Some insight on how CPL treats players. I had heard that accommodations was being provided but it seems to be across the board. I think that's a good thing. For most Canadians, housing can eat up to half disposable income and if I didn't have to pay for my condo, $50K a year to play football for approximately 8 months with healthcare included is good for an average player. For very good players or skilled internationals, I expect them to earn more. https://ottawasun.com/sports/soccer...-things-about-to-get-busy-for-atletico-ottawa "We’re arranging accommodations for players — it’s one of the responsibilities for teams in the CPL."
Loots of details regarding the Saskatoon club aiming to start in CPL in 2021 Still hoping for this to keep moving forward. Understandably delayed now however. 🤷♂️@SSSSeries https://t.co/8YPqThf51q— From the Black Hole (@FrTheBlackHole) March 27, 2020
^ Ah, the Sudbury Star, as usual with its finger on the pulse of everything in Saskatchewan! Makes perfect sense. With a metro population of 331 000, Saskatoon would be the smallest market in the CPL by a significant margin. That's the biggest challenge for this team. On the plus side, Halifax has shown that you can make it happen as the big fish in the small pond. A Saskatoon team would want to achieve that sort of level of success in this small market to make it work. Saskatchewan is also the place in the country where I think their LAFC-inspired community ownership approach would have the best success. That sort of model already works well with the Roughriders, albiet without the extra emphasis on including movers and shakers in the community group. If it comes to fruition, they will probably end up playing their first games at the same time as Ottawa in 2021.
Excellent podcast in French with former TVA Sports journalist, now player agent Nicholas Martineau with Obelisq. He represents players in MLS, CPL, USL and Europe. 1244590581889859586 is not a valid tweet id Main points from him: USL and CPL salaries are very similar, some USL clubs can pay big contracts but they are rare occurences Canadian players in USL wants to come back to Canada and play in CPL, but there's a bottleneck due to the low number of teams. From European clubs perspective, they prefer looking at CPL than USL due to the league being D1 over D2, players making the national team and the level of play being interesting. Says that the level of corporate support and sponsorship the league was able to acquire before even playing a game is unprecedented in Canadian soccer
I know it's a different type of the sport in a different country, but Utica, NY has a metro population of just under 300,000. It's pro indoor soccer team sells out its games. It's not the size of the metro area that matters; it's how the team is marketed.
I'm going to say its both. It is certainly possible to draw well (by CPL requirements) in a smaller market. Halifax is the CPL example. It's also possible to draw less well even if you actually do a pretty good job of marketing. Victoria is the CPL example. Having a larger market is useful if you are only ever going to draw X percent of the total market to a game. (For less famous leagues like the CPL, there may even be a sweet spot before a market gets too big and your merketing just get totally lost in the clutter, but that's another point.)
The thing with VIctoria though is that A) Pacific aren't playing in Victoria B) Mid week games was a tough ask. They did well on the weekend but for most of the league, midweek didn't work. That's why the new calendar virtually eradicated mid week games and primarily play Fridays to Sundays CPL is a young league, they still need lots of tweaking to maximize potential revenues, sales and attendance figure. If there's one thing most agree upon, they will figure it out much faster than MLS or USL who still haven't have a clue of their true potential.* *I like USL actually, they just need better leadership who actually has a vision. That league could be huge...
They're based in metro Victoria regardless of where the locals have chosen to place the municipal boundaries. Midweek games are a tough ask even for more established leagues. Pacific only did well for two games last year - their first and last where they exceeded 5000. There were two others over 4000 and then a whole bunch in the 2000s. That gives them a baseline to start from. Hopefully fewer midweek games will help them grow. Yes, and I was really looking forward to seeing how the attendance changed in 2020. Unfortunately, right now it looks set to plunge to zero.
If CPL doesn't get to resume this year, can owners afford to stay in for next year? If they're paying players and making no revenue....yikes.
CPL Commissioner Clanachan interview CPL working on different scenarios and schedules to restart the league Single table allows for mor flexibility. Ultimately have to follow governments guidelines. Not a fan of playing in pty stadiums and hard to pull off economically but didn't close the door on that option Some within CPL staff are pushing to have the league being the 1st league to restart in Canada to have all of the attention but Commissioner reiterates it has to be safe to all staff and players. Risk has to be worth it...not at this time Says that not being a cross-border league and being smaller is an advantage in term of potentially making it feasible to restart due to less complicated logistics -Expansion not affected by COVID 19, still talking to potential owners. His focus is on Quebec, the Prairies, Ontario and the East (Atlantic Canada) -Pacific : Hydro Pole - They asked the city, province and BC Hydro to move the Hydro Pole to fix the camera angle for the stadium which proved problematic. Otherwise, the league might draw a line and moving the club might be on the table. -Cavalry : Larson sees that club as leading the league in CPL 2.0 - Commissioner says that the owner, Southern family are willing to spend on the club and owns lots of land. The club is very ambitious about where it wants to be on and off the pitch. They will go as far as their ownership are willing to go. -FC Edmonton : The stadium is subpar - Not all cities are stepping up like Langford BC. Says the stadium needs work and the foundation is good to expand upon but seems like attendance will have to go up first before seeing big infrastructure improvements -Valour : Winnipeg had great attendance, how to grow it - Comes down to results, Valour will have to do better on the pitch to have more fans. Clanachan want 8k to 10k in CFL stadiums, says it will take time for clubs to get there. -HFX Wanderers : Is Halifax the blueprint for future expansion - Now says that 400k to 500k metro area is the sweet spot, work off the pitch was well done to the point that downtown Halifax is CPL territory, everything is about the Wanderers. Reminds that after the big Euro leagues, the average attendance is around 10k, that's CPL goal to be just like most Euro leagues in attendance -York9 : Is a new venue the answer (using Kansas City new stadium to turn things around) - The new club president will bring changes with his background on business and sports. The club improved on connecting with the community. The commissioner thinks that they should succeed at York Lions Stadium before building a Soccer stadium in Vaughan. York Lions can succeed of the club do it right off the pitch. (Pointing out to that home game against Montreal) Stadium in Vaughan should be done only after exceeding capacity in North York becomes a necessity -Forge : Can Forge go to the next level, 8 to 10k - Have to solidify their work in the community and soccer community in the area. The club is now doing more with engaging fans, they have to keep doing it. Building a brand is not only on the pitch. -North American : Garber had mentioned that it was a missed opportunity to not work with CPL - Commissioner feels that CPL has to focus on building up. New Liga MX players coming to CPL could be a beginning to involve CPL with other partners in the region but it starts with potentially building a relationship with MLS when the time is right. Prefers talking cooperation over confrontation, our region is playing catch up to the rest of the world, we're all in this together and we're learning from one another. -Academies? Says that North America has a real problem with academies and have not proven to work. The rational of the league for not going that route is that only 2.9% of the ~600 players developped by MLS academies saw first team real minutes. CPL is looking at other models that would yield better returns. Points out that between 40 to 50 players in CPL inaugural year has played in England League One. Montreal owner Joey Saputo said that he was losing money on Montreal Impact academy but making money on Bologna academy side. Academies has to be done right, not just having them just for the sake of having them Gave the example of Brentford in Championship who's close to promote to Premier League. They stop having academies as they would develop players but couldn't hold on to them since bigger clubs came knocking after doing the heavy lifting of developing them. Investments must be focused on the technical development side of the game first so they can develop players here at home first before investing massively in academies that may lack the expertise to develop them properly leading to wasting talents. Designated Players : Not on the league's radar atbthis time. He views those brought in the old NASL and MLS as "Mercenaries already looking for the next job" and that didn't work out until David Beckham joined MLS and it worked. Worries about bringing internationals who just wants to finish their career (last paycheck) or those just looking for the next club as soon as they arrived Says that the league has to be strategic on what kind of internationals are signed in this league, he prefers signing young talent wanting play lots of minutes in Canada and on the upside of their careers coming from academies with great pedigree Having older players is nice but you need the right coaching and technical staff to coach them.
Okay... Are they saying that they can't erect their own pole to put the camera on? Seems rather drastic to move the club over a pole. Granted, as you noted above, they aren't actually in Victoria, so if relocating just means to a better location in or near Victoria, it isn't a big deal. You don't want to know the success rate of non-MLS academy youth getting first team minutes. But realistically, the problem with MLS isn't necessarily how effective the academies are, it's how committed the MLS teams are to using their players. As an example, FCD has one of the best academies in the league and there is a steady stream of academy teams joining the first team and getting significant time. On the other hand, you have the Sounders, who also have one of the best academies in the league, but don't actually give those kids first team minutes. For the most part, the Sounders rely on foreign and experience MLS players to fill their starting roster, while the kids from the academy either play for our USL team, or are bench players/spot starters. That's the main issue with MLS, they struggle with playing the kids because they are punching above their weight in regards to player salaries. Never, ever listen to a single thing Saputo says. He is a cheap ass and a horrible owner. The sooner he gets out of Canadian soccer, the better. If you're looking at the academy as a way to turn a profit, you're in it for the wrong reason. English soccer is a horrible model to follow, tbh. Particularly if they want the CPL to develop Canadian players. Just look at the top national teams in the world, they all have a robust player development system that is led by their teams. You can certainly have an overarching management system similar to how Germany does it, but it still needs to be the teams that are pushing the development forward. It's one of those chicken or the egg things, tbh. They can either dump money into academies and develop the best training methods through experience, or they can spend a bunch of time developing the training methods.. *shrug*
There are regulations from the province and Hydro preventing them from elevating the camera on that side, otherwise they would have done it for sure. Good on the league on forcing the issue. It's clear they have some leverage on Langford who will do the pushing for them I know some of the MLS academies works like Dallas, Sounders and NY but I also understand their rational in this. Academies are very expensive to start and run and if you don't have the staff/expertise to develop those talents, you're burning cash and wasting talents. The approach seems to be investing in developing people capable of successfully developing talents and when you have enough of them, you start academies. We blantly don't have that right now and TFC, Montreal and Vancouver can scream that they do until their face turns blue, most people knows it's BS. I prefer academies for loads of reason but numbers and analysis of those speaks volumes and I don't fault the league wanting to look for alternatives for the near future. Wasn't Montreal a top 10 salary spender? How they are spending it is another story... He's certainly not cheap at Bologna. Montreal's problem is that it was being ran by him instead of having a proper club president & manager. Saputo stepped down and for the first time letting the new management do their things. I can tell you that the marketing is significantly different and an upgrade. They screwed themselves with the stadium location...god forbid that a CPL investor builds downtown Montreal because they'd be screwed. I'd say to let new management run the club and see how it goes. My understand was that you can't have a good developmental system with expertise which they recognize that they do not possess. The Brentford example might be that they went looking for talent in League One to build a strong squad, which I didn't even know that CPL had that much guys with League One experience. I agree that Germany has a top notch system but that expertise takes time to develop and acquire, CPL are decades from that, so it comes down to 1-Run costly academies that might get you the 2.9% (if you're lucky)? 2-Look into existing academies that have that expertise at home (Sigma, Calgary Foothills, FC Edmonton etc...) and overseas for internationals? #2 makes sense for now I think. Exactly! And with the not so great history of Canadian pro league, asking owners to front that capital in academies from the get go with no guarantee that the league would be a success was a big ask. Long term viability will be another incentive for clubs to start their own but I think we're decades from that...
There is nothing wrong with that if it is mutually beneficial and the team can sell tickets and bring in more viewers.
The problem is that they aren't cheap and reselling value is very low. Best to get cheaper younger players who have higher resale value. Also gives the league a chance to create their own stars
It depends on which ones you get. MLS teams are making a lot of money right now buying young players and then selling them on after a few years.
That was absolutely the right move by MLS. CPL is going towards that direction without the use of DP or TAM or GAM rule
I read a report this evening on ESPN where health professionals were saying American Thanksgiving (mid November) is a realistic target to aim for for sporting events with fans. Obviously I'm not a doctor, but the notion that some form of a CPL season will be played this year seems increasingly unrealistic.
Since it isn't a cross-border league, CPL will come back whenever Canada does well enough in flattening the curve we we are doing much better than our southern neighbors.
The CPL "defers" the 25% of player salaries that were guaranteed by the government. https://canpl.ca/article/canadian-premier-league-statement-from-commissioner-david-clanachan That seems rather lame, tbh.
It's a deferral not a deduction. Players will end up getting paid their full salaries. Government pays a subsidy of 75% of salaries of any employee affected by COVID 19 at the condition that the employer keeps everyone on payroll. That's sucks all around but it's not like it's any better in the US or elsewhere where staff are being let go at some of the clubs.
This didn't take long... CPL players are now unionized and the union founded by them will include elite players, men and women “The Professional Footballers Association Canada (PFACan) is Canada’s first union for both female and male elite players in the country. Officially incorporated in 2020 was created by CPL players” PFACan said in a statement. Full: https://t.co/HHd4sH687e#CanPL pic.twitter.com/ZRixV31dgM— Thomas Nef (@ThomasNef) April 15, 2020