Probably looked at the investment MLS teams are putting into promoting the MLS2 teams (approximately $0) and are realizing it is a bad look to have teams with only a few hundred fans showing up to games in their league.. EDIT: I would also think that if they are trying to market themselves as the premier league in Canada, it is not a good think to have MLS2 teams in the CPL. That would instantly make then appear to be inferior to MLS. They are, but there is no reason to reinforce that.
Very Interesting podcast on CPL http://www.northernstartingeleven.com/canada-soccer-sea-to-sea-podcast-season-2-episode-6/ Anthony Totera says the follows: He has inside information on the league, so there's weights to his tweets Toronto will not be part of CPL phase I but Toronto is inevitable Interest in Langley, Burnaby and Victoria. No Vancouver in Phase I Alberta has a solid youth system, which is where Alphonso Davies came from. Calgary and Edmonton are very important. Saskatchewan with an emphasis on 2 teams (Regina and Saskatoon) being very important to the league His earlier "list of cities" as legitimacy as he's on the inside of the league Kitchener-Waterloo seems like it will happen London is a very strong market, huge fan base, great city and atmosphere at current games League 1 Ontario seems like it will be CPL developmental/feeder league. CPL Ownership already going to games and scouting talents From Steve Milton: CPL main challenges are history (CSL & Skepticism) Cause for optimism is a total different crowd than the 80s-90s CSL (Different crowd, different generation) Puts an emphasis on the importance of "Young Urban Professional living Downtown" and the need for the league to be close to them...points out that this was the "genius" of Toronto FC with Paul Beirne at the time: BMO Field ore-expansion (View of downtown and Lake Ontario, right next to Liberty Village who's inhabitants are mostly young urban professionals Expects CFL Calgary Stampeders to own the city's CPL team. Also thinks CFL Saskatchewan Roughriders will have a team play in their stadium in Regina. CFL is more successul now because they figured some things out and turned the league around. CPL is learning and using a lot of their inputs like: the importance of a strong ownership who is willing and able to afford losing money. So far, the ownerships being talked about have the mean of their ambitions (Bob Young, Joe Belan and Winnipeg Blue Bombers). Expects CPL to come out with an hybrid structure for the league similar to CFL. Independent teams but a board of governors with a commissioner. Revenue sharing model to stabilize the league. The CSA seems to have a huge stake in the CPL, which CSL didn't have. Expects some sort of "symbiotic" partnership between CPL and the CSA. CSA being a major partner could explain the Paul Beirne very optimistic view of a multi-tier pyramid including over 40 teams. I had posted a tweet stating that FIFA would help CPL financially at first, perhaps some of the CSA influx of cash comes from FIFA. Regarding pro-rel: A pyramid-wide revenue sharing model could be a way to make it viable. He stresses the need for top market generating the bulk of the revenues to be "protected" Regarding NASL FC Edmonton and USL Ottawa Fury: The reality is that at the end of the day, they have no choice to do what the CSA tells them to do. He reminds that FIFA is the one enforcing the rules of teams playing in out of country leagues through the national association. The CSA can revoke the sanctioning of USL and NASL at anytime forcing them in CPL or to play in an un-sanctioned league. Bottom line is, that with the arrival of CPL, OSEG and the Fath don't have that much leverage anymore. It gets worse if an investor bid for a CPL team in Ottawa and Edmonton. The league can't and won't ignore those bids. The 3 MLS are expected to be left alone in MLS but a better deal will have to be done. MLS will have to have better relationship with the CSA to keep things as is for the 3 clubs. He believes that CPL must launch in 2018 after the Russia World Cup to capitalize on casual fans and non-fans who will be drawn into soccer. They are the ones that the league needs to attract to get it to the next level. Canada had the 4th highest per/capita viewership in the world for the 2014 Brazil World Cup He remarks that there's one area CPL has learned well from CFL, they are virtually "leak proof" CPL naming a "Director of Inter-provincial affairs" to deal with the provincial soccer association shows the major involvement of the CSA in CPL, which they have never done before
Thanks for the details. It all looks great if it comes to pass. My only concern is that some of those things hint at a East/West conference kind of thing. I prefer a single table format.
Paul Beirne gave hints/tease on another podcast that the league haven't decided if there would be playoffs or if they would adopt the European format of giving the championship cup to the team that finishes 1st at the end of the season. They seem to lean on single table format.
Perhaps they can have the best of both worlds, with a single table split season of 8 clubs playing 14 games spring and fall, then have the winners of each season and the two teams with the best combined record playoff for the annual champion NASL style. They could split into 2 conferences as the number of clubs increase, then once they hit 16 teams, they split CPL in half for Div 1 and Div 2, with pro/rel between them. Then as clubs increase, they Split Div 2 into East and West Conferences, slowly regionalizing both conferences as they add teams. Once each Div 2 Conference reaches 8 teams, they could start talks about looking at Pro-Rel with the Div 3 clubs in the L1O, PLSQ, and BCRT3. I think such a setup for 24 teams for Canada's Pro Soccer Pyramid could be intriguing. You'd have Pro-Rel happening twice a year, save on travel costs at Div 2 while still giving them the possibility of playing for the championship at the end of the season (if they can get promoted after the spring and win the fall Div 1 title, then the championship).
Paul Bierne's time with TFC was not anything genius like. They didn't begin marketing to millenials and young urbans. The team fell into that group by accident. Its the right group but suggestions that he somehow came up with the idea of going for that group are false. BTW, on the Waterloo note - I'm not sure Sun Life is willing to give up their parking lot to the city for a pittance. They can get a lot more for that land on the open market, especially after the LRT comes in. More importantly, I'm not certain that's a big enough footprint for an 8K stadium. Definately a market in Waterloo for a team, in the right place in Waterloo - but I'm just not sure that plot of land is available or big enough. There's more land available along the LRT line north of Columbia.
A few reasons depending on how it's structured. In the Liga MX style, it totally cheapens a championship for there to be two handed out in a given season, and for it to be awarded after such a small number of games. In the style you propose, it takes the best team from the first half of the season and gives them absolutely no incentive to continue to be good in the second half. Also, if you're going to do a full-table home-and-away, why bother with the convoluted system of playoff qualification? Either give the top team the trophy outright, or just have the top two or four or whatever qualify for a playoff. I don't mean to be harsh, I just really hate the split season format. I think it's amateur.
Another podcast, this time from Kurt Larson of the Toronto Sun http://www.torontosun.com/2017/08/10/kurt-larson-podcast-toronto-fc-canadian-soccer-and-more CPL is talked about at the 31 minute mark: Governance is being figured out by the league Toronto won't be at launch unless a Qatari prince/billionaire just dumps money on Toronto Kurt Larson, who used to be a huge CPL "naysayer", admits that the league did the right thing by not allowing MLS B teams in the league MLS teams are upset for being excluded from the league and planning, CPL responded that they tried to have a dialogue but MLS teams just don't like the answer they got CPL approach to media: They used independent journalists who they know will hype the league and keep the momentum over mainstream media who are more likely to pour water on the league in it's infancy. Hence Larson, annoyed that CPL won't talk to him. 2018 seems more and more unlikely to be the start year of the league. 2019 is much more likely Things slowing down the launch: British Columbia and Ontario ownership, Calgary politics over the construction of new infrastructure. (Flames needs a new arena, Stampeders a new stadium, Olympic bid, soccer is at the end of the queue of priorities) On the pitch The number of international being discussed to be allowed is 10 In regards to initial quality, Kurt Larson points out that CPL must avoid being the league who accepts MLS players that are cut. He questions where the Canadian domestics will come from as his early pessimistic view on the league was a PDL level Duane Rollins replied that there's many Canadians playing in D2-D3 leagues around the world and that there's enough talent at home in leagues at home that will become ready for the league. *Paul Beirne said in the Halifax Q&A that CPL would only go after D1-D2 players and deems D3 or lower too low for CPL* Duane uses the term "MLS 1.0" to define the league. He points out that the current MLS which is "2.0" took 20 years to get to this point. He doubts CPL will take 20 years to reach the current "2.0" Expects starters to be heavily internationals at first. *Paul Beirne did say there would be Internationals in the league but that the number allowed would go down as the domestic pool increases*
While I can understand the CPL's desire to manage the message, they also need to understand that perpetual silence doesn't accomplish much either. They chose to announce themselves this spring but, aside from that announcement, haven't said anything more. On May 6 they said that they would be assessing bids for cities over the next 60 to 90 days. It's now August 10. There is a bad history of soccer leagues using the "60 to 90 days" phrasing and failing to deliver. And now the launch date, once rumoured for 2017, is now looking like slipping to 2019? The CPL would do itself a service if it came out with some hard information.
To be fair, officially, the league has never held a press conference introducing themselves officially. The May 6th announcement was that the CSA approved the sanctioning of the Canadian Premier League as Canada top league. It's actually smart to control the narrative until you're ready to make you're big coming out. You give scoops to those who will hype the league and avoid those who are most likely to fill the gaps negatively like the mainstream media. Kurt Larson of the Toronto Sun is a prime example of it when he called CPL a "PDL league" without having any facts on the league. So the league gave him nothing. To me, that's a very smart way to control the narrative, they are behaving like a major league and that's a good thing. Major leagues are very strategic about how the info goes out, control freaks about what's being said about them and rarely have leaks. The league is focused on doing it right instead of fast. I'd rather they start the right way in 2019 even 2020 instead of rushing 2018 and having the launch being subpar. MLS delayed their launch many many times.
^ The CSA may have officially done the release but it's sitting on the CPL's own website under the title, "Announcing Canadian Premiere League". That seems pretty official to me. And, yes, I understand why they want to control the message. I personally think they'd get more mileage by releasing some information - an official list of cities under consideration, instead of "more than 10 bids", for example. But that's up to them. Also, they can avoid the established media for fear of pessimism. That's also a choice and contains an element of truth. The flip side is that the public only gets to hear from journo-fans who rave on about how everything will be rainbows and unicorns. There's a shading between avoiding pessimism and dodging difficult questions. My main thing is that the league has said almost nothing officially except that they exist and that they would evaluate bids by a date that has already passed. If they're going to make very few statements they should at least make sure they come good on the ones they do make.
To you maybe, but not to the media. They haven't had a press conference yet. That's the true start of the league.
Soccer media in this country is a bit more savvy then that. They had an announcement. They had press releases. Timed with the CSA acceptance of the teams. That's an official beginning of a project. Taking a bit more time to get the next steps right is a good thing but suggesting it hasn't been announced is an equivocation too far.
For those interested: Want to learn more about @CPLsoccer ? Come find out everything from @Paulbeirne at Footy Talks! Tickets HERE: https://t.co/AAS287b09X pic.twitter.com/h2lATfotkM— Room 4-4-2 (@TheRoom442) August 13, 2017
CPL News>League head office has opened and is located in the heart of downtown Toronto #CanPL 🇨🇦— A. Totera (@4totera) September 4, 2017 Meanwhile...MLS Canadian offices still don't exist
I'm glad that someone saw the light and changed their plans. Toronto is a much more appropriate location as a major league HQ. Union Station and both airports makes more sense than Hamilton in terms of logistics.
As you know, Robert has issues with MLS. Some of them justified, some of them not.. I'm pretty sure he'll take every opportunity to take a sjot at MLS, no matter how small.
I'm not taking a shot here, I'm stating the obvious which is a fact. Taking a shot would be me saying that MLS should shutdown because it sucks, which I never said. However, pointing out that a league that has a decade in Canada still doesn't have offices and employees in Canada is just telling the truth.
MLS doesn't need any offices in Canada - we're long removed from the branch office era. This just comes off as petty tit for tat on a false equivalency.