You have to brand it as Div1, regardless if the play is below MLS. Heck if they get a TV deal (something NASL does not have) and pay players enough to meet the 1m cap (about what NASL teams do) it will be above NASL's div2 status. Crucial to that is the amount of spots you allow for internationals. I'd say 50% Cdn of roster total be canadian and it allows for a decent enough mix. Coaches it shouldn't matter where they are from although I'd like to see development there too. The key thing for this is to have a healthy Div3. We need the something out west, maybe PCSL to a full length season, of a new d3 out there altogether. I don't see adding teams in PDL or USL as a solution at all, even if its for short term. If the CSA wanted to do a short term solution to get teams going. I'd look to allowing another NASL team or two to exist. I know Hamilton is on the shortlist for that already, maybe Calgary with the Stamps/Flames to get another team going out there.
Honestly we shouldn't be pairing up with the USA. Why do we share a league? It's rediculous... Do you see Scotland sharing a league with England even though they are land borders and England has such a successful league... What about Spain and Portugal? Germany and Austria? Argentina and Chile? Nobody does that because they want the sport to grow in that country. Think about it, we have let's say for example LA Galaxy vs TFC at BMO. Some Canadians will put on an LA Galaxy jersey. If it's strictly a canadian league they will buy a jersey that belongs to a canadian team. Whether it's TFC, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Edmonto etc .... IMO and it may just be me. But i say we start fresh with a roster that must be 50-60% Canadians as well as putting in a cap that must have 2 players come from that teams youth academy on the roster. That's not much to ask for, it turns teams from buying talent to start making it. Believe me there is A LOT of talent throughout Canada the right players just aren't getting looked at. This is who i'd have for a Division 1 type of thing. (East and West Coast league with playoffs at the end similar to MLS style) WEST: Vancouver Whitecaps FC Edmonton Victoria Highlanders Calgary (Get a team started in Calgary) Possibly Calgary United. Give those fans a team worth watching. I'm sure fans would go out to see them play against Edmonton and the White Caps. EAST: TFC Montreal Ottawa Fury Quebec City (Get a team started in Quebec City) They have the fanbase that can grow over there and they'd already have a local rival in Montreal. Within Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia there is a lot of potential. Even in Alberta there is plenty of potential in Edmonton and Calgary. What Canada needs is a rebuild from the top to bottom. Why keep going the way we are going if the results we see are really positives at all... I mean come on, we have enough talent in Canada to consistently be a top 60, top 65 country and we should always be qualifying/contesting to qualify for the World Cup. Instead we never make the damn Hex. We hover around the 100 range in the rankings. It's pointless to continue the way we're going. The teams we have in the MLS are just looking for foreign talent to get them to qualify for the play offs. No Canadians are coming up and if they are, they are often over looked by foreign players that are taking their spots. Now of course, this will also decrease the quality of teams like TFC, Montreal and Vancouver who will most likely lose most/some of their very best players. But if it means it gives chances to Canadian players who have potential to do something with their career then why not? I'm all for losing a player like Giovinco or Bradley if it means we give young Canadians a better chance at cracking into the team and getting very valuable minutes that can increase a players confidence to play better. Also, while those teams will get weaker the others around them will start getting better, such as Ottawa, Calgary, Quebec city, Edmonton and Victoria. The gap between the best team and the worst team will decrease over time (5-15 years). Having more Canadian teams in the top flight of a competition guarantees more fans. Edmonton, Victoria, Ottowa and Quebec City would gain more supporters quickly as well as recieve higher attendences because they are watching a better overall game. IDK that's just my opinion. Personally i think all Canadian teams should play in one league. Split it up, when the sport picks up and other teams start becoming bigger then the league can expand. Start small, see what happens. I guarantee it will not decrease the quality of the CMNT. We're Canada. We're not a small country. We have 36 million people. Soccer is the most popular sport in Canada and it's only growing especially out west. An estimated 3.1 million Canadians tuned in to watched the CBC english version of the Argentina vs Netherlands SEMI Final. 3.1 MILLION. 42% of Canadian children aged 5-14 play Soccer. The number is probably hovering around the 45% now because that was in 2010.
^this would be ideal. Although if you wanted to frame it from what we know according to rumours (CFL involvement + no toronto or vancouver). Then it should look more like this: EAST: Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, maybe Quebec WEST: Calgary, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, maybe Edmonton Without those maybes those six (original six) look good to me for a start. If the CFL group in MTL is serious Quebec is a no brainer. Edmonton will eventually come along as well. Victoria could be viable, also a possible card play to push to someone in Vancouver to come aboard eventually. Then you get nine just like the CFL right now and its all of a sudden viable. Toronto would be the last market to join (which would be good for the league to start out) and the first villain of the league once they eventually join. Everyone likes a villain. All of this could happen without the MLS team's involvement. Especially is they start without those markets (exception MTL). Question is if TSN would give a TV deal to a league without Toronto and Vancouver. Also if people would come out to support these teams at the gate. Previous posters have suggested otherwise; I beg to differ...
Not sure why we would need separate divisions though. I know it's the "North American" thing to do, but is there any real point to it?
Maybe for travel costs? The league upstart should be as lean as possible as soon as possible to ensure its longevity. Good point though, divisions might not need to be there. I was going strictly off of the assumption of CFL involvement.
It's not that people wouldn't support their teams without Toronto, it's that there would be no eyeballs in Canada's largest TV market and that makes it a non-starter for TSN. They and the CFL are apparently the keys to getting this Canadian league off the ground. It's frustrating - a Canadian league probably wouldn't have been viable even 10 years ago without the exposure to MLS, but now that those teams are there, they it make it impossible to build a viable league.
The problem I see with the ideas being kicked around here is that they are not in any way grounded in reality. Initial B, I'm going to use your post but I'm now directing my comments specifically to you: We don't have either of these things. I think a reasonable estimate for a team budget using the $1 million salary cap suggested elsewhere is about $2.5 million. The annual cost to run an eight team league is therefore $20 million. That's $200 million over the ten years you mention. Not counting any stadium construction/reno costs. TV networks don't sign on to cover losses. You need a viable product first, and then they pay you for broadcast rights. What evidence is there to support this? As I've written before, the lived experience is that you need a minimum average attendance of 5000 to support D2 soccer long term. Let's look at lower tier soccer in Canada in the 2000s. I'll list the team, metro population, and most recent average attendance for some of the best performing cities in the land: Ottawa Fury, 1.3 million, 5164 in 2015 FC Edmonton, 1.3 million, 3122 in 2015 (not counting out of market games) Calgary Storm (defunct), 1.3 million, 1258 in 2004 Victoria Highlanders (defunct), 350k, 1531 in 2014 Forest City London, 500k, 944 in 2015 No other team anywhere in the country has reliable stats on an average attendance even this high. So I'll throw it out there to everyone as a serious question. Aside from "wouldn't it be great if" dreaming (which we all like to do because we all want to see Canadian soccer grow), what actual evidence do we have to suggest an eight team, national D2 level league would be viable? I'm not asking for proof - anything will be something of a gamble. I just want evidence that our gamble doesn't work only in the case where we can roll a 6 eight times in a row.
Glumly watching the implosion of the Fury this week, I'm wondering if a $1 million salary cap is too high. Perhaps $800K is more reasonable. If the league could negotiate sponsorship deals for flights with Air Canada/WestJet for reduced fares (say average $21K per round trip for a 30 person team w/ players, coaches and support staff) then even a balanced 28 game schedule would only mean 8 flights east or west per team (maybe fewer if you have a week long road trip for interconference teams in close proximity like Calgary/Edmonton, Winnipeg/Regina, Montreal/Ottawa, Toronto/Hamilton) for a cost of about $168K per season. They could use buses for travel between intra-conference games for around $35K per season. They could use sponsorship from a nation-wide hotel chain for reduced accomodation costs, say $100 per player per night (including per diem for food) at four nights for away games for about $168K per year. If the new soccer teams are tied into the local CFL teams, they can use the synergies to share the front office staff for marketing and ticketing purposes, but GM/Trainers/Equipment Managers/Coaches would cost proabably anothe $300K. Then there is the shared operating costs of a stadium, which for the Ottawa Fury/Redblacks is estimated to be $375K annually (disclosure, I work in the City of Ottawa and saw the community services report on Lansdowne) which I assume would include water, electricity, security and concessions. If split with a CFL team, the costs would be about $188K. Put it all together and you get a cost of $1.66 million, adding 10% contingency to that value gives a final annual cost to run the soccer team of $1.826 million. TSN is paying $40 million per year for CFL rights. The previous CFL deal was $15 million per year. Say the cost for a national advertising 30 second TV spot in a Canadian Soccer League game is about $30K. If there are 10 minutes of commercials a game that would come out to about $600K per game in revenues. Say it costs $150K per game to produce, so the net profit on each game is $450K. If they broadcast 56 regular season games (2 games a week) plus around 6 playoff games, That would give $27.9 million in annual revenue. If they pay $10 million per season for broadcast rights, then the annual payout to each team in an eight-team league would be about $1.25 million and TSN (or Sportsnet) could still make a tidy profit. Well, the last two teams' attendence numbers are for PDL clubs (Div-4) and should be excluded. Calgary was in A-League so I'll include them in with FCE (using the 2889 number) and the Fury to say that the expectation for average first year attendence across the league at Div-2 level (depending on marketing - very important) to be a minimum of 3000 people. The average cost for FC Edmonton and Ottawa Fury season tickets is roughly $367 per seat. Teams would have to sell about 4975 season tickets to cover annual expenditures. Of course neither team has that many SSH, but there is a fair bit of walkup to games and single seats are a bit more expensive, but we'll use the average SSH cost for the calcs. 3000 seats at $367 per seat per season would roughly give each team an annual gate revenue of $1.1 million, resulting in a about $500K shortfall without TV revenue. Assuming Ottawa ran at a loss the last two years with pretty much no TV deal money (hence the player sell-off apparently) so this probably is in line with my estimate annual cost to run a club. However, the owners of the Fury also own the CFL Redblacks, which were profitable and will mitigate the losses. And that dual-team ownership is the key to league survival, as is the increased awareness of soccer among TV watching households as a whole (thanks MLS and EPL!). So I figure the minimum TV deal to make the league sustainable in the short term will have to cover the shortfall of the teams would be $5.8 million. If then annual TV deal is actually $10 million, that's just gravy. Any new league should push for an 8-year deal worth $50 million from a TV network. Does that sound reasonable? That would provide some cost certainty for the first 8 years of a league, which was the touch-and-go time for MLS and where the original CSL died. By that point (2025?) the league should be established in the Canadian sports fan consciousness and see where it goes from there. <Edit: I also forgot, Jersey sponsors might help out as well, maybe they could actually get sponsors in the $200-500K range?
@Initial B Great post!!! You nailed it. So Vancouver and Toronto are the only hold out rights now. Hopefully the stakeholders are still actively looking for investors. Maybe North York/Mississauga could field a team to capture the TV market in the GTA. L1O teams with strong academies combine maybe? No idea about out west. I am disappointed about the Highlanders returning to PDL. I was hoping to see them join a regional D3 league in BC that was said to start next year. I take their return to the PDL that its not as close as some thought.
^^ I included those teams because they are the highest level in the city. I do not expect the classification of the league to make much of a difference. Call the new C-League D2 or D3 or D1 - it will still be drawing from the same fans. The number of fans in Canada who could correctly sort MLS, NASL, USLPro, and PDL is quite small. You are providing some detail for requirements to make the league successful. My point remains, however - I don't see any evidence that we can meet those requirements.
And your point is valid, but I guess we won't know until we try. That said, an eight-team league (including League Front Office salaries) would require to pay about $15 million in annual costs to be viable. That's the magic number that has to be met somehow, whether through TV contract, ticket sales, corporate sponsorship, government handout, or CSA subsidies. Heck if each of the supposed 1 million kids playing soccer paid an extra $15 on their registration fees, that could pay for the entire league.
My question is mainly what's best for Canadian club soccer. We could try. If we try and fail, however, it's not just "oh well". It's a lost decade or so and a lot of squandered resources. So unless we have a reasonable expectation that we will succeed I think we're better off staying integrated in the US pyramid. So can we come up with $15 million per year (or quite possibly more like $20 or $25 million to do it right)?
Well, starting with gate revenue, assuming a 24 week season with 4 matches per week, average attendance of 2000 and an average ticket price of $20, that would be just over 4 million. Leaving say 11-16 million to come from other sources. 6 million from TV may be possible. Maybe another couple million from merchandise. Still leaves a 3-8 million dollar gap. Maybe $20 is a bit of a conservative gate price. Max I think would be $40. What do the current NASL teams charge?
8 teams (including the currents in MLS), a 28 regular season games and semis and the final the same week that MLS QF second leg. with pauses the weeks that Canada NT play fifa dates sound like a great Canadian calendar, even if your fav league is NHL, you gonna watch CLS just because easy calendar and maybe attend a game just because they play in summer and spring (mostly), also canadian. Also fighting for 2 spots in the 32 teams CCL (regular season winner and playoff winner). And sell the tv right in a combo of the league and the M and W NT. Also I never step a foot on Canada, so I know shit (but this is a nice forum).
TV Deal combo with M&W NT is a great idea. Unfortunately MLS teams will not join possibly even one of the NASL teams might resist. Additional spot for CCL is not automatic once you have your own domestic league. Yet I do think it carries more than a little weight. Spring still competes with NHL playoffs but summer is only dominated by the Jays so there is a lot of potential there. The season may need to be shorter (or maybe start earlier) to not compete with CFL (especially if its partly run by them). I know 8 gets thrown around as the magic number a lot but I'd think if it were CFL based 9 or 10 with two divisions would be better. Even though flights are domestic, its going to be lower budget at first and I don't see a problem with a more regional focus pre-playoffs. It would certainly help the supporter/derby culture grow faster.
Tbh Kingston, I kind of agree with you that I think the best way forward is to keep the professional clubs within the MLS/NASL framework, with regional Div 3 regional semi-pro leagues providing a pipeline to the pro clubs. However a fluctuating Canadian dollar might make the difference between sustainable and unsustainable franchises. I have the cheapest seats in the supporters section for Ottawa Fury games ($8.50), but the most expensive are the midfield seats at $25, $20 for seats midway between midfield and goal, and $12 for seats behind the goal-line. FC Edmonton seat range from $32, $24, $20/12 for similar seats. I think the happy medium for seating should be $32 (taxes included) for seating in the sections alongside the centreline, $24 for seats further down the pitch towards the goal-lines, and $18 for seats in the sections along the goal-lines. I'd also add a $15 tickets for a Supporters section or seats behind the goals. I'd charge children under 14 half-price tickets (they would make up the difference in concession stand purchases). Do whatever it takes to encourage kids to attend games because they are your future consumers of team merchandise and seating. Well, the number thrown around by the Easton report was that the optimal size for a nation's soccer program is a 7-team professional league. More teams leads to diminishing returns. Now, if the league is based on gate revenue that is shared between teams (I'm assuming an MLS single-entity model is the only way a Canadian League would survive), then the more teams the better as that would allow the risk to be spread amongst the franchises. But if the revenue is TV contract driven, then you want fewer teams so that you don't have to split the pot to many ways. So 8 teams sounds about right. That said, if a National Canadian League proves to be unfeasable, then if we can add two more teams to NASL (Calgary and Hamilton or Quebec City would probably be ideal due to geographical proximity to existing teams; Winnipeg and Moncton or Hallifax would be second-tier choices; Victoria and Regina or Saskatoon would be third-tier), those teams along with the MLS sides would provide Canada with the 7 professional teams required by the report to create a sustainable pipeline of national team members. I think the best we can hope for in Canada is 4 MLS teams (if it expands to 32 teams) and 5 NASL teams (if it expands to 20 teams), with healthy Div 3 semi-pro leagues in Ontario, Quebec, and BC. (leagues in the prairies/Alberta and the Maritimes would be a bonus).
I doubt that MLS will allow entry to any more Canadian teams. There's a considerable amount of pressure on them not to. Per capita, we already have more teams than the US does (population ratio is about 9:1, so for the US to have a per capita equivalent amount, they'd need 27 teams instead of the current 17). In a 32 team league (which I seriously doubt they'll be able to do, I don't think that they'll find 12 more viable markets), that still wouldn't provide a decent argument for one more up here. I think that it's a good possibility to see NASL teams in all three of Calgary, Winnipeg and Hamilton. If so, we'd be up to a total of 8 professional sides. We could possibly even make it 10 with USL Pro sides in any of Quebec City, Halifax, KWC, Saskatoon or Victoria.
I agree. Even if there was no disincentive for MLS to put teams in Canada, I don't think there are any Canadian cities that would be more attractive to the league than American cities. The best remaining Canadian city is Ottawa with a 1.3 million metro population and okay NASL attendance. There are plenty of much larger US options and, at this stage of the league's development, I think even a US equivalent to Ottawa would be very unlikely to land a team. I also agree that three more NASL teams and a solid system of D3 leagues would get us everything the CSA says it is looking for in terms of NT player development without all the risk of a C-League.
The problem is that the NASL is only sanctioned by the USSF if they have at least 75% of the teams being American. Hamilton could join now, but that means that they would still have to add one more team before Calgary or Quebec City could join. And then they would require another 3 american teams before a fifth Canadian team could join. On top of that there is the risk of a lower Canadian dollar making the whole thing nonviable. I agree that MLS probably won't add another Canadian Team, but if they did, it would probably be Ottawa since it's a National Capital. I think Major leagues like that sort of thing.
I'm willing to wager that NASL could make a case that letting in Canadian teams before having an adequate number of American teams is key to league viability and growth, and thus good for American soccer in the long, so long as they demonstrated a commitment to eventually meeting their US quota.
^^ I also don't think we need to worry about adding a fifth NASL team right now. Let's ensure the two we have are stable and get a couple more in place. Then we can address the 25% limit if it is still a problem.
I think a Canadian Soccer League will be great for soccer in North America has a whole, for Canada and for Canada based teams, including the MLS teams in particular. Regular Season: April-September, 26 weeks or so. Climatic and demographic factors put a CSL cap at 14 teams. 10 obviously locations: Vancouver (2,5m, BC 4,5m), Edmonton (1,25m), Calgary (1,25m), Winnipeg (0,75 m), Hamilton (2m) , Toronto City (2,6m), Ottawa* (2m), Montreal (2 millions), Quebec City (0,75 m/2m) and Halifax (0,4m, Atlantic Canada 2,3 millions 200.000 km2). *Eastern Ontario and Gatineau Other secondary locations: - Longueuil-South Shore (Montérégie Population: 1,5 Millions) - Laval+North Shore (Population: 1,5 millions) - London (Southwestern Ontario: 2,5-3 millions) - Greater Toronto Area -TC: 3 millions (Brampton, Mississauga or Richmond Hill) Starting with 10 clubs in all the secondary locations plus Edmonton (NASL team), Calgary, Hamilton, Ottawa (NASL team), Quebec City and Halifax....
Recent tweets from Duane Rollins suggest the GTA has a group of investors for the C-league. He's hinting at Sigma FC. Looks like Vancouver is the last nut to crack. Gaining some legs it would appear.