Canadian Premier League

[esquire]

The regional approach (kind of like the CHL) makes sense, but they don't have enough teams to make that work. I think you'd probably need at least 24 clubs to create 3 regional leagues of at least 8 teams each. But I guess you could do an east-west split with 8 clubs x 2 as well, maybe that's more realistic. It cuts out the coast to coast travel, at least.

I can't help but think that the pandemic really hindered the growth of the CanPL... I think that has had an impact here in Winnipeg, for instance.

[blueandgoldguy]

I was wrong about the Valour getting blown out by Ottawa Athletico as they battled to a respectable 1-1 draw. Watching the highlights it looked like there were about 500 - 1000 people in the stands at IG Field. I guess we will see how the crowds look in late spring/early summer but I would not at all be surprised if it's more of the same...around 1,000 people showing up.

That's a bit of a shocker about York. I though JHikka told me last year that York was going to move into a more soccer-friendly facility eventually. I guess that wasn't enticing enough for the owners to hold on to the team. Whenever I watched the highlights of their games it looked like they were playing in front of family and friends. I suspect the losses were steep. Maybe they can be relocated to Saskatoon next year?

Even the crowds in places that have had successful teams like Calgary and Hamilton were not that impressive last year with both averaging less than 4,000 per game. I'm sure the head honchos of the league thought they would have more traction across the country at this point with most markets averaging more than 5,000 per game (probably a break-even point). That hasn't been close to the case.

I too wonder if this league will even survive after the 2026 World Cup. If they can get some decently sized communities that are willing to invest 10 - 30 million into 5,000+ seat stadiums and have no summer competition with a local CFL team, I think that might provide a big boost to the league. Think Kelowna/Kamloops, Red Deer, Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Kitchener, London, Windsor, Quebec City, Moncton, Fredericton.

[MonctonRad]

Moncton has a ready made 10,000 seat stadium.

Forming an ownership group would be the main problem. Not that many people with deep pockets in this country.

[blueandgoldguy]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Moncton has a ready made 10,000 seat stadium.

Forming an ownership group would be the main problem. Not that many people with deep pockets in this country.

Yes, I should have specified that some communities already have a decent facility available. Who knows, maybe the league would allow York to move there for whatever price the original ownership group had to pay for the expansion team back in 2019. I'm too lazy to look up what that amount was? $500,000? $1 million?

What's the feeling about pro soccer in Moncton? Think they can average 4 - 5,000 per game there with an average ticket price of $30?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

I was wrong about the Valour getting blown out by Ottawa Athletico as they battled to a respectable 1-1 draw. Watching the highlights it looked like there were about 500 - 1000 people in the stands at IG Field. I guess we will see how the crowds look in late spring/early summer but I would not at all be surprised if it's more of the same...around 1,000 people showing up.

That's a bit of a shocker about York. I though JHikka told me last year that York was going to move into a more soccer-friendly facility eventually. I guess that wasn't enticing enough for the owners to hold on to the team. Whenever I watched the highlights of their games it looked like they were playing in front of family and friends. I suspect the losses were steep. Maybe they can be relocated to Saskatoon next year?

Even the crowds in places that have had successful teams like Calgary and Hamilton were not that impressive last year with both averaging less than 4,000 per game. I'm sure the head honchos of the league thought they would have more traction across the country at this point with most markets averaging more than 5,000 per game (probably a break-even point). That hasn't been close to the case.

I too wonder if this league will even survive after the 2026 World Cup. If they can get some decently sized communities that are willing to invest 10 - 30 million into 5,000+ seat stadiums and have no summer competition with a local CFL team, I think that might provide a big boost to the league. Think Kelowna/Kamloops, Red Deer, Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Kitchener, London, Windsor, Quebec City, Moncton, Fredericton.

It's pretty hard for York to find traction in a market like Toronto with zero TV exposure and an out of the way location. Vancouver will be in the same boat. Seems to me that they are basically relying on the soccer community to keep the teams afloat.

As for Valour, between the weather and the Jets game at the same time I figured 500 would be a reasonable number. Anything beyond that would be gravy IMO. I'm sure the numbers will increase a bit to the 2 to 3 thousand range, but unless they really go on a tear I don't expect them to exceed that. They aren't going to hit Wade Miller's target of 5,000 a game this season.

Those smaller cities you mentioned are the perfect place for the CanPL to go. Using myself as an example, I won't buy season tickets for Valour because my summer sports dance card is already full with the Bombers. Then I go to a couple Goldeyes (baseball), Valour (soccer) and now Sea Bears (basketball) games on top of that. So one or two Valour matches is about all that I'm going to go to. Whereas if I lived in Saskatoon and there was a CanPL team, I'd buy season tickets.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

What's the feeling about pro soccer in Moncton? Think they can average 4 - 5,000 per game there with an average ticket price of $30?

The soccer matches that have been held at Blue Cross Stadium have done well (Women's World Cup, Women's U20 World Cup, a couple of "friendly" matches last year) have done decently. The Moncton Wildcats have the third best attendance in the QMJHL and, whatever flavour of minor professional basketball available in the city seems to pull in a couple of thousand fans for each game.

As long as the weather is good, people should come out, especially with the prestige of a national professional league. We would also have a built in rivalry with Halifax. Moncton/Halifax is always a struggle for the ages.

[svlt]

I don't think the league will fold but expansion plans should be significantly curtailed. Some markets are doing pretty well and it would be a shame for a few that clearly don't work to drag the entire league down with them. There clearly is a base for soccer support in the country and they just need to be very selective and not shoot for the moon on where to place 8-10 teams that are viable long term.

IMO there should absolutely not be teams where MLS teams already are. Because soccer allows professional, meaningful cross-league play unlike almost any other spectator sport in the entire world, they should count the 3 MLS cities as already having soccer teams in a "Canadian" league context. TFC, IMFC (yes I'm still calling it that) and VWFC all can and do compete against CPL teams on an annual basis - sometimes even the league below CPL. There is absolutely no need for a York FC or a Langley FC, and if Quebec ever enters the league it should not be Laval but Quebec City.

I thought it was really quite naive of some fans to think the MLS teams would ever be interested in joining the CPL. It's clear the CPL will serve an extremely valuable, but niche purpose for soccer in the country - serving the interests of Canadians in cities where MLS will not go. That league is just 30+years more advanced than the CPL at this stage and has an outside chance of being the very top league of the Americas, no way an MLS Canadian team will ever be interested in leaving.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by svlt

I thought it was really quite naive of some fans to think the MLS teams would ever be interested in joining the CPL. It's clear the CPL will serve an extremely valuable, but niche purpose for soccer in the country - serving the interests of Canadians in cities where MLS will not go. That league is just 30+years more advanced than the CPL at this stage and has an outside chance of being the very top league of the Americas, no way an MLS Canadian team will ever be interested in leaving.

I don't think anyone ever really thought that would happen.

Although mind you, the current trajectory will ultimately hinder the growth of soccer in this country. For better or for worse, the largest cities tend to set the trends when it comes to sports. If Toronto and Vancouver don't care about the CanPL, then large swaths of Canada won't care about the CanPL. We then end up with a situation like the one we have where CanPL's future is already in doubt only 5 years in. And we may soon be back to a situation where there are only three or fewer pro soccer teams in the country. It's hard to say that soccer is better off in that scenario.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Forming an ownership group would be the main problem. Not that many people with deep pockets in this country.

More than you might think. In 2021, there were 53 billionaires in Canada and that number rose to 65 in 2022.

Add to that the number of multi millionaires which would be more than adequate to fund a CPL club.

In the CFL there was always a discrepancy between who people thought had deep pockets and whose pockets were just fine but not as deep.

I got the impression that many people thought Bob Young was extremely wealthy and David Braley was a crew cutted rube. I figured Bob Young at the time to have around a third of a billion (300 million +).

Braley on the other hand had NFL money. I had to laugh when the Toronto groups were bidding for the Bills. The main group's main investor was worth about a third of Braley. Braley was known for auto parts like soccer investor Frank Stronach who owned teams in Austria. But aside from what they are best known for some of these guys (like Braley) have their fingers in a lot of pies (ie Amar Doman in BC).

[elly63]

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[thurmas]

I think a better model would be similar to minor league baseball having Canadian teams play against northern u.s. state teams to save on travel costs and create decent regional rivalries.

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by esquire

It's pretty hard for York to find traction in a market like Toronto with zero TV exposure and an out of the way location. Vancouver will be in the same boat. Seems to me that they are basically relying on the soccer community to keep the teams afloat.

As for Valour, between the weather and the Jets game at the same time I figured 500 would be a reasonable number. Anything beyond that would be gravy IMO. I'm sure the numbers will increase a bit to the 2 to 3 thousand range, but unless they really go on a tear I don't expect them to exceed that. They aren't going to hit Wade Miller's target of 5,000 a game this season.

Those smaller cities you mentioned are the perfect place for the CanPL to go. Using myself as an example, I won't buy season tickets for Valour because my summer sports dance card is already full with the Bombers. Then I go to a couple Goldeyes (baseball), Valour (soccer) and now Sea Bears (basketball) games on top of that. So one or two Valour matches is about all that I'm going to go to. Whereas if I lived in Saskatoon and there was a CanPL team, I'd buy season tickets.

What is a sea bear and how did it get to Winnipeg?

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Denscity

What is a sea bear and how did it get to Winnipeg?

A poetic description of a Polar Bear, which I assume wandered down from Churchill?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by jonny24

A poetic description of a Polar Bear, which I assume wandered down from Churchill?

VIA Rail comes down from Churchill twice a week, it probably came down here that way

[bridgeoftea]

Originally Posted by thurmas

I think a better model would be similar to minor league baseball having Canadian teams play against northern u.s. state teams to save on travel costs and create decent regional rivalries.

Yeah looking to keep things more regionalized for rivalry sake and for travel costs at this point in the CPL would be a smart move.

IMO there should absolutely not be teams where MLS teams already are. Because soccer allows professional, meaningful cross-league play unlike almost any other spectator sport in the entire world, they should count the 3 MLS cities as already having soccer teams in a "Canadian" league context. TFC, IMFC (yes I'm still calling it that) and VWFC all can and do compete against CPL teams on an annual basis - sometimes even the league below CPL. There is absolutely no need for a York FC or a Langley FC, and if Quebec ever enters the league it should not be Laval but Quebec City.

That was sort of what I was getting at in a roundabout way. Focus on the communities that will support the team instead of hoping for spillover from places that already have an MLS team.

Completely off topic but similar to the way Calgary now has NHL,AHL,WHL team playing out of the Saddledome. I get the spillover and costs cuts from an NHL ticket to AHL/WHL. But why should Calgary really care about the AHL team? Where as when it was in Stockton that was their big ticket. (especially back in the ECHL days with the Thunder).

I know Canada/USA will never have the same type of leagues/rivalries as European leagues. But it would be nice to focus on the community aspect of teams to build organic support.

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by Denscity

What is a sea bear and how did it get to Winnipeg?

Ah yes ok thank you.

[J.OT13]

Article in the NCR's French newspaper earlier this month. A few highlights.

- Overall attendance has gone up 20.7% year over year;
- Average attendance of 3,833;
- Halifax tops the league with 5,889, York is bottom with 1,249 and Ottawa is third with 4,823;
- They want to establish 4 new teams within 3 years (in time for World Cup);
- They want to establish teams in Quebec, discussions with Quebec City is ongoing, but they are also eyeing Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Laval;
- Quebec City would play at Laval University however, the league demands the construction of a CPL specific stadium. They don't want a situation like Ottawa where the CPL is a tenant;
- Discussions are also ongoing to start a team in Kelowna;
- They would love to see Edmonton return.

Overall, they seem overly ambitious, talking about how London UK supports 14 teams, so Toronto could support 6 (even though they can barely support the current CPL team).

He also mentions how the United States invests in sports in a way Canada dosen't.

They are also comparing themselves to MLS, how they had a rough start, but they are now considered one of NA's major leagues. The CPL will never reach MLS. It will always be the CFL of NA soccer at best.

https://www.ledroit.com/sports/socce...IVJ2473RLJIK4/

[jonny24]

Being too picky about stadiums is the biggest thing holding the CPL back. There're nothing wrong with Ottawa's setup IMO.

Overall, they seem overly ambitious, talking about how London UK supports 14 teams, so Toronto could support 6 (even though they can barely support the current CPL team).

An interesting point... the nature of the English pyramid means you can just keep counting more and more teams as you go down, but if we look at say the top 3 levels:

Premier league (7): Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Tottenham, West Ham

Championship (2): Millwall, Queens Park,

League one (1): Charlton


And of course soccer isn't the only sport, in Premiership Rugby (union) we have Saracens and Harlequins (Irish just went bankrupt), and the Championship has Ealing and Scottish, for (4) professional teams. The 2nd tier of of rugby league has London Broncos (1).

I won't pretend to understand how cricket works but has 2 County cricket clubs (Middlesex, Surrey) and 2 Hundred franchises (Spirit, Invincibles). (4)

After that it gets hard to decide what to include, but I'll list Lions Basketball, and GAA as other top level team spectator sports (2).

Wikipedia gives a metro population of 14.8 million for London, split over 21 teams listed above is just over 700k per team.


Vs Toronto metro, which has CFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS, MLR, CPL, AHL, PWHL, and CEBL (10) before we get into development teams (TFC II, Raptors 905), teams that aren't actually in the GTA anymore (lacrosse), or junior hockey (Steelheads). Toronto's 6.2 million population split over 10 teams is 620k per team

At this admittedly high-level, Wikipedia-quality first glance, it would appear that Toronto is already better served for sports than London is. And soccer is at best, the 4th most popular spectator sport, and has 2 "top flight" teams in the city which no other sports really even do. So 6 is hilariously optimistic.

I do think there is opportunity for cross-town rivalries to actually drive some interest, but the CPL did not go about it in a fashion to make that happen. They should have launched Scarborough/East Ed, Mississauga/West End, and North York / York / North End, simultaneously as opposed to TFC downtown. And ideally at the start of the whole league - the two best example of successful leagues that have many teams in one city are the NRL (Sydney) and AFL (Melbourne), and that is because those national leagues grew out of the existing city competitions.

*sure, you could argue that you could count farther down the soccer pyramid, or that you should include OHL or development teams, or that the Lacrosse still counts (but then you'd need to add Hamilton's population and also the Tiger-Cats).... the point is, it's a broadly similar level of sports, not a gaping hole that needs to be filled.

[ZeDgE]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Article in the NCR's French newspaper earlier this month. A few highlights.

- Overall attendance has gone up 20.7% year over year;
- Average attendance of 3,833;
- Halifax tops the league with 5,889, York is bottom with 1,249 and Ottawa is third with 4,823;
- They want to establish 4 new teams within 3 years (in time for World Cup);
- They want to establish teams in Quebec, discussions with Quebec City is ongoing, but they are also eyeing Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Laval;
- Quebec City would play at Laval University however, the league demands the construction of a CPL specific stadium. They don't want a situation like Ottawa where the CPL is a tenant;
- Discussions are also ongoing to start a team in Kelowna;
- They would love to see Edmonton return.

Overall, they seem overly ambitious, talking about how London UK supports 14 teams, so Toronto could support 6 (even though they can barely support the current CPL team).

He also mentions how the United States invests in sports in a way Canada dosen't.

They are also comparing themselves to MLS, how they had a rough start, but they are now considered one of NA's major leagues. The CPL will never reach MLS. It will always be the CFL of NA soccer at best.

https://www.ledroit.com/sports/socce...IVJ2473RLJIK4/

There were about 300 at the York vs Cavs game. I dont think York are going to last much longer.

[svlt]

Originally Posted by ZeDgE

There were about 300 at the York vs Cavs game. I dont think York are going to last much longer.

Rumors are Valour are possibly in trouble as well, but I have some confidence the league will survive through it. Soccer (really, this time) is making some kind of a breakthrough in North America and the game is literally global; the league may be small but the pool of teams they play against yearly can be pretty big with the new Concacaf Cup competition as well as the Canadian Championship.