Viable/Ideal Cities for the CPL

My thought is that the new league will be perceived as about the same level as they have now. I don't think most fans care too much whether the team plays in the USL, NASL, or CPL and what D ranking any of those leagues have. Certainly going from D2 NASL to D3 USL had no impact on attendance. I agree that Canadian opponents might be more popular, especially if we're talking Edmonton and Calgary, not Kelowna and St. John's.

Nothing concrete I'm aware of yet. I'm assuming that, since they seem to be spearheading for the league, the ownership groups will use their football team machines to put real effort into driving soccer ticket sales. I read articles in the Hamilton Spectator when I'm visiting relatives in the area and the Ticats owner seems legitimately committed to making soccer work there.

 

What the new league will likely miss is the occasional headline about big crowds in markets like Cincinnati....humans have a bit of a lemming gene in them and hearing that something is very popular somewhere else helps its popularity. So when I worry about the perception of the new league it is not so much about which D it is (1 or 2 or 3) I am not sure people outside of boards like this have any knowledge of that stuff....it is just the perception of whether their team is "big league" and I think big league = big crowds.

I don't doubt Mr. Young's commitment to making this work....I think he is a long time soccer guy.......but commitment only takes you so far.

 

which ones?

 

We don't know, there are confidentiality agreements in place which is something Montagliani said since day 1.

 

No chance?

Kelowna and St. John's. Simply too small.

Mississauga, Brampton, Markham/Vaughan, Surrey, and Laval. MLS markets. While acknowledging that the local MLS teams don't suck up all the soccer fans/sponsorship dollars/media attention, I think they do suck up too much to let CPL teams succeed in these markets. Especially in the GTA where the perception of second tier status is the kiss of death.

 

Agree with your read on the suburban cities in MLS markets.

Those would be:

 

I agree with Kelowna, not for D1 at all. D2 seems like the better fit.

On the fence on St. John's. The economy of St.John's and the province is very robust so money wouldn't be the deciding factor, so the question remains if they can draw an average of 5k a game. Fun story, when Canada beat Honduras to qualify for 1986 World Cup, 13 000 were there. Getting half of that or even 5k on average doesn't seem unrealistic at all

Vaughan seems to be happening. Too much noise coming from there. They are far enough, getting a subway and can rely on over 1M in York Region. If they are smart enough to be near Vaughan Centre or 407 Station, they should be more than fine

Mississauga/Brampton: They certainly have the population. No ownership that I heard off and I think they fit better with D2.

Laval: I think a Quebec City team will spark interest for a Montreal Island club either downtown or north mountainside. Quebec City is the catalyst for a Montreal club and I can't imagine investors not capitalizing on this potential rivalry that the NHL took from us. That derby is a guarantee sellout in a new 10k stadium or Molson 25k stadium.

So I think Laval is a better fit for D2 when combining Jesus Island population and Laurentides Region. One more thing, Laval are proving a lot of people wrong with the unbelievable attendances they have with the new Laval Rockets (Montreal Canadiens B team). Their attendance average is higher than the Marlies.

Surrey: It's far enough from the Whitecaps and Vancouver City to be a very successful club. People of Surrey identify far more with Surrey than Vancouver.

So I agree with most of your picks except Surrey and Vaughan. GTA and Metro Vancouver are too big to not be able to have an additional club. Same for Montreal Metro.

Why aren't the Marlies moving or the Raptors 905 who sellout the Air Canada Centre...Not bad for second tier...

 

This is a completely separate discussion but I'm very curious about the idea of a D2 league that some people are floating. Anything I've seen talks about D2 being a cross-country league. If we're concerned about D1 teams drawing the 5000 fans that are needed for national level travel, how are smaller cities supposed to do the same? Just putting them in D2 doesn't reduce their costs other than payroll.

It's opinion so we won't know for sure who is correct but I disagree. I don't think we can take a crowd from a one-time special event and extrapolate to regular attendance at a league. Also, 5k in St. John's is ~2.5% of the metro population. That's like Ottawa or Edmonton drawing over 30 000. I just don't see that level of support happening long term.

You and I will disagree on the likelihood of the people in those markets supporting the CPL team.

One point I will make is the derby game potential that you mentioned between potential teams in Laval and Quebec City and that I've seen other people enthuse about for, say, Regina and Saskatoon. A rivalry game is great for attendance but only once per year. One big game isn't going to float a team.

Kudos to what those ownership groups are doing. At the end of the day, however, those are farm teams that the mother clubs want close at hand to facilitate player transfer. Much like TFC II in the USL, the owners would love it if the teams made money but are willing to run the teams regardless for long term player development purposes. That would not be the case for a CPL team.

 

The notion that Raptors 905 “sells out” the ACC has to be dropped for a couple of important reasons:

1. They do not do it regularly in fact they have only done it a couple of times on “special” days.....what do those days have in common? They are school days, daytime games where kids from all over the GTA have bought (for $5 of their parent’s money) a day off school and a bus ride to the ACC. Those big ACC crowds are not indicative of public support or a viable business plan. They have, on a couple of occasions sold out the Hershey Centre but, guess what, those were school days as well. In the main CPL thread I broke down the 905 attendance and for non-school days it is very low.
2. Even if the statement that the 905 were selling out the ACC was true.....how does that show Mississauga to be a good market?

The fact is simple, neither the 905 nor the Marlies are judged on a P&L basis. There are employees in each who are (ie they have financial targets in their performance agreements) but no one is expected to make profits. Both teams have attendance issues and both teams suffer, annually, 7 figure losses...,,but have an owner that is ok with that.

 

Some people? Paul Beirne himself started that. He said that CPL would look at pro/rel and a D2 once the league hits 16 teams

Well Edmonton is D2 and travel all over the United States, same for Ottawa and hell even PDL clubs in D4. I don't see why a well structured D2 would have trouble traveling within Canada.

Fair point, I do see them more suitable for D2 to be honest

There's room for optimism here. I get your scepticism but the CFL has found the right formula to make it work. The 2 confirmed teams are CFL and we have enough evidence and stats to prove that soccer is big in Canada.

Let's give ownership a chance to market their team and league properly which has not been done properly in this country since MLS came to Canada.

 

It's a good potential D2 market. I'm skeptical about D1 in Mississauga

 

For full national travel (the PDL is large scale regional) a team needs 5000 fans a game which is what the CPL D1 is targeting.

Unless I'm misunderstanding people's posts here (which is possible) what I'm hearing is this:

"Here's a list of 16 cities I drew up. Some of them seem questionable for making it work in my eight team D1 so I'll put them in my eight team D2 instead."

Except eight D2 teams scattered across Canada are going to have exactly the same travel costs as the eight D1 teams scattered across Canada. So if those cities are being assigned to D2 because they can't cut it financially in D1, how does being in D2 actually help them? A trip from Kelowna to St. John's is no cheaper for a D2 team than a D1 team.

The CFL connection is what gives me both optimism and scepticism.

Ottawa has done a great job of maximizing the utility of owning both teams. From personal experience, their marketing is good, their prices are very reasonable, their game day experience is great, and their ticket sales team really makes the effort to get you back for additional games. A solid front office performance. The Fury have done what it takes and are averaging over 5000 per game. They are what the CPL can be. It can work in a given market. Hence my optimism.

On the flip side, with all that they've done, they're still averaging only a little over 5000 per game (about 5400 each of the past two years) in one of the largest potential CPL markets. So a really well run CPL-style club can just barely make a go of it in a metro area of 1.3 million. If we go down the list of potential cities, many of which would not be CFL-linked, how do we possibly expect to duplicate this in eight or ten locations? 1.3 million markets in Edmonton and Calgary - yes if they can duplicate Ottawa. 800 k markets in Winnipeg and Hamilton - maybe if the CFL link can be ruthlessly exploited to make up for a 40% smaller market. That's five teams just reaching 5000 and we've already dipping into our optimism. But now we need three or five more teams from mostly much smaller markets with no CFL links. Hence my pessimism.

 

Let's put aside D1 vs D2. At the end of the day, cities and ownership have to bid for a CPL club and those bid are going to be evaluated. Such bid usually comes attached with a business plan where ownership must demonstrate the viability of their plan based on the league requirements.

At the en of the day, you're right. The whole putting pins on a map is wishful thinking. We all have preferences but the league will determine which ownership will get the green light. So that's more reason for optimism. CPL will be the total opposite of how CSL operated, I doubt the league would allow a club in a market where there were doubts about their success.

CFL being stuck at 9 teams shows a lot of conservatism in their approach. CPL is expected to do the same. Paul Beirne is very optimistic and enthusiastic about the league, but he doesn't have the money at the end of the day. Economics will dictate how the league will ultimately look like and where it will go. Top 16 cities in Canada are the obvious choice. Safe to say that if a bid can't demonstrate that they can attract 5k average attendance, I would hope that the bid would be denied.

Let's be fair here. This is USL. The team is marketing themselves very well but they aren't televised, not sure they are streaming (people wouldn't know) and the league isn't marketing themselves in that city, nor the NASL in Edmonton. They play teams from cities people don't know about nor care about in a league people could care less.

I pointed that many times but you don't acknowledge that. CPL is expected to be televised, have a streaming service second to none, cities that people identify with and actually know about, higher level of play and the league will market itself with the teams.

Anyway you put it, the Ottawa Fury and FC Edmonton can only go higher than what they are doing right now. It's very unfair to use NASL and USL as a comparison. Both Montreal Impact and Vancouver weren't drawing much until they jumped to MLS.

 

Broadcasting and streaming will certainly help in the long run. That won't bring in fans in year one but should bring them in in following years if they like what they see on the screen.

I do agree that playing against Canadian cities should be a bigger draw than playing against less prestigious US cities.

I don't think the level of play is going to matter too much. Most casual fans probably couldn't name or compare the CPL, NASL, and USL anyway. It's more a case of MLS or Other. So long as Other is pro-level as opposed to L1O they're happy to support the local team. (Ottawa fans didn't seem to care about the switch from NASL to USL, for example.)

I'd love to see both Ottawa and, especially, Edmonton improve. I'd feel a lot more secure about Edmonton if it was drawing 5400 instead of 3400.

In the interest of accuracy, the Whitecaps averaged over 5000 for the last few years before they jumped to MLS (in a 5500 seat stadium) while the Impact had seven seasons of 11 k and 12 k averages before their jump to MLS. Their attendance was actually quite good by the D2 standards of the day and would meet today's CPL expectations.

 

Games actually played in Mississsuga average was about 2,350.

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/canadian-premier-league.2028798/page-25#post-35562527

A couple of those were sellouts on “buy a day off school for $5” days.....so they skew the average.