City of Surrey one step closer to new outdoor stadium https://globalnews.ca/news/3873661/city-of-surrey-one-step-closer-to-new-outdoor-stadium/ Cloverdale Fairgrounds, Bridgeview (Fraser River) and City Centre (Downtown by the Skytrain) have been identified by the city as possible locations for the new stadium. The Canadian Premier League Soccer has put in a bid to host a team in the new building. Councillor Hayne said other bids might also be on the table. He said city staff will take the next six weeks to evaluate the submissions.
I'm not sure there will be much difference in practical terms. I can't imagine they'll be paying their players for a year off which means that they will lose them. So they'll be a true expansion team if the CPL launches in 2019. They'll be switching leagues so it isn't even something that could legitimately be called a hiatus. On the plus side, Edmonton has not embraced this team the way Ottawa has their D2 team. Maybe a fresh start in a new league will give them some buzz.
The other news regarding Edmonton is that the team wants a new stadium however, the city said that they need to see higher attendances before building a new Edmonton soccer specific stadium. A Calgary-Edmonton derby will be gold for the league and both teams
Edmonton spoke to the city about a stadium when the team first started. As I recall, the discussion was much the same. "Show us you'll draw enough fans to make it worthwhile and we'll talk."
I thought that FCE had improved their attendance this past season. Kind of like they turned a corner. I would be surprised if they didn't play somewhere next year as that would kill off momentum for the team in the area.
Here are their season averages: 2012 - 1492 2013 - 2437 2014 - 3385 2015 - 2889 2016 - 2060 2017 - 3372 So their attendance was up over last year but there isn't any sort of general trend. It's a small data set but it suggests they'll bounce around in the upper 2000s to lower 3000s. That's not enough to support a CPL-level team so if they want to make a go of it in the CPL they're going to have to find a way to roughly double their current attendance.
Rivalries with Calgary, Surrey, Victoria etc... certainly can't be worse than now. Dare I say Calgary-Edmonton would be sellouts
Canadian opponents won't hurt but I'm not convinced they'll necessarily move the needle overall. A typical family deciding to spend their afternoon at a soccer game is likely motivated far more by an interest in soccer and which Saturday fits the rest of their family schedule than they are by whether the opponent is Victoria or Jacksonville. The exception to this would be Calgary, as you point out. A rivalry crowd for that game would help attendance but, of course, would only be an occasional boost.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that. I think Edmonton facing cities most people don't care about is being underestimated a lot. Of course, we'll have to wait on how the league will sell itself to fans. If they do something like an hybrid of CFL/Euro league marketing-wise, they'll be fine. If they sell themselves like the 2nd coming of USL, NASL or an MLS wanabee, that's another story. A lot of fans are worried about "BCFC" being trademarked. I hope they call that team Surrey and not act like pretenders to being British Columbia's team. Wait and see I guess
We can agree to do so. To emphasize, however, I'm not saying Canadian opponents won't help. I'm just saying it might add a couple of hundred fans, not move things from 2500 to 5000. Can you explain what you mean by this in more detail? I agree that how the league markets itself will be important but I'm not clear on what you mean specifically by the above.
NASL wasn't televised (directly at least) in Canada, CPL will, which will massively surpass the team exposure compared to what it is now. The league is said to be developing a streaming service that they claim will be second to none through Bob Young's company (owner of Hamilton Tiger-Cats and CPL team) NASL doesn't really do anything in terms of marketing, hence no one caring about the league. Lots of people aren't going because they just don't know anything about the team or the league, hence giving it a very amateurish feel, which is night and day from what the CFL or the NHL is doing. Everything falls on the club to promote itself, hence the fans being limited. CPL will do what CFL does, using their resources to market the league and make it know nationally, something NASL nor USL has never done. Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Puerto Rico, Miami, San Francisco, North Carolina & New York. I promise you that outside of New York (perhaps), no one cares about the rest. Despite what we may think of Edmonton, they are used to be in a major league through the NHL and CFL. Nothing about those teams screams "major". An all Canadian league like the CFL draws impressive attendances. CPL wanting to have a CFL approach will do a lot to attract more fans than there are now. The CPL cup will matter has it will take the team straight to the CONCACAF Champions League. It makes the cup matter even more something the NASL cup lacks. Rivalries: They have rivalries in hockey and football with Calgary and to some extent BC Lions and the Vancouver Canucks. They have Montreal and Toronto has natural opponents. You keep minimizing this and that's fine but this matters more than you seem to be willing to admit. Granted CPL won't have teams in Toronto and Montreal at launch but Calgary, British Columbia and the prairies will be there. As shown above, NASL/USL vs what CPL wants to do which is closer marketing-wise to CFL means it's not similar but night and day that what's being done currently by USSF leagues.
^ Thanks for your explanation. About the rivalries, I'm not minimizing them, just looking at the potential impact more mathematically. The stated goal is for an average of 5000 fans (minimum). Let's say that a rivalry game is worth double the fans of a normal game. (I think that's generous but let's go with it.) Some teams will have large stadia. If they are drawing 5000 they could pull in 10 000 for a rivalry game. That increases the season average over 15 home games by 333 fans. Some teams will have much smaller stadia. Halifax, for example, is looking at 6000 capacity. If one of these teams is averaging 5000, they only have room to bring in a relatively small number of extra fans so the impact of the rivalry game is less. For teams drawing less than 5000, even if they double their attendance for their rivalry game, it's still not going to be enough to pull their average up by much. That's my point: Rivalry games are great but a single game isn't going to have enough impact to make or break the necessary attendance level for a team.
I am in between on all of this....I get that some Canadian cities will be more of a draw in places like Edmonton than some American cities might be. But I have a hard time thinking that a team from, say, Mississauga will get more people to show up in Edmonton than, say, a team from San Francisco would just because Mississauga is in Canada and San Francisco is not. As for "major league" I think that is a concept that is determined by having a presence in other major leagues......and to suggest that outside of New York on that list above no one "screams major" but places like Mississauga, Halifax, Surrey will seems silly to me. On the list of teams you listed above, only Puerto Rico is represented in less major league sports than Edmonton itself....and the other 6 cities on your list are all represented in the league that, on this continent, is deemed to be the most major league of sports of all. So what draws well in Edmonton? Who knows....i think it will depend on a lot of things....but it won't depend on Surrey being considered more "Major" than Miami
The fact that the Surrey group trademarked BCFC makes me think that the CPL only plans to have one team in BC for the province to root for. I get the feeling that Saskatoon, Halifax and Quebec City would also have provincial/regional monikers to cast the widest net for supporter identification purposes. They could be purposefully limiting the number of teams they expect the league to support. So ideally the end state would be BC, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Maritimes, Quebec, and the rest of the teams would be from Ontario (Ottawa, Hamilton, K-W, London). Add another team in Regina (or elsewhere west) and there's a solid 12-team league. I know they say they want single table, but I'm betting that they end up with two conferences. They could play the opposing conference once, and the home conference 3 or 4 times to maximize rivalry crowds and sell a 28- or 32-game schedule.
Rivalry is only 1 aspect of why attendance and viewership can be expected to be much higher than status quo
It goes beyond than teams. USL and NASL has done nothing in Canada to get fans to care about the league itself. City locations is but one factor on why CPL will have higher attendances and viewership than status quo
I really hope "BC FC" doesn't happen. Fraser Valley or Surrey makes more sense. At first, they need to succeed at home, in Surrey, then Fraser Valley and then Metro Vancouver. Perhaps they trademarked BCFC just in case for future use. Hypothetically, they become big in Metro Vancouver, only then switching to BC would make sense to get the whole province behind them. The league might push back on that as there a plans for a Victoria team and Vancouver team down the road. Too soon to speculate on D2 teams but Kelowna is the right size for that. BCFC is incompatible with what the league is trying to achieve. They can trademark, it's their right but I think there's going to be push back on that.
I did not dispute the other points in your post.....just that you suggest that teams in Canada will be consider more "major" than teams from San Francisco, Miami, et al. Like I have said before, I admire your enthusiasm...but need to call it out when it spills over into making stuff up. The other points are just stuff we don't know yet (eg marketing....USL/NASL not very good at it so CPL will be better......we can hope that is true, and we can assume more marketing is better....but we have no idea if it in fact will be true).
Do we know, yet, that it really was the Surrey group that registered "BCFC"? Seems to be an assumption it was the Surrey people and that BC means British Columbia.....what if it is another group planning to play out of Swanguard who plan to call their team Burnaby City Football Club.
We don't know 100% that BCFC is for Surrey. Lol could be Burnaby for sure, they are the only one I could see adopting the name Vancouver if it came to that.
I'm just saying that Canadian teams facing draws more than US vs. Canada. It's true for both MLS and NHL when looking at viewership stats. That's mainly my main argument. All I'm saying as well is that even if it end up being a Canadian league only, they can't do worse than status quo. I think the "familiarity" and "Canadian Content" will be a huge factor. Sure Miami and SF are big cities but people care more about Halifax and Victoria. I take a Surrey team as an opportunity for Canadians across the country to learn more about places like this and Kitchener-Waterloo or Vaughan and yes even Mississauga. Regarding Mississauga, no investors has shown up yet. The SG makes a lot of noise to draw attention and that's good on them but from what I'm hearing, Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo are farther ahead.
Could also be a group from Brampton going to revive the old Brampton City name from the TD League of the 70s/80s and wanting to make sure there was no team from BC going to And that would be fine....if that is what you said....rather than list 7 cities...one of which is NY and saying you couldn't describe any of the others as "major"....when in fact, other than Puerto Rico, they all are...and, in fact, 2 of them would make anyone's list of the 25 most famous cities in the world. Something that no Canadian city probably would. This would have been a valid opinion....one that I would disagree with...but still far more valid than your original statement.....you and I disagree on a lot of stuff.....and opinions are fine...I just find that far too often your enthusiasm drags you into areas you really shouldn't go Not surprising really....of the 3 I only really have hope for KW as a market for this league..