Vancouver Whitecaps 2020 Season

[BearcatSA]

Stadium issue?  Does their current lease with PavCo expire soon?

Edited August 28, 2020 by BearcatSA

[GlassCity]

2027 is what I was told

[Bison44]

Who knows what the books say, whether the actual business is in good shape, at least the fanbase/attendance hasnt tanked.  Sometimes doom and gloom grumblings from us hardcore fans are not the most accurate assesment of a franchise.  

[narduch]

Wonder how different things would look if they were allowed to build that stadium 

[Shway]

I hope if true it goes like this:

- Sell the team to Americans who want to relocate the franchise
- Make a massive profit on their initial investments
- Relocate the brand to the Canadian Premier League 

Please sweet Jesus let this happen. Let the exodus begin starting with the Caps, all right before or after we get a few WC games in 2026. The impact will follow, and TFC will hopefully have no choice.
 

[Shway]

2 hours ago, BearcatSA said:

Stadium issue?  Does their current lease with PavCo expire soon?

How bad could their deal be? With the CFL future under extreme uncertainty....Thats alot of dates gone from BC Place.

[Ruffian]

2 minutes ago, Shway said:

I hope if true it goes like this:

- Sell the team to Americans who want to relocate the franchise
- Make a massive profit on their initial investments
- Relocate the brand to the Canadian Premier League 

Please sweet Jesus let this happen. Let the exodus begin starting with the Caps, all right before or after we get a few WC games in 2026. The impact will follow, and TFC will hopefully have no choice.
 

Don't mention that on Reddit! You'll get attacked for an opinion like that.

[Shway]

6 minutes ago, Ruffian said:

Don't mention that on Reddit! You'll get attacked for an opinion like that.

I have many times....and have been down voted to shits lol, but I don't care. Truth hurts.
I would love TFC to make that move at some point, so we can rid ourselves of the American infrastructure. 

There team right now is a ready made CPL team on overpriced salaries in comparison to CPL team. 

[narduch]

15 minutes ago, Shway said:

I hope if true it goes like this:

- Sell the team to Americans who want to relocate the franchise
- Make a massive profit on their initial investments
- Relocate the brand to the Canadian Premier League 

Please sweet Jesus let this happen. Let the exodus begin starting with the Caps, all right before or after we get a few WC games in 2026. The impact will follow, and TFC will hopefully have no choice.
 

Careful now. Talk like that may bring Ozzie back out of retirement 

[Ruffian]

2 minutes ago, Shway said:

I have many times....and have been down voted to ***** lol, but I don't care. Truth hurts.
I would love TFC to make that move at some point, so we can rid ourselves of the American infrastructure. 

There team right now is a ready made CPL team on overpriced salaries in comparison to CPL team. 

I would love to see the CONCACAF competitions expanded and increase in popularity before that happens. But in the perfect world in my head All of the best Canadian teams end up in CPL, there is Pro/Rel in Canadian soccer and CONCACAF competition involve 3-4 Canadian teams with a lot more games per year to drive some more revenue streams.

[Shway]

1 minute ago, Ruffian said:

I would love to see the CONCACAF competitions expanded and increase in popularity before that happens. But in the perfect world in my head All of the best Canadian teams end up in CPL, there is Pro/Rel in Canadian soccer and CONCACAF competition involve 3-4 Canadian teams with a lot more games per year to drive some more revenue streams.

They're two separate competitions, what affect do you think would happen as a result of Concacaf competition expanding/increase in popularity have on the CPL?

 The reality is our coefficient in Concacaf is pretty good, reason why we are given an automatic berth into the champions league. Only until last year we had more teams to justify an additional berth via Concacaf League.

Let's say us going from 8 teams to 12 teams. It would put us on par with the likes of Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and Guatamela who all have at least 3 spots into Concacaf club competition. It would almost automatically earn us an additional spot - right now it can't be justified because the little teams we have.

[Ruffian]

Just now, Shway said:

They're two separate competitions, what affect do you think would happen as a result of Concacaf competition expanding/increase in popularity have on the CPL?

If it increases in popularity there will be a lot more money for the teams competing in it to make per appearance and to win. MLS is seen as the top league for Canadians/Americans, CPL may be seen by a lot of people as minor league. If the CONCACAF competitions can be seen as the top league then a lot more people will watch that. 

[Watchmen]

9 hours ago, Shway said:

I have many times....and have been down voted to ***** lol, but I don't care. Truth hurts.
I would love TFC to make that move at some point, so we can rid ourselves of the American infrastructure. 

There team right now is a ready made CPL team on overpriced salaries in comparison to CPL team. 

The truth is that the CPL in Vancouver would struggle badly.  It would be viewed as minor league, and would have problems in the same way that the CFL does.

[Watchmen]

21 hours ago, toontownman said:

We can hope. There simply has to be people that see the potential in Whitecaps. The right formular will see fans come back. Fingers crossed. 

I think you could look at the Whitecaps the same way the Canucks were.  Poorly managed, with an owner more concerned with not losing too much money and a president of Orca Bay who was bad at his job.  Love or hate the Aquallini's, they knew it was a devalued team, and it wasn't hard to turn them around once a better management group was in place.  I think it's the same situation with the Whitecaps.

[toontownman]

Question for anyone. 

If there were no longer any Canadian teams in the MLS (for whatever reason) would you still watch it?

I wouldnt, other than maybe to catch the odd game if there were major canadians playing like Lille games with david etc. But generally I wouldnt care in the least. 

The MLS isn't like the NFL imo. The NFL doesnt have 20 other better leagues in the world ahead of it for one. Do Canadians support Galaxy or other Amercian teams? Family ties or spurious links aside.

MLS without Canadian clubs would be dead in Canada imo. Especially if the CPL continues to grow and improve.

 

[Watchmen]

5 minutes ago, toontownman said:

Question for anyone. 

If there were no longer any Canadian teams in the MLS (for whatever reason) would you still watch it?

I wouldnt, other than maybe to catch the odd game if there were major canadians playing like Lille games with david etc. But generally I wouldnt care in the least. 

The MLS isn't like the NFL imo. The NFL doesnt have 20 other better leagues in the world ahead of it for one. Do Canadians support Galaxy or other Amercian teams? Family ties or spurious links aside.

MLS without Canadian clubs would be dead in Canada imo. Especially if the CPL continues to grow and improve.

 

I don't think most Canadians would watch MLS, but I don't think most casual fans would jump to the CPL either. I think a lot of people would just go back to focusing on their European (or Mexican, or wherever) club exclusively.

[BearcatSA]

1 hour ago, Watchmen said:

The truth is that the CPL in Vancouver would struggle badly.  It would be viewed as minor league, and would have problems in the same way that the CFL does.

Like several other North American pro sports markets, unless it's the "big time," Vancouver is a soft ticket which depends on winning.  A really good Vancouver CPL team would obviously have great support but a mediocre to bad one would have very little or at least not enough to make it economically viable.  However, if you had two franchises in the Lower Mainland (Vancouver and Fraser Valley/Langley) maybe that would change the dynamic with a good rivalry and trying to out-do the other, including with support.  Hard to say.

 

 

 

[SpecialK]

Ok pipe dream idea here but I’m curious what people think and is it doable ? Bryan Cristante to Vancouver. Oz did say in interview I believe that he was looking at coming to North America one day. Now he would solve a lot of problems. Also Roma is loaded with midfielders. Also his value has drop a bunch - 25 to 18 million on transfermarket. Vancouver have a open DP spot right ?  Also they got some money. Also he would be considered a Domestic player because he has a Canadian passport.

[Big_M]

theres 7-8 american teams that have at least a canadian and there would be way more if there was no canadian team..anyway mls is there to stay in canada just like nhl mlb..

[SpursFlu]

I wonder what BC Place is worth? 1.5, 2 billion? What are the Caps worth 200 million? BC Lions 15 million?

17 billion dollar deficit this year. Gov needs money

[Watchmen]

Just now, SpursFlu said:

I wonder what BC Place is worth? 1.5, 2 billion? What are the Caps worth 200 million? BC Lions 15 million?

17 billion dollar deficit this year. Gov needs money

Yes, the rumour has always been that the Aqualinis have wanted to acquire all three of those things, but that the government isn't interested in selling BC Place.  It's normally been a profitable business for them.

[Watchmen]

11 hours ago, BearcatSA said:

Like several other North American pro sports markets, unless it's the "big time," Vancouver is a soft ticket which depends on winning.  A really good Vancouver CPL team would obviously have great support but a mediocre to bad one would have very little or at least not enough to make it economically viable.  However, if you had two franchises in the Lower Mainland (Vancouver and Fraser Valley/Langley) maybe that would change the dynamic with a good rivalry and trying to out-do the other, including with support.  Hard to say.

But define "great support".  Because honestly I look at when the 86ers/Whitecaps were really good in the USL and it was still only 4-5k attendance most games.  And that was with no competition for that product.  If you suddenly had two teams in the lower mainland, you're splitting an already small base.  Further, I don't think you'd play your CPL team out of BC Place, which means you're back out of the downtown core to Swangard or you're trying to build your own stadium.  And if a soccer specific stadium could be built, then the MLS team would do it.

[BearcatSA]

19 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

But define "great support".  Because honestly I look at when the 86ers/Whitecaps were really good in the USL and it was still only 4-5k attendance most games.  And that was with no competition for that product.  If you suddenly had two teams in the lower mainland, you're splitting an already small base.  Further, I don't think you'd play your CPL team out of BC Place, which means you're back out of the downtown core to Swangard or you're trying to build your own stadium.  And if a soccer specific stadium could be built, then the MLS team would do it.

I don't disagree with anything here.  "Great" is relative to league level and success. 

Besides the NBA Grizzlies, the city of Vancouver used to have Triple A pro ball and major junior hockey.  Now  the hockey moved to Langley and  the Canadians play in, what, the lowest tier of the minor pro pyramid?  Isn't the favourite pro football team in Vancouver the Seattle Seahawks?  It just seems like it's a "major league" pretense/mind set.  If Toronto and Montreal continued to have MLS franchises while Vancouver didn't and had a CPL team instead, your guess is as good as mine as to how successful it would at the gate.  Heaven forbid, you might even get a significant chapter of a Sounders booster club in town (ugh!).

[SpursFlu]

The center of gravity of the lower mainland is rapidly shifting. If you live on the other side of the Fraser its a different place all together. If the Lions built a stadium in the Fraser Valley they would do great. Its all changing so rapidly.

I'm in Surrey twice a week for work and if people in other parts of the country don't know Surrey, get to know it. It has a completely different demographic and lifestyle to Vancouver. The amount of grow there there and its surrounding suburbs is staggering 

Edited August 29, 2020 by SpursFlu

[gator]

14 hours ago, toontownman said:

Question for anyone. 

If there were no longer any Canadian teams in the MLS (for whatever reason) would you still watch it?

I wouldnt, other than maybe to catch the odd game if there were major canadians playing like Lille games with david etc. But generally I wouldnt care in the least. 

The MLS isn't like the NFL imo. The NFL doesnt have 20 other better leagues in the world ahead of it for one. Do Canadians support Galaxy or other Amercian teams? Family ties or spurious links aside.

MLS without Canadian clubs would be dead in Canada imo. Especially if the CPL continues to grow and improve.

 

I didn't watch MLS before TFC and the most I would do is give it a casual glimpse if there were a few Canadians actually playing on American based teams if there were no Canadian MLS clubs, hell I don't watch TFC when no Canadians are on the field!