Predict the average attendance for a hypothetical 8-teams Canadian League

Interesting question. TFC is very sucessful compared to the Lynx, but is that because of marketing or quality? Presumably a 8 team canadian league wouldn't be able to afford as much talent as the MLS (MLSE notwithstanding), so maybe support in Toronto would wane a bit. I voted for 5500.

 

Canada could easily afford to field a product with the current MLS salary cap (~$2.4M). That is right around what the CFL currently has its cap set to.

But you do raise an interesting question. Would fans in Toronto accept a team that wasn't in the MLS in any great numbers? The Lynx would indicate the answer is no, but it seems from what I have read on these boards that the Lynx had poor ownership who didn't market the team and were playing on substandard fields, etc.

I think that context is everything when it comes to a Canadian league.

If (fictionally) eight people on this board had $35M each to spend on a franchise for a team in a Canadian league, we could have eight Saputo stadiums built, and you would have 20 years of $1M salary cap soccer, or 10 years of $2M salary cap. That would be a decade worth of salary cap "prepaid" so to speak, before a dime of any other revenue was ever seen.

In that scenario, I could see a league having a viable chance at success (every team has a SSS, and is guaranteed to have most expenses covered for a decade to allow a team to establish its identity in the community).

We could actually have something like the above if we had a couple of Canada's rich folk who wanted to be benefactors to soccer in Canada like Lamar Hunt was to MLS.

Jim Balsille was going to pay $175M for the Predators. He could take that exact amount and build 5 Saputo stadiums, and fund those five teams like I outlined above.

Kerfoot from Vancouver could kick in for another 4 teams (and 4 more Saputo Stadiums) and you would have a 10 team league out of the gate - 11 if the Impact joined in.

I honestly believe that a league is very viable in this country. People just need to adjust their expectations, and be willing to live with a product that may (ultimately) may not be as "good" as the USA's. I think the CFL is a great example of this in practice in Canada. I don't think that anyone could argue that the athletes in the CFL wouldn't cut it in the NFL, and yet it is a well attended league in this country.

I didn't vote because it didn't make sense to.

Cheers!

 

Soccer really needs to grow in Canada if we want to have a successful Canadian soccer league. How big is soccer in Canada? IMO, not too big at all. If we were going to start a league today, then average attendance wouldn’t be great at all. Also, would MLSE approve of Toronto having two soccer teams in two different leagues? Of course not. They’ll do anything to stop another team coming to Toronto.

Point is that soccer isn’t popular enough in Canada that would draw a lot of interest and have people attending to games especially when the quality of the league wouldn’t be great and chances of getting world class players into the league would be impossible.

 

The reason I think we could easily afford a $2.4M cap is that the CFL is now at over $4M in cap.

The population and cash to draw from easily exist, and to achieve MLS numbers you need to draw relatively small numbers of crowds.

If a team could average 10k (which I believe is a reasonable target, and say a $15/person ticket price (which is low for a professional event), and 14 home games, is $2.1M before any other merchandising or income (corporate support - which is normally somewhat significant), luxury box sales, radio and/or tv deals, add in shirt sales, etc.

My point of "easily" affording a league wasn't about economics - there is more than enough discretionary income in Canada to afford teams with much larger payrolls than $2.4M. The problem is the exact same one the MLS faced when it started - a psychological one - convincing people it is worth spending their money on a professional top division soccer product (in our case in Canada vs the US). Which is also why I have said in every post from the first time I mentioned us having our own league that we would need a Lamar Hunt like benefactor that would be willing to underwrite the league for a decade or so while it builds psychological/emotional traction.

And even if a Canadian league started at $1M cap, I would take that. If it was a truly Canadian top division league that has the opportunity to mature and grow, I would take it.

I think one of the problems Canadians seem to have is that we look at the sporting landscape in the US and say, "we want that". And then if we don't think we can achieve what the US has we don't think it has value. That's just my perception of some people I have met, your mileage may vary.

I have no doubt that a Canadian soccer league would eventually lag behind a US-only MLS in terms of economic muscle (we have less than 1/10th their population - we should eventually lag behind). The US could support MLS teams growing into Manchester United-like behemoths in all their largest markets. Canada couldn't really hope for that. But I would be extremely happy (overjoyed in fact) to get to a level of a Holland-like infrastructure (perhaps Scandinavia would be a better target to shoot for first). Good enough that foreign players would realistically think about playing in Canada, and more importantly, good enough that we produce good talent and can consistently stay in the top 25-30 (at least) in the FIFA rankings.

Cheers!

 

MLSE would have zero say in stopping a different league from setting up a soccer team, hockey team, basketball team, or otherwise in Toronto. MLSE only has exclusive rights in the leagues they participate in and nothing more.

If, and it is a big if, a billionaire in Canada decide to build SSS in Etobicoke, North York, and Scarborough that could hold, say 10k each, and put three teams into T.O. simultaneously for some fictitious Canadian league that had a chance of drawing fans away from TFC, there is nothing that MLSE could really do about it. It is that other person's money to either lose or make a profit with. MLSE would be pissed about having their market eroded, but in the end, that's a free market.

Cheers!

 

I would argue that your comparison is wrong. The CFL is a valid league to look at because it isn't like the NFL at all (other than a pointy football).

Onto the attendance numbers you threw out. The CFL plays 8 home games a season.

Converting those numbers to a 14 (home) game season:

8 x 29343 / 14 = 16768 fans per game. Suddenly the numbers don't look so potentially unrealistic do they? I think 17k/game would be achievable eventually, but I would agree that it would be unlikely out of the gate for a new league.

Bear in mind, that is a 28 game schedule of home/away simply based on an MLS-ish setup of 14 teams. A more realistic schedule would probably equate to a few more home games (with an unbalanced schedule) in a league with fewer than 14 teams. I would suggest 10(ish) teams to start - all CFL cities with an additional team in Halifax.

So a likely (unbalanced) schedule would have something closer to 18 or 19 home games:

8 x 29343 / 18 = 13042 fans per game. Which is even more likely to be a reachable target sooner rather than later. Not to mention that this should translate to more revenue since you are enticing fans to spend money on beer and pretzels on a more frequent basis than the CFL does with only 8 home games a season. I'm not sure how much more revenue, but there should be more revenue in general.

The CFL commissioner was on Prime Time Sports this past week (in studio) and said on air that the salary cap was now just over $4M.

Cheers!

 

So no Ottawa then, interesting...



Overall, it's a tough idea to sell for sure. First off, would we be able to get the players?
I mean, I've considered what would happen if we had, say, 6 teams in MLS. Currently we have Toronto FC, they have about 18 Canadians on the team, and I'm not sure how many others. And how are they doing? Not too great. What are the chances that the next team to come along, say Montreal or Vancouver, would be able to compete with the next 18 Canadians. Seems unlikely. 6 x 18 = 108. Considering a large portion of the best Canadians are overseas...well, I think those 6 teams would be the worst 6 in the MLS.

If we had a Canadian league, it wouldn't be comparable to MLS, because it wouldn't have the same skill. The Americans aren't that great, but they have numbers. We aren't better, though maybe not too much worse, but we don't have the numbers.

I think the best way to start things in Canada would be to put more emphasis on it at a university level, as well as probably adding more Canadian teams to MLS. Then try to work towards having 3 or 4 divisions in MLS, with significant Canadian content (say, 40-60 in teams).
Considering how Toronto FC has done with attendance, MLS ought to know that it'd be smart to get more Canadian teams. We just have to make sure we can take advantage of it at the same time.

 

Well, Ottawa wasn't left out by intent... that's why I said "10(ish)"...

Second, I would have no expectation of a Canadian league being required to have all Canadians or even a majority of Canadian players at the outset. In my opinion, for exactly the reason of limited Canadian skill set you outlined above, I would only have a requirement of fielding 1 or 2 Canadians at the outset. All others could be foreign-born players. After a few years of playing (3, 5, 10? whatever it takes) and assuming there are some skilled Canadians being developed the league could raise the number of Canadians required to 3 or 4 in the named 16 man lineup (or 18 if we went with a 7 sub bench like some countries).

The view for the fictional league shouldn't be "we put 6x18 Canadians in play immediately". It should be a reasonable compromise that puts a good product on the field (to keep interest), and one that forces Canadians to play at higher levels.

I wouldn't think that a Canadian league should ever have a requirement to have the bulk of the team positions go to Canadians. I wouldn't mandate more than 3-4 first team players be Canadian ever I think. And I'm not sure if more than 3 would be needed. Competition for positions would push players to compete harder and excel. Plus, assuming some talented Canadians did come through the various clubs, I think the clubs would generally sign local talent over foreign talent by default - all things being equal. Not to mention, if they were good enough they would eventually move to a bigger European league, and unless Canada grows to 300M people in the next 20 years, I'd be ok with that.

One place I would place a Canadian quota per se is in the academy setup of all clubs. No less than 80% Canadian academy players or something (number off the top of my head). That would force clubs to scout new talent to develop within Canada without punishing them on the senior team if they don't find a gem of a player every other year.

Cheers!

 

What kind of math? Linear.

You are missing my point completely. The extrapolation wasn't about "if the CFL played 14 home games". The extrapolation was "how many fans per game would a soccer team need to draw on average over 14 games to draw the same number of fans in a given season as the CFL".

I well aware of the history of the CFL being Canadian and all. I'm not sure of the relevance of the history of the league , its marketing strength and stadium structure in the context of our discussion.

A new Canadian league (just like the MLS did when it started) would face challenges. The beauty of the MLS vis-a-vis a Canadian league would be that we could look at the growing pains of the MLS and try not to repeat the same mistakes. For example, putting a high premium on SSS for all clubs, etc.

Cheers!

 

A much better question to ask is why would we want this 8 team Canadian league?

At present, we have one team in MLS. This team is going through growing pains on the field but is doing spectacularly well off the field and, given the waiting list for season tickets, will do so for at least one more year.

We have two strong teams in USL-D1. Both are in the process of building large, soccer specific stadia. Both could either continue to do well in the USL or eventually make the jump to MLS.

We have four PDL teams who appear to have found their niche. We also have a ten team CSL that finally appears to have turned the corner with some teams routinely drawing over 1000 fans to games (while others still play for tiny crowds).

All of these teams are operating at a level that works for them and, at the moment anyway, they appear to be on a generally upward trajectory.

What you have outlined is a league with a salary cap of about $1 million. The USL-D1 experience has shown that this requires an average attendance of about 5000. In order to set up this all-Canadian league we would have to blow up what we have and force everyone to fit into the same mold. This would mean stuffing TFC back into a much smaller bottle, stifling growth in Vancouver and Montreal, and magically elevating CSL/PDL teams that draw hundreds up to near the 5000 mark (or magically doing this with expansion teams).

Why put all our eggs in this one, rather dodgy, basket? What do we gain? Instead, why not continue to allow things to develop organically so that each city and region can find its natural level? As it is, we have new CSL teams starting next year in Quebec City and Brampton and a good chance for a USL-D1 team in Victoria. Possibly there are others that I'm not aware of. Clearly we want to encourage growth in all locations but I think letting it happen natually will yield far better results than trying to force an all-Canadian league of a certain size.

 

I guess I should have added the new Vancouver PDL team, too.

 

Don't think that one would even be talking about a $1 million salary cap. Half that would be far more sufficient in any league.

Attendance for a Canadian league would be more in the 3-5,000 range with Montreal and Vancouver looking to average much more higher than that. Toronto is basically a write-off since they won't go back to "second-rate sport".

The reality is that high end leagues aren't working when it comes to developing sport in Canada. Baseball is a rather prime example. People point to the decline of baseball based on MLB pulling almost all teams out of Canada. Yet baseball enrollment is going up in several provinces. That is due to the fact that there are a growing number of options for baseball outside the MLB system. There are 4 independent league teams in Canada which operate on small rosters in which a certain number have to be rookies. This gives an opening in which team owners can still field a competitive team but yet still play a role in national development.

One can be sucessful if they learn to think rather than try to find an easy way out.

 

Pointless thread. Pure speculation .

 

I've actually been saying something similar DoyleG. I think that people look at the MLS and say if a Canadian league couldn't keep pace with MLS then what's the point? But, in my opinion if people would lower their expectations we could have a successful domestic league (over time). Something akin to the CFL in relation to the NFL. No one would argue that the CFL is as good as the NFL talent-wise, but quite a few Canadians love the league none-the-less.

I think if we targetted drawing 10-15k per team, we could have a successful domestic league.

Cheers!

 

Wake up. 15 k WHere in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary. Its just a waste of time and space to discuss what will not work. Period stop dreaming. Soccer in Canada is MLS.
USL for some. A Canadian minor pro league might work, 2k per team is about all you can expect.
Toronto is a prime exaple. USL 1.5 per Game. MLS 20K

 

Toronto is an example of a USL team that didn't market themselves and were unknown in Toronto.

Vancouver and Montreal do market themselves heavily and look at their attendances. Montreal is a bit harder to figure out due to the way their ticket sales work. Vancouver, while averaging around 5k, has the ability to do better, but their current stadium is capped at 5k capacity.

Winnipeg has a minor league (single A I think) baseball team (the Goldeyes) that draws 6-9k per game. So, I don't think setting a long-term target of 10-15k for a team in Winnipeg is out of the question. Perhaps 5-10k is more accurate for the first season, depending on how people respond, but there is more than enough people around to try and market a team to.

There are opportunities to draw in soccer fans in Canada. And if an all Canadian domestic league would be the equavalent of the USL-1, I would be ok with that. At least it would be Canadian.

I personally think a Canadian league could achieve a higher profile than USL-1 over time (by profile I meant talent level). Perhaps even exceeding the equivalent of where the MLS is currently (again over time, and not within a couple years of starting - unless all teams in the league were selling out their stadiums right away).

Cheers!

 

Have you ever watched USL. Its brutal plain and simple.
Toronto fact is wont support minor sports. Simple. Keep dreaming. Edmonton and Calgary failed with USL. How do you think a Canadian league would fly. It would not.

 

The Argos average ~30k. I think that everyone would agree that the CFL is below the NFL in talent.

The Toronto Rock of the NLL averaged almost 16k per game last year.

I digress. You obviously feel this discussion isn't worth having, and that's OK. You are entitled to your view. You have shared it with the thread, and you can now move on if you want.

Cheers!

 

I undertand what you are saying. The problem is, if you want to have a Canada-wide league you can only lower yourself to a certain level. Below that point you cannot sustain a league economically.

Experience suggests that the minimum level at which this is possible for a full national league is the USL-D1 level (average attendance about 5000). Please also note that, in practice, you can't have a league where Montreal draws 15 000, Vancouver 15 000, and six other teams 1500 and say, "Great, the average is about 5000!"

You could have a highly regionalized league like the PDL is in the US or the CSL is trying to be in Canada. Then, however, you'll also be stuck with crowd sizes of 50 to 1000.

If we had that we'd have a league that was pretty much where MLS is at today. This is a very ambitous target for a start up league.