Tuesday 23 Apr 2019

Kudos to our Northern neighbors--truly a win for soccer in North America! A stronger Canada is a good thing for CONCACAF. I knwo fans have been waiting for a long time ever since it was first announced. Finally they kick off on April 27th.

Some interesting points:

1) As logic would dictate they will also play spring to fall (just like MLS) as the winter is way too harsh in Canada. Playing April to October however it seems to me that their season will be shorter than MLS 34 games per season.

2) Interesting to me that they will play single table as opposed to playoffs since in traditional canadian sports the playoff model is the one that prevails (CFL,NHL,MLB,NBA), but every league has to find their own way and if they think that the Euro model serves their audience better then more power to them!

3) No single entity--instead each team is an independent club. Seven teams in inaugural season.

4) The CPL will not expand into the MLS Canadian markets and the MLS Canadian teams remain in MLS.

They will have to tough through the first few years that will no doubt be money losers before the profits start coming in. I wish the league much success and hopefully they will expand in the not too distant future.

 

There isn't any problem with hosting exhibitions or tournaments. However, to use NHL, MLB, NBA and NFL as having played official games out of the country is not exactly apples to apples. Those leagues are essentially the dominant leagues for their respective sports worldwide.

 

It's time for FIFA and other bodies to blacklist these Beckham blocking bastards.

 

Blockers the movie part 2?

 

I was intrigued by the Forbes article on what MLS might look like if it kept expanding.

I'm not a fan of promotion/relegation for MLS as it pertains to the European model, but could a system like that work for the U.S. and Canada if revenue sharing were in effect and all teams were viewed equally by the public? If MLS got to 36 teams, would fans be more or less interested in MLS 1 and MLS 2 (18 teams in each league with no divisions)? We have no way to predict what future broadcast rights will look like and whether or not viewership will markedly improve on television as more franchises are added. But, if there were two tiers of teams under the partnership the league has now with ESPN and FoxSports, I would be fine with 3 broadcasts each weekend with 2 MLS 1 games and one game featuring MLS 2 teams and each network would alternate which games they show. You could also have a playoff championship double-header with MLS 2 followed by MLS Cup three hours later.

You could do a straight 3 up/3 down each season, or do it like Germany and have the 16th placed team in MLS 1 play the 3rd place team in MLS 2 over two legs to see if 2 or 3 teams get promoted. MLS 2 teams might have to play an extra game or two compared to MLS 1 sides during the U.S. Open Cup tournament. I really don't know if such an idea would fly amongst the owners or fans of MLS, but again, I thought it was an interesting article.

 

There are other cities in Canada besides Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto?

 

Absolutely. MLS and by extension US soccer would not benefit from official league games being played here unless they charged exorbitant fees to host.

 

??? York is part of the Greater Toronto Area. Also Victoria (Pacific FC) is part of the Greater Vancouver Area. Wasn't Victoria once the proposed site of a WhiteCaps SSS?

There's also already talk of the CPL expanding into Montreal as well....

 

I agree. It's been my understanding also that MLS and USSF were the ones trying to derail Beckham's expansion plans all these years.

 

Edmonton. Calgary. Winnipeg. Moose Jaw.

 

Moose Jaw United FC (MJUFC)

 

The 7 teams that will start off the inaugural season of the CPL are:

Cavalry FC-- Foothills County, Alberta
FC Edmonton-- Edmonton,Alberta
Forge FC--Hamilton, Ontario
HFX Wanderers FC-- Halifax, Nova Scotia
Pacific FC-- Langford, British Columbia
Valour FC-- Winnipeg, Manitoba
York 9 FC-- York Region, Ontario (will play in York Lions Stadium, Toronto while they build their own stadium in York estimated to take 3 years)

Expansion: The CPL has stated that they plan to expand to 10 clubs by 2020, 14 clubs by 2024 and 16 by 2026.

Possible expansion candidates are: St. John's, Moncton, Laval, Quebec City, Tri Cities,Niagara, Mississauga,Durham, Regina, Saskatoon, Kelowna.
The Ottawa Fury stated they will stay in USL for now but that they are "in discussions" with the CPL.

The CPL has stated they would like to grow big enough to eventually institute pro/rel in the future.

OTHER INFO:

1) The CPL will apparently run an Apertura/Clausura split season format with both winners playing one game at the end to determine overall season champion.

2) The CPL has one automatic qualifying spot to the CONCACAF League tournament (top 6 teams of the CONCACAF League qualify for CONCACAF Champions League)

3) The CPL teams will automatically enter the Canadian Championship in the first and second rounds. They will have to play the Canadian MLS teams as well as the Canadian USL team and one qualifying team each from the tier 3 Canadian leagues: League 1 Ontario and Premiere Ligue du Soccer du Quebec. Tournament winner gets one automatic qualifying spot to CONCACAF Champions League.

 

Just a comment about club names. One of the U17 selectees plays for a club "FC United". Is that Football Club United? If so, probably the most generic club name yet.

 

FC United City

 

Yeah i don't know exactly how that works either-- I was simply summarizing the article. Perhaps in an attempt to be friendly towards the CPL, MLS agreed to define its markets in Canada narrowly. You mentioned those teams are part of the greater Toronto and Vancouver areas respectively. So maybe the definition of an MLS market per the agreement with CPL is defined by a certain number of miles? Just a guess.

 

That article was written by a writer based in New York for a website associated with the US Men’s National Soccer Team Players Association. It is entirely possible that he doesn't know where York or Langford, BC are located, didn't see Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver listed, and concluded that the CPL had agreed to stay out of the MLS markets. Maybe not but I don't find anywhere else where it is reported about this MLS/CPL agreement.

 

Considering Vancouver and Victoria are 119 miles apart and you have to take a ferry to go between the two, putting them in the same metro area might be a bit of a stretch.

 

The York Regional Municipality begins 11 miles from BMO Field but zero miles from the Toronto city limits. The stadium that York 9 is starting out in is just barely inside the Toronto city limits.

 

Apparently Indianapolis' stadium bill passed.

 

I'm not sure how true this is.

York 9 is easily inside Toronto's market. They seem to be a trainwreck waiting to happen, so who knows if they'll be around, but that's a club that's already in a MLS market.

Pacific FC were originally planned to be in Surrey, BC, but they weren't able to get favorable arrangements for a stadium so they went out to Victoria. Even then, there is allegedly interest from another group to put a club in Surrey or Langley.

There are allegedly multiple groups interested in putting a CPL club not only in Quebec, but in Montreal itself.

That being said, we'll see how long that interest lasts as it seems that only a couple of the clubs will be having reasonable attendance (5k or better), while the rest are looking to be in the 2k-3k range. The league itself says it needs to have 5k or 6k for the clubs to be profitable. If the league doesn't get some stability relatively quickly, it could be in for some trouble.

 

Given the size of the remaining cities in Canada, I would think 2nd or 3rd teams in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver would be at least as viable.

 

There was once a CFL team in Baltimore. Put a CPL club in Buffalo.

 

Victoria, Abbotsford, Ottawa, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Calgary, Windsor, Waterloo, Edmonton, Halifax, Regina, Edmonton, London, Gatineau, Burnaby, St. Johns, Mississauga, Brampton, Surrey, Markham, Vaughan, Oshawa, Waterloo, Sherbrooke, Halifax, Kitchener, Niagara, Saquenay, Barrie, Guelph,Brampton.

In bold are those with populations in excess of 200,000

 

You mean Niagara Falls? Also, you omit mentioning nearby St. Catharines. Together, they exceed 200k in population.