At the risk of threadjacking, allow me to direct Trip76 and other BC Place "hefty rent" naysayers right here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=727509 It only costs $13,000 a match for BC Place in the 30,000 seat lower bowl configuration. At $25 per ticket, they only need 520 people to show up to cover it. I think Kerfoot, Nash, and Mallet can handle it. It's abundantly clear that Vancouver and Montreal have the best bids going. The St. Louis hype is a ridiculous joke that never ends. NO OWNER. End story.
As I explain here, https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=15352448&postcount=28 your numbers or more like $135,000 a game or over $2 mil a year. As to St. Louis, it's silly to assume they make a bid without proper financing. So, for all we know, St. Louis = no publicly disclosed owner.
I don't know the city. Hell, I don't even care to. My point is that attendance figures from 25 years ago don't have anything to do with today. I didn't say that the city didn't care about soccer, I was just pointing out the fallacy that any figures that old are relevant.
just in here to garner some Montreal support for an expansion poll in the Quakes thread https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=730124 Montreal is trailing Vancouver, but not by much. Please please please only vote for two cities though...
I see the Portland group is ballot stuffing again. Who takes the time to stuff meaningless online polls???
WEll you have to realize that the PDX-SJ connection is strong. The Timbers Army has the full support of the Quakes supporters groups and PDX will support us against Seattle. That and we're lazy and don't want to have to travel to St. Louis for a conference game. having 4 teams up and down the coast is great, its the Eastern Conference that will finally have to travel great distances. I personally voted for PDX and MTL, and a lot of Quakes fans want to see VAN in before MTL. Its not about ballot stuffing, its about wanting more west teams first i guess
Hooligans already practicing: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i4ffFONRmWjkHndkWW8dMZR7YC9gD92G5ML00
To be fair, that riot seems to have started because some police officers shot an unarmed 21 year old guy in a city park in an otherwise non-violent encounter. I'm certainly not saying the riot was right response, but I don't lump it in the same category as those guys who riot because a sports team won or did not win something.
What has that riot got to do with Footy NOTHING . On the other hand the 2 shootings right outside the Reliant stadium while everyone was exiting the ground after a recent US vs Mexico was Footy related could'nt you. Dont throw stones in glass houses.
Hello, I am new to BigSoccer and I found this particular thread to be a very interesting read. I actually took the time to read every entry so I feel that I am well versed on the discussion at hand. I would first like to say that this thread's appeal is partly a result of it being composed of intelligent discussion; something that has become a rarity on internet forums. Now to my points: There were some interesting comparisons made between the Australia/NZ relationship with the US/CAN relationship in terms of their leagues. Someone pointed out that Canada has a pop. of 33 million compared to NZ's 4 million. Therefore Canada should be able to field its own soccer league. From a numbers point of view I agree but there is a unique element to the Canada US relationship that no one has mentioned. Canadians live beside the world's wealthiest nation. We see American tv, we buy American products, we are generally bombarded by American culture. So, 33 million may be a decent number from a global perspective for a country to field a competitive soccer league and be subsequently competitive on the global stage; but living next to the American juggernaut it isn't. Like any sports fans out there, when paying to see professional sports, Canadians want to see the best possible athletes competing. A Canadian MLS league would automatically be inferior to its American counterpart and therefore would most likely fail. The proof is in looking at what sports leagues are successful in Canada. NHL: best hockey league on the planet. CFL: has barely hung on because of the massive NFL, but.. it survives because it is unique enough with different rules and wider fields. This difference is what makes it viable because fans know they are seeing players that have skills that wouldn't necessarily transfer well to the NFL. CHL (junior hockey): best junior hockey league on the planet. NBA: best basketball league in the world. MLB: best baseball league in the world. So there you have it. We cannot compete with your population/purchasing power. So, as sports fans who want to see the best athletes compete in a sport we have three choices. Choice #1: invent a new sport (hockey) or make a uniquely Canadian version of an American sport (CFL). Choice #2: adopt a sport that isn't popular in the US (curling). Choice #3: acquire franchises in American professional leagues. In conclusion, I am grateful as a Canadian sports fan that Canada can have teams in some of the best sports leagues in the world. I hope that MLS will eventually accept Montreal and Vancouver into the fold. You have the best and we want the best.
I don't believe that's true. FIFA/USSF sanction MLS as the top league in the USA - but not in Canada. IIRC, the "top division" in Canada sanctioned by FIFA/CSA is the CSL. That's why the top American teams in MLS go to CONCACAF Champions League, but the top Canadian team does not. That's why the CSA had a seperate competition to chose their CCL representative. If Montreal and Vancouver join Toronto in MLS in future, and the CSA choses to use the highest placed Canadian team in MLS to represent Canada in the CCL, that's CSA's choice, it is not because FIFA sanctioned MLS as the top official division for both the USA and Canada - FIFA did no such thing. Similarly, although there are Welsh teams playing in the English leagues, the Premier League/Football League/etc are not Welsh leagues according to FIFA or the FAW. The top sanctioned league in Wales is the WPL. Likewise, although there is a New Zealand team in the A-League, the A-League is the top FIFA/FFA sanctioned league in Australia only. The top sanctioned FIFA/NZF league in New Zealand is the NZFC, not the A-League. I'm happy to see Canadian teams in MLS. But let's cut the nonsense: MLS is not a FIFA sanctioned Canadian league. MLS is not a FIFA sanctioned "North American" (ie, USA and Canada) league. MLS is a FIFA sanctioned USA league, that also happens to include a team outside of the USA.
Tell that to FIFA. Maybe the CSA is too disorganized to know any better, but FIFA certainly does recognize CSL as the top division of Canadian soccer: Not saying you are necessarily wrong, this is Wiki after all, but I've heard from other sources that CSL is the officially recognized top soccer league in Canada, so I'm not inclined to simply take your word for it. The fact that CSL doesn't measure up to what people consider to be a true national league is entirely beside the point. FIFA can recognize a ham sandwich as the top level league in a particular country if it wants to. Since the other leagues that are recognized by the CSA are inferior to the CSL, and since the better Canadian clubs don't play in CSA leagues at all, but rather play in USSF leagues (ie, MLS, USL, etc), that leaves the CSL as your national league. Don't blame me, blame FIFA, blame the CSA, etc.
Exactly, someone at FIFA can put on it's website whatever it wants. All I'm telling you is the CSL is not recognized by the CSA as Canada's top division, there was a large discussion about this on the voyageurs site along with communication with CSA officials (Richard Scott to be exact) who said "I'll be following up with FIFA. I can confirm that we do not currently have a national league. Our national championship at the senior men's level plays for the Challenge Trophy." Additionally the CSL is not even a member of the national association, CSA. It's an OSA (Ontario Soccer association) league that has worked out a deal with the Quebec association to allow 1 team in Quebec, as a guest club. The CSL is a regional league, not just in terms of placement of teams but in the actual fact that it is the Ontario provincial league. The PCSL (Pacific Coast Soccer league) is in the exact same situation, the BC soccer association league with guest teams in Washington state.
Here is a link from the Pacific coast soccer league website. http://www.pcsl.org/thepcsl-playing.htm it says And lists the top three leagues. I know this isn't exactly 100% helpful, but a couple things to note hear. First, the reference to the league being classed by division with North America. Second, and most blatant, the MLS is listed as first division, and USL is listed as second division. I would assume that this leaves the CSL as being on par with the PCSL as third division withing north america.
Look, we can both cite websites all we want, but the point I was making is that USL and MLS are USSF sanctioned leagues. That means they are FIFA sanctioned USA leagues, they are not Canadian sanctioned leagues (no matter what anyone in Canada claims), and they are not "North American" sanctioned leagues (there is no such thing). Canadian soccer associations (at any level) can make all the claims about MLS or USL that they want to on their websies, it still doesn't make it so. As far as FIFA is concerned, USL and MLS are USSF sanctioned leagues that also include some clubs from outside USSF's jurisdiction. As far as I know, FIFA does not recognize "multiple national football association sanctioned" leagues. It's either officially a USSF sanctioned league, or its officially a CSA sanctioned league, but it's not both, as far as FIFA is concerned. The founders of MLS and USL went to USSF for FIFA sanctioning, not CSA. The NASL (and its FIFA sanctioned predecessor) went to USSF (or USFA or USSFA or whatever it was called back then) for FIFA sanctioning, they did not go to the CSA (or whatever it was called back then). Your Canadian soccer people are trying to make claims they are not entitled to make, as far as FIFA and its constituent football associations are concerned. They may think that MLS and USL are "Canadian" or "North American" in some sense if that makes them feel better, but organizationally, as members of FIFA, it ain't so. And FIFA will lean on national FA's to get them to create their own national league if they don't have one (see for instance the creation of the League of Wales/Welsh Premier League), so CSA is better off pretending the CSL is its national league, than pretending otherwise. De facto the CSL is the largest and best league currently playing exclusively in Canada. Yes, the CSL is currently a regional league; it would not be the first time that a national league was actually regional. Before the NASL, all of USSF's "national division one, officially sanctioned" leagues were east-coast based, regional leagues, too (ie, the ASL in its various incarnations). CSA can get away with whatever it wants right now, apparently, but if they p!ss off FIFA sufficiently FIFA will make its views felt, forcefully. That might be a good thing to have happen, actually, since your current CSA apparently couldn't figure out how to pour out a glass of water if the instructions were printed on the bottom of the glass.
Heh.. I don't claim USL and MLS are canadian leagues, absolutely USSF. Agree with most of that, especially CSA's ineptitude.