IAmPappy

Wow! Dramatic much? Its a name. Get past it. You get a team backed by a global brand that just paid 120 million Euros for a Portuguese kid. Humans have a way to personalizing names. Robert becomes Rob, Bob, and Bubba. Atlético will become Atléti, Athletes, or even the A’s.

So, there’s a strong possibility that I’m being pedantic here, but it’s Atlético and it’s Bilbao.

Fair points. So, I do follow La Liga a bit, and a few clarifications on brands. The team in Madrid calls itself Clube Atlético de Madrid, or just Atlético, or simply Atléti. That’s the Spanish spelling. The club in Bilbao uses the English spelling in the brand, Athletic Bilbao. This is draining. I’m just going to wait for the countdown clock, if that’s what they’re doing this time.

You think? ’United’ is not really a brand, it’s an English word, and in the footie context, has no meaning outside the UK. No disrespect to Atlanta, but that’s basically a name that teams settle on when their creativity department fails them. No casual fan will ever associate AnyTown United with Manchester United. In the footie context, ‘Atlético’ is not a Spanish word. It’s a brand. I propose that every casual fan will immediately know what Atlético means and who they are. I could be wrong.

Although I would agree with you if this was a local (Canadian) ownership group, it ain’t gonna happen with a global brand. It’s gonna be ‘Atlético’ in every language.

Atlético Madrid: “Let’s acquire some properties around the world to strengthen our brand, and include ‘Atlético’ in all their names, but not in Ottawa, cause, you know, they have that whole French / English / Fury thing going, so yah ... ‘Ottawa Athletic’ it is then, just like our rivals in Bilbao”. 🤔

Wouldn’t Ottawa actually need to be sanctioned first as a club by CSA at the May meeting? I’m thinking they’re probably on the sideline for this year.

Has anyone told Atletico about the $9M buy-in? 😉 (That was tongue-in-cheek, for those that were about to flame me. And also, if all this happens in Ottawa, would anyone be surprised if other major footie players start looking at Vancouver, Montreal, and Quebec? And would $9M still be ‘crazy’, or would it be more like a bargain? Keeping in mind that CPL is literally the last greenfield soccer investment opportunity in the developed world that operates by European rules, that buys and sells players inter-league, that develops players for profit and for export, and that actually operates clubs, not simply call them clubs. Rant over. Sorry.)

Agreed that background preparation has probably been happening, but even if this is out-of-the-blue, there is plenty of time to enter the Fall 2020 season as a ‘showcase’ team. Jut seems like a looooong time till 2021.

i really miss the countdown clock.

Yup. I’ll stand by my position that $9M is not outrageous and that anything under $3M would actually point to a failing business model. I base this opinion on my rudimentary valuation of CSB, which is based on data that is public or estimated. Not feelings.

Thank you for refreshing this thread and bringing this awesome history to us newbies. And thank you thank you thank you to all those folks that made it happen! 🇨🇦⚽👍

Dear Mr Parrot, At your earliest convenience, would you please share with us your brief view on what differentiates a club model from a franchise model. Thank you in advance.

You’re cherry-picking semantics to justify the ‘franchise’ tag. Either that, or sh-t disturbing the board intentionally, but I wouldn’t accuse you of that. Let’s hear your 3-bullet definition for each term (club and franchise).

I’m going to regret waddling into this conversation, but here goes: I view franchise vs club in the context of territorial exclusivity. In a (North American) club model, you still pay a free to enter the league, but that’s to buy into a piece of the pie (CSB, for example). You have the right to relocate you club but you don’t have territorial exclusivity. If Valour want to move to Skydome in Toronto (bad example), there’s nothing that Forge or York 9 can do about it. All land is free. In a franchise model, the NHL for example, you buy into the broader business pie, but you also get territorial rights. The Bruins could relocate if they like, but not anywhere in southern Ontario because the Leafs and Sabres own the land. Dominos does the same thing — only one franchise per neighborhood. So, is CPL a club or a franchise model?