MLS opens a marketing office in Canada: Is it already too little, too late? https://t.co/Hvdvhc1Kys— Steven Sandor (@stevensandor) October 2, 2017
Sure there's some opinions in there but there's also hard facts. TV viewership being low is fact. It's also fact that outside the 3 cities, no one watch MLS in Canada. He's pointing out the obvious, that MLS has not been able to do what the Blue Jays have done and what the Raptors & NBA are doing now. There's very little to disagree about in his text.
Laughable assertions disguised as facts, a common plague usually found in articles that feature a question mark at the end of a headline. Actually it made me chuckle because after your response I thought maybe I glossed over a cold hard fact or two and donated another click... Nope.
The TV viewership are based on what the National Post reported, and you dont get much serious and credible source than the National Post. So yeah, it's a fact.
Are the out of market ratings for national broadcasts lower than in the US? No? Then it sounds like a pro soccer problem, or an MLS TV problem, not a Canadian problem. I found the comparison with the Blue Jays especially odd, in that the team's national reach is an aberration. In fact, drawing attention to other Toronto sports teams, TFC does rather well. It's worth about a fifth to a quarter of the value of the Jays, Raptors, and Leafs. The part about league sponsors which aren't present in the market was odd. Does anyone look at Man U and wonder why the team wears the logo of a company with little to no presence in Britain or western Europe? No. And I'll bet the team didn't worry about it either. They figured their new sponsor had good reasons, and made sure that they knew how to write out the check. Opening an office in Canada is a move for a maturing league; the value of having a separate national office is now estimated to be greater than its additional cost. Additionally, I disagree with the core argument that the CPL will be bad for MLS in Canada, largely *because* there's not much market penetration in much of the country. People have the time to support a local team in person and a more distant one mostly on television. Having players develop in the CPL and go on to a Canadian MLS team will help Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
However MLB and the Blue Jays have always actively engaged Canadians from sea to sea, the Raptors & the NBA are doing the same, something MLS never did. Sure TFC value is high, but it's thanks to the local market, not the entire country The point he was trying to make was that outside of MLS markets, MLS merchandise are virtually non-existent in the rest of of Canada which points again at MLS failure to try to engage the Canadian market until now, which coincidentally is at the same time as CPL gaining momentum and their imminent start Why now? Why not within the past 8 years? Don't you find it odd that Garber announced the Canada MLS office after CPL got sanctioned by both FIFA and the CSA? Now they are announcing the location of the office roughly 2 weeks after CPL opened theirs downtown Toronto? It's a reaction to CPL This is where I don't want to be misunderstood. In no way am I saying CPL will be bigger than MLS in general or in the 3 MLS markets. However, MLS did waste 8 years by not trying to engage and penetrate the Canadian market believing they had the monopoly. From a business point of view, it's normal for MLS to react has no businesses will just let go of their monopoly. CPL changed all that. By going right from the get go into markets where MLS doesn't exist, CPL is virtually putting to a halt the potential growth of the fanbase in Canada. Expecting a Calgary fans to cheer Vancouver Whitecaps over a local Calgary team is wishful thinking at this point. Hence the title of the article "too little, too late". MLS is trying to figure how to win Canadians residing outside the 3 MLS cities now, when this should have been addressed years ago. The owners of the all 3 teams admitted that they had a very weak fanbase beyond their city limits. Hope I'm making sense. I will politely say that you don't know much about Canada beyond the 3 cities. There's 36.2M Canadians: Around 1/3 lives in the 3 Metro areas, so you're telling me that the rest (over 24M Canadians) aren't worth going after? NHL, NBA, MLB, hell even the NFL and EPL strongly disagree with you. The CFL has an average attendance exceeding 24k, above MLS and that massively thanks to Western Canada, where you and Garber seem to think there's not much going on there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canad...er_North_American_professional_sports_leagues 7 Canadian NHL clubs brings over a third of the NHL overall revenues with the Canadian TV contract worth almost double the US TV contract. There's no ground to your claim. What happened here is that MLS took Canada for granted assuming they would always be the only player in soccer until CPL announced they were going after the 2/3 of Canadians that MLS weren't interested in first. Again, you don't seem to know Canadians as much as you think. The Blue Jays had to earn having national attention, MLS didn't. The fact is that Canadians aren't watching MLS on TV and those living in the Maritimes, Prairies and the West are highly unlikely to support an MLS team, especially when CPL will bring clubs to their area...That ship has sailed, hence the "too little, too late". Again, you seem misinformed on what CPL will be. They made clear they would not be a developmental league, especially not for MLS but Canada's Division 1 league. Player transfers are expected to go both ways like with every other leagues. If TFC wants to sign the best striker in Hamilton, it's going to cost them or Hamilton could flat out say no.
If TFC want to sign the best striker in Hamilton they will wait until his contract expires and get him on a free. And you are wandering in to Tinfoil Ted level conspiracy territory with your assertions on what MLS was thinking and when. "... believing they (MLS) had a monopoly.....". Seriously? That's beneath you.
Really? Pretty sure they would go overseas for a star striker ahead of Hamilton's best...let alone waiting out the end of his contract. Hamilton wouldn't be able to extend said player's contract why exactly I'm informed, that's why I'm saying these things. It came out of Bill Manning's mouth himself. Toronto is TFC territory and he won't tolerate CPL in that market. Hell, TFC market themselves as Ontario team while Vancouver were hold enough to claim British Columbia to Manitoba as their turf. Both teams are quite frustrated at CPL not returning their calls. As for Joey Saputo in Montreal, his head is in Bologna with his Serie A team.
There's no way in hell the TFC front office is pinning like a teenage girl waiting for anyone at "CPL" to return a call.
I was working for a multi-point GM franchisee at the time, doing advertising, market, and performance analytics. While there was a bit of complaining about spending on soccer at all, he was trying to target emerging markets for Chevrolet in China, India, and SE Asia; places where Man U was the most popular team in any sport. The problem was three-fold: with Ferguson departing, the team's performance slipped and so did its market value for advertisers; the deal did not include jerseys (the most important part) for a couple years; and he overpaid when money was tight.
Actually they are. They want to join the league with their reserve teams and CPL has been ignoring them ever since they made their pitch. Vancouver president went on record to say how frustrated he was that he wasn't hearing from CPL and being shut out of the league planning. CPL had to respond by saying that their demands (MLS teams) were unacceptable and those clubs simply didn't like the league's response