product we'll see where it goes.  I doubt the 3rd year will look much like the first.  How many towns/investors etc are sitting on their hands right now and are waiting to see if anyone is interested and if it fly at all??  

[Complete Homer]

If every group has a similar conversion rate as Halifax on memberships...

Halifax: 1120 members × 2.5 = 2800 SSH

York: "1000+" × 2.5 = 2500+ SSH

Winnipeg: 1482 × 2.5 = 3705 SSH

Hamilton: 1562 × 2.5 = 3905 SSH

Van Isle: 272 × 2.5 = 680 SSH, though obviously had a late start

Calgary: 1026 × 2.5 = 2565 SSH

Edmonton: 945 (apparently an underestimate because of the way the deposits were taken during Rally Rabbit) × 2.5 = 2362 SSH

Those figures are about a month into the season ticket drive with five months to go, before they are available to the wider public, and before any single game sales or walkups. Except for Pacific they are well past the thought of averaging 3000 attendees

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

The three MLS franchises have been building up domestic pro soccer's credibility and popularity in Canada for a decade now (arguably longer if you factor in the USL years with the Impact and Whitecaps), so CanPL's launch is not comparable to MLS back in 1996. Soccer is much stronger now in North America than it was 20 years ago, so I think they'll very quickly be able to gauge the shape of things to come for the short to medium term and will make a lot of strategic decisions over their future direction after taking stock of how the first season went and how season ticket renewals are going for season two. It would be bizarre to do otherwise and stick rigidly come what may to some predetermined game plan. The main unknown at this point is how the potential fanbase that is undoubtedly out there in the various markets involved will react to the playing standard that can be sustained by rosters that are heavily Canadian, which is the main point of difference from MLS that the league has chosen to pursue in a manner that is highly commendable where the development of Canadian players is concerned, but is not without risk.

[ted]

39 minutes ago, Complete Homer said:

Except for Pacific they are well past the thought of averaging 3000 attendees

LOL

We are going to average 3,000+ attendances in 2019. The club only started selling season tickets a week ago!

This is why I don't generally comment on other cities marketing: local knowledge is key and clearly you have none.

[Complete Homer]

28 minutes ago, ted said:

LOL

We are going to average 3,000+ attendances in 2019. The club only started selling season tickets a week ago!

This is why I don't generally comment on other cities marketing: local knowledge is key and clearly you have none.

I meant that as more of "we have direct evidence to the contrary" for everyone but Pacific FC.

We don't yet have that blatant, obvious evidence for Pacific yet, mostly just because the switch to Van Isle happened a bit late in the game and like you said they just started selling tickets. I think they will be fine too, I was just demonstrating that it was ridiculous to predict 3000 person crowds when most are already in that ballpark months before a ball is kicked

It's one thing to say a club that has barely started might average 3000 attendees. It's quite another to look at a team with 3800+ SSH five months before the season starts and think they will average 3000. One is being pessimistic, the other is ignoring reality 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Complete Homer

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

39 minutes ago, ted said:

LOL

We are going to average 3,000+ attendances in 2019...

"If after the initial wave of enthusiasm wears off, ..." is what I initially wrote and that's more about what happens in 2020 and beyond after people have had a chance to sample the entertainment product that is on offer. By this time next year the seven launching franchises will have a very clear picture what season ticket renewal rates are looking like and will have been able to gauge how many repeat customers they were getting where single game ticket buyers were concerned.

[Initial B]

On 12/8/2018 at 2:14 PM, Impactsupporter said:

I am not sure if 28 is a sustainable number for pro teams.  I was talking with a soccer coach in my hometown on the south shore of Montreal(name withheld by request) and he felt that 12 teams could work, up to a maximum of 16.

 

I know that CPL commissioner mentioned places like Durham, Mississauga, Kitchener Waterloo, Kelowna, Moncton, Montreal/Laval that were looking to land a CPL team.  Outside of the 7 CPL teams already in place, what other 21 areas do you envision that could have CPL teams that would be capable of travelling coast to coast??

I don't see 21 teams being able to travel coast to coast, hence why I was suggesting regional Division 2. I think the trick will be to make the First division not large enough to hold all the viable Div 1 clubs. Maybe we only need 8 clubs in Div 1 playing home and away twice, with the bottom 1 or 2 clubs being relegated to the East and West Div 2 leagues?