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Calgary for MLS?


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This won't go down well with some people on here:

https://canoe.com/sports/soccer/cavalry-fc-looks-to-measure-up-against-mls-whitecaps/wcm/36584ecb-fd89-4018-bd03-58d6a06c540a

...Funny enough, the Whitecaps arrived in the city Tuesday on the same day that word is circulating a group of investors, made up of local and international interests, is moving soon to table a formal bid to bring an MLS franchise to Calgary for the 2026 season.

Even if such a proposal is backed by soccer fans here, support for that would likely be difficult to secure at the national level with the Canadian Soccer Association entirely on board with growing the sport in Canada through the CPL and not with the MLS except in already established MLS markets...

but it would be interesting to see how the CSA would handle that, if it became a serious issue.

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1 hour ago, Ansem said:

Never going to happen.

...is a more polite version of what I was told by a poster called krammerhead around 20 years ago when I first posted on the Voyageurs board and suggested that a Canadian MLS entry would be a good idea. Seriously doubt it would happen unless Calgary adds an extra million in population to its metro area and MLS expands way past 32 teams, but never is a bit too definite if there are people out there who are willing to write a cheque with a nine digit number on it for this.

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Unless the CSA is now more pessimistic about the CPL expanding beyond 10 teams despite their claims that they have tons of Canadian markets interested and plan to move to promotion/relegation with a Division II, I think the bigger obstacle here (assuming that the article is correct about a ton of investors being involved) is MLS interest.

I agree that could change though (and who knows by 2026 what will be the case) and Alberta is an untapped market for MLS so I would also hesitate to say "Never".

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Right now, I'd take it with a cattle-licked sized block of salt (a little homage to the Stampede city for y'all), simply because I don't think there is any motivation for MLS to set up shop there.  As with anything like this, you wonder who the local financial players are.

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First you need someone to kick in 100million right off the bat, maybe up to 200million if you believe the MLS hype. And get a stadium that is up to the increasingly high MLS standards (20,000 or so would do it). Then have a fan base of around 15-20000 to make for a successful club and Oh yeah salary would be somewhere like 5-10million a year.  

Considering we had douches who didnt believe we could get owners that could handle 5% of an investment like that 2 years ago, I'm going to file this in the "far fetched" cabinet.  

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HI believe that If investors have the money and are willing to pay the money,  MLS will let you in.   I said the same thing about Ottawa ten years ago when there was the civic discussion regarding stadium and whether to go with the Melnyk plan that included a stadium for MLS only or the Jeff Hunt plan that included a stadium for the the CFL with a token USL team.  The civic authorities went with CFL instead.   Garber at the time was quoted and i recall it distinctly: “ if investors have the required investment and are willing to pay the required investment, then why would we not seriously consider an expansion team”.   Thats about at categorical as you can get.

Of all the cities that have been bandied around as possible expansion, who has not been eventually awarded an expansion?   Eventually everyone who has been interested  and has investors who are willing to pony up, has gotten in eventually.  Same thing applies to Calgary. Owners want/love getting expansion fees, thats why leagues expand and it never stops.  

I dont live in Calgary. But what we know from afar is that it is fourth largest market in Canada and its catchment area exceeds a potential client base of many existing MLS cities.  Plus there are not that much competition like you would have in a similar sized (or smaller) US city where you might have an MLB and NFL.  Competition counts for alot in terms of success.  For example, why on gods green earth would one think that it cant work in Calgary but it can work in places like Cincinnati or Minneapolis.  

Another reason why i think this story has legs is that Calgary needs a new CFL stadium.   And when you have to finance a stadium,  its really hard to justify economically such venture when its only going to be used for 9-10 dates a year (ie.: averae number of home games a CFL team plays) .  The ROI will certainly get more interesting if the stadium is going to be used for those 9 games plus another 20.  

The only challenge that i see for Calgary is the climate.  The League starts in March and ends potentially in November.  

 

Edited by Free kick
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7 hours ago, Club Linesman said:

Garber said no more teams in Canada. Before the CPL was reality.  Full stop end of discussion.

You would sound just like krammerhead did twenty years ago if you threw in a few expletives. Garber has also said that MLS would stop at 16, 18, 20, 24, 28, 30.... teams. Around ten years ago there were people who were absolutely adamant in their insistence that there was a FIFA directive that would stop them expanding past 16. Someone comes along who is willing to write another eight or nine figure number on a cheque and suddenly the goal posts suddenly get shifted again, so then it was 18 and then it was 20 that was the end, finito, the termination point for discussion.

A fourth Canadian team was a non-starter when when there were still American markets that MLS very much needed from a broadcasting footprint standpoint, but they don't have much left to do now from that standpoint, so a lot depends on whether 32 is their final destination and that remains to be seen.  

 

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12 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 Garber has also said that MLS would stop at 16, 18, 20, 24, 28, 30.... teams.

 

Haven’t seen that but he was interviewed on TSN in the last couple years and was asked point blank (by Wileman I believe) if there would be another Canadian teamand he said something to the effect of never, we will only have these three markets. Remember thinking it was pretty ballsy to be so  blatant about it on a Canadian soccer broadcast.  I guess if someone wanted to give them a billion Cdn dollars MLS would have to consider it but it won’t happen so there will be no more Canadian MLS teams.

 

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13 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Garber has also said that MLS would stop at 16, 18, 20, 24, 28, 30.... teams. Around ten years ago there were people who were absolutely adamant in their insistence that there was a FIFA directive that would stop them expanding past 16.

Garber is no longer in control so his fecklessness is irrelevant.

The CSA will not grant any further exemptions and I fully expect that the current ones will be allowed to expire in the coming years.

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14 hours ago, Stanley said:

That guy is still triggering people 20 years later?

More a case of still being remembered for lacking the basic set of social skills that you would expect from an adult and generally behaving like a toddler having a temper tantrum in an almost comic sort of way, if it wasn't so pathetic. Anybody who constantly uses swear words online and becomes personally abusive towards people they disagree with forfeits the right to be taken seriously.

12 hours ago, ted said:

The CSA will not grant any further exemptions and I fully expect that the current ones will be allowed to expire in the coming years.

It was noteworthy that the attempts to strong arm the Fury into CanPL came through Victor Montagliani rather than the CSA, so don't hold your breath on that last bit.

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On 7/12/2019 at 3:29 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

You would sound just like krammerhead did twenty years ago if you threw in a few expletives. Garber has also said that MLS would stop at 16, 18, 20, 24, 28, 30.... teams. Around ten years ago there were people who were absolutely adamant in their insistence that there was a FIFA directive that would stop them expanding past 16. Someone comes along who is willing to write another eight or nine figure number on a cheque and suddenly the goal posts suddenly get shifted again, so then it was 18 and then it was 20 that was the end, finito, the termination point for discussion.

A fourth Canadian team was a non-starter when when there were still American markets that MLS very much needed from a broadcasting footprint standpoint, but they don't have much left to do now from that standpoint, so a lot depends on whether 32 is their final destination and that remains to be seen.  

 

This is actually not true. Garber never set a hard limit on the number of teams. You are making this up.

Sure, we should never say never, but at this point in time MLS is not interested in more Canadian teams. There are probably 10-15 other US markets they would rather be in than in Calgary.

Things were a lot different in 2005 when Toronto got its franchise.

Sort of an aside, but I often wonder if MLS did not discriminate against Canadian players and if the 3 MLS clubs did a better job with their Academies and Canada was making World Cups would there have been as big as an impetus for the CPL?

I do think in the long run that the CPL will bleed some fan support from the 3 MLS clubs. And the 3 MLS clubs only have themselves to blame for that.

Back to the topic at hand, why would the CSA give their blessing to an MLS club in Calgary that would hurt the CPL club?

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7 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

It was noteworthy that the attempts to strong arm the Fury into CanPL came through Victor Montagliani rather than the CSA, so don't hold your breath on that last bit.

It is noteworthy that you misrepresent the facts in support of a phantom argument. The CSA declined to renew the exemption in order to support the new league they have been instrumental in building. Montagliani as head of CONCACAF supported them. If you have the slightest shred of actual evidence that Montagliani coerced the CSA into the actions taken, why have you not shared it? And no, your conjecture and some conspiracy theories are not evidence.

In any case the argument at hand is Calgary and there is no basis to believe that that Calgary would be interested in MLS, that MLS would be interested in Calgary, or that that the CSA would be interested in negatively affecting the CanPL.

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In reality, the CSA and USSF both approved the Fury's sanctioning for the 2019 season in the exact same way they have done previously and sent the forms onto CONCACAF for rubber stamping at which point it became an issue, and the article I quoted in the opening post provides a basis for believing that there is somebody in Calgary with a lot of money who is interested in MLS.

Agree with this guy on Reddit for where things stand at the moment and the probable timeline needed for it to become more of a possibility, but think it would need a lot more expansion to be viable and wouldn't happen through relocation in a 30-32 team MLS:

 

Edited by Ozzie_the_parrot
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39 minutes ago, youllneverwalkalone said:

Leaving 3 spots to be determined? Does that mean they are stopping at 30?

  

It means that they'll stop at 30 until they figure out when and how they want to have MLS2 and by that I mean pro-rel in MLS.

Edited by Blackdude
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