Ugh...mls this and that... It isn't the Premier League or la Liga either. It will be a mix of top leagues including CPL, like most National teams have players in a mix of top leagues
The way I see it, future WC Qualifier and Gold Cup CONCACAF nations will have players from Liga MX, MLS and the CPL. The CPL will be helping develop those players in the short term until enough quality Canadians come through the system, which I expect will happen within the next 10 years. If the CPL has 12-16 teams by that time and they put a hard cap of 9 internationals on each roster, that will lead to at least 24-32 Canadians playing each week.
I have been accused of being negative on this league.....but that post makes me wonder "why bother" if the optimistic view of things is that this Canadian league would produce playing time for 2 guys per team once it is at 16 teams (ten years down the road?). I would imagine if 2 Canadians was all that was needed each week then the owners would likely focus on players that were nearly MLS calibre but got cut or didn't get playing time (Kyle Bekker and Quillan Roberts come to mind) rather than invest any money producing their own talent....just watch the academies of VWFC/Impact/TFC and pick off the ones not deemed MLS ready/quality.
Anyone can have an opinion of CPL and what it will be. It can be a failure but also has the potential to be a huge success and developing several CANMT quality players or future stars playing in other top leagues in Europe. My expectation is somewhere in between. Ownerships seems willing to make an unprecedent commitment to start a league at a level not seen since the CFL and the NHL which some of them are already part of 1 or both leagues as existing owners. No Canadian Soccer league ever had this kind of ownership profile in its history, hence why I laughed off any comparison to CAL and why MLS cannot be compared to past/current failed US leagues. The other part of the equation is how fans will response. The league will be as big as the fans takes it and it's very optimistic based on MLS attendance, viewership in the past playoffs and demographics. Being skeptic is fine, but saying that CPL being a top Division 1 League in CONCACAF is impossible and will forever be a farm for MLS is just plain bad faith and having a case of selected memory. If that's what CPL wanted to be, it would have been but ownership "glancing in disgust" at Bill Manning and TFC when they proposed their farm team in the league is a statement of these owners ambitions. Bill Manning vieweing CPL as TFC personal farm won't happen either. If they want a CPL player, it's going to cost them, just like any other inter-league transfer. When MLS was founded, no one gave it a chance. Not many knew it even existed until Beckham, for others it was TFC and for me, Montreal, a USL club beating TFC for the Canadian Championship and a spot in CCL. It almost folded and was laughed at for the longest time and it's obituary was written times and times over yet, here they are. The same skeptics back then are eating their words today, I have a feeling that 10 years down the road, CPL will do the same to it's detractors.
Honestly, it is the only part of the equation that matters.......if this thing is slow to take off....if teams, generally, struggle at the gate and if a few teams have to fold or be relocated in the early years of the league it will create a "deja vu all over again" feeling and result in a downward spiral.
In the long run, yes, it will be fan interest that determines survival and, if it survives, the level at which the league can operate. Having rich owners and, reportedly, ticket revenue not being the main revenue stream would buy the league time to get established. But fan support will tell in the end (much like the MLS experience). What all of us really need before we can go much farther in our discussions is some hard data beyond "there will be a league with teams in at least Hamilton and Winnipeg". We need data on what teams are in, who owns them, where are they playing, how are ticket sales, what sponsors and TV deals are locked in, what is the salary cap, what are the Canadian content rules, and that sort of thing. Hopefully the league is fairly transparent with most of this so that we can assess progress. The league's own "here we are" press release ( http://canpl.ca/article/a-new-era-in-canadian-professional-soccer-begins ) says bids for teams will be assessed over the next 60 to 90 days. That was released on May 6, 2017. So presumably we'll be getting at least some hard data in the next month.
100% agree. It's a good sign they aren't attacking the biggest markets from the get go like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. Optics is everything and a Toronto failure could kill the league in it's infancy. Best to succeed everywhere else first and then look at those 3 cities when the league has grown big enough in size, quality and notoriety to make a pitch to win over the fans from those 3 cities. (Winning a Canadian Championship and CPL Champion getting an automatic CCL berth would help do that). The Argonauts in Toronto, soon the Alouettes in Montreal and the Lions in Vancouver will become a huge headache for CFL in the near future as attendance is decreasing. It's the main point of focus in the media and you can't have that in a league that's just starting. Also, I'd wait for the right owners for those 3 cities. Dream scenario would be the Molsons in Montreal (Owners of the Montreal Canadians) and Acqulini Group in Vancouver (Vancouver Canucks). They have the expertise in team operation and marketing might to rival both the Impact and Whitecaps in the city. As for Toronto, 2 of the 5 rumored ownership fit the right profile for such a market.
Personally I think if the league is successful with eight or ten teams elsewhere they should just stay away from the big three - too much downside risk. Wasn't Vancouver on the most recent list for the first round, though? (Or a Vancouver suburb, anyway?)
They should stay away at first, like you said, too risky and they should prioritize at filling the vacuum in the rest of the country first. Besides, they won't get much for a 1st TV contract. Down the road, you have no choice to penetrate the 3 markets to maximize a potential big TV deal. In the meantime, plant the seed...the idea in potential fans in those markets and when the time is right under the right conditions with the right ownership, go for it. Burnaby is virtually next to Vancouver. The Whitecaps played at Empire Field on the borders of both city. A CPL Vancouver team can play out of Burnaby and us the name Vancouver
I think his list might be accurate but there's no way the timeline ends up being that way. For now, whatever Beirne says goes and it's 16 teams within 10 years. Ownership have to deal with local governments for stadiums and those things takes time and can be unpredictable. Just look what happened in Halifax
I'm not worried that they couldn't do this, I just don't think they should. I think the CPL is very much going to come off as the poor cousin if they are that sharply contrasted with any of the MLS teams. Plus I don't see anything wrong with a successful CPL of eight to ten teams in cities outside the big three. Ottawa has embraced their lower tier team and it isn't even in a Canadian league. I get the TV idea but I really wonder about TV for the CPL. If they need the big three cities to get a TV deal, then what is the stream of revenue they are counting on when they say that ticket sales won't be their major revenue stream? If they already have a great TV deal lined up (which is the only thing I can think of that could exceed ticket sales) then clearly they don't need teams in the big three cities to get a good TV deal. So why go up against the MLS teams?
Of all the brash and bold statements made about this new league.....this is the one that is the hardest to believe/swallow. The only way that ticket sales won't be their major revenue stream is if ticket sales are so low they are out of business in a couple of years Let's hope that is not the case.
For now I'm consciously choosing to give them the benefit of the doubt with unsupported statements like that one. Although I will say I think many of the claims I hear being bandied about (like that one) are hard to credit. Either way, if the league is actually going to start in 2018 we should be starting to get some actual information pretty soon. (And, to be completely fair, we haven't heard any of these claims coming officially from the league. Mostly it's just been tweets or items from "sources".) The only hard data on the league's website is that they plan to have a league, they've granted teams to Hamilton and Winnipeg, and there are some other groups interested.
Hence why there's merits to wait for the league to mature before entering the 3 markets. Yeah, that why you have CanPL banners at games... The SG wants CPL for Ottawa...embrace is an exaggeration but in CPL, yes it could. Ottawa embraced the Redblacks, not the Fury They need the big 3 to maximize the revenues from such deal, they can still get a deal without them. Also those 3 cities are big enough for more than 1 team Montagliani and Beirne never hide where the money was going to come from all along. You're starting a league from scratch so massive influx of capital to build the asset is where it comes from. MLS did the same, there's really no other ways to go at it. You got to build the asset so it gets more valuable so down the road, you can get that lucrative TV deal and diversify sources of revenues. Montagliani always said from the get go, they would only consider owners willing and able to not turn a profit for the long term, just like MLS first owners had to do to keep the league afloat. Anyone who thinks that entrepreneurs all turns a profit on year one are either naive or don't understand business 101.
Seriously?.....I am discussing a business concept with someone that does not know the difference between "capital" and "revenue"....is that why it seems we have been speaking different languages the whole time? Capital is not revenue.....ticket sales, sponsorships, media rights, sales of popcorn....etc etc etc....those are revenue. So unless someone can tell me which of those in, say, the first 5 - 10 years of this league has a snowflake's chance in hell of exceeding ticket sales......ticket sales are going to be their major revenue stream. Saying they are going to live off the capital invested for a period of time is just another way of saying none of their revenues (individually or in total) will be enough to offset expenses and that they will lose money and burn capital (which you have said in the past to be fair).....but capital, in no world, is "revenue". No one here has indicated otherwise....there is just some difference of opinion on how deep and steep the losses will be and how long these (as yet un-named) owners will be willing to suffer them.
Actually, if this is set up as a money-losing-to-build-the-brand operation for X years (assuming capital invested will cover X years worth of losses), how will they handle cash calls in X+1 seasons. If this is single entity a la MLS - it seems straightforward - ding everyone equally for the same chunk to to cover losses. If it's franchise model, will the league cover losses with cash calls, or will individual franchisees be left to cover them.
The genius of the single entity league was the stability it provided MLS that no other league in our continent's history ever had. When the inevitable weak market happened it was not on the back of the owner that had picked that market to operate in and they were not faced with the idea of "cover all the losses from my family/business income or shut down the team".....instead, the league as a whole covered those losses from various parts of ...revenue from successful teams and collective capital/wealth of the total ownership group. I was really surprised when I heard that CPL was not going to adopt the same system (or very similar one) of ownership.
Actually, a league that would be this reliant on tickets sales would scare the shit out of me. CPL not wanting to depand on tickets sales is wise and for that, you need to invest lots of capital in the league to build it up so you can diversify your revenues. Way to take my words out of context, I know full well the difference between capital and revenue. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. Unlike the CSL owners from your era, these ones so far are experienced at running sports franchise in top leagues and are proven business people and I doubt making dumb idiotic decisions like you seem to believe CPL to be is what made the successful today. You and I haven't seen the business plan, they have and they still signed on the project.
Again, let go of the CSL. Montagliani made clear that the owners you're talking about wouldn't be owners in CPL. So far the 2 known owners corroborate that. No system is perfect and single entity has it's flaws. Beirne and Young didn't dismiss it outright but they said an hybrid version is more likely and NHL comes to mind.
This "NASL weakling" has 1 more international goal than a lot of MLS players out there. Just highlighting the stupidity of claiming that MLS is the bare minimum to belong in international competion Jakovic, New York Cosmos
Uh.... Not sure how this counters the argument that in order for CMNT to be one of the better teams in CONCACAF that they'll need to have more MLS starters on the roster..
whatever, this means that it doesn't necessarily means that they need more MLS players, but actually Canada needs to do something they haven't done in decades... get Canadians abroad eligible to play for Canada to commit. We recently got Scott Arfield, (Burnley, English Premier League) Lucas Cavallini, (Penarol, Uruguayan Primera División) Juan Cordova, (Huachipato, Chilean Primera División) Junior Hoillett, (Cardiff City, English Championship) and we'll be going after Bryan Cristante (Atalanta, Serie A) Ricardo Ferreira (S.C Braga, Portugal Primeira Liga) more of them are out there but those 2 are on top of the list We need to bring into the fold more of these players and quite frankly, they are way more skilled than MLS or future CPL starters. Cavallini for me is ahead of Larin as top striker. He's a much complete striker who I find very uni-dimensional. Cavallini scores at a high rate in the league that made Luis Suarez and Edison Cavani. He's facing top CONMEBOL defense regularly and it shows when he plays for Canada. Lots of leadership, a huge presence, fearless attitude up front and way more skilled than Larin with the ball. Scott Arfield is a regular starter in EPL and a dominant one. He's way far ahead than any Canadian midfielder in MLS, he will be Canada's best player after Hutchinson retirement from international competition. Juan Cordova faces CONMEBOL attackers and is best equip to stop CONCACAF attackers style of play. He was left off the Gold Cup rosters so he could stay with his club and solidify his place which will be valuable to Canada in the next World Cup qualifiers. Junior Hoillett chose Canada over Jamaica. He played in Premier League and Championship with Queen's Park Rangers and now with Cardiff. His attacking skills and ball posession skills are world class. Cristante at midfield with Hoilett (Wales), Piette (Spain), Arfield (England) and Davies (Canada) would give us one of the most gifted midfield line in CONCACAF. Ferreira with Cordova at the back would be a massive upgrade at defence. So get over yourself with MLS already. If Canada could get everyone eligible to commit, we'd be a much stronger team.
Still not sure what you are going after here as absolutely no one is saying that the CMNT shouldn't be going after players that are abroad. The argument about MLS players is that in order for the CMNT to be on of the best in CONCACAF, the players need to be MLS starter quality as a minimum..