Saskatoon to get glimpse at pro soccer Kevin Mitchell The StarPhoenix Thursday, April 10, 2003 ADVERTISEMENT A professional soccer league will put the boots to Griffiths Stadium this summer -- the first step in what may turn into a future franchise for Saskatoon . . . or not. The A-League's Calgary Storm will play the Vancouver Whitecaps June 14 at Griffiths in a regular-season matchup designed to showcase the circuit to local fans. "It would be great for Canadian soccer if we can spread the word and see what kind of response we get," said Storm head-coach Tommy Wheeldon, who will be in town for a press conference today. "It's obviously a hotbed of soccer down there in Saskatoon." Doug Gillespie, who is organizing the game on a local level, said most of the proceeds will go towards the new soccer centre, with the rest being given to the University of Saskatchewan soccer programs. He hopes the thudding balls and pounding feet show Saskatoon fans and players a side of the game they don't usually see up close. "More than anything, it's an awareness thing," Gillespie said. "The purpose isn't primarily for the revenue. The purpose is for awareness of the game, and to expose the Saskatchewan market to the professional game. We want to show that local athletes can compete at that level." The Storm includes both an A-League team and a reserve squad in the Premiere Development League. The latter loop is an amateur, North American-wide circuit geared for collegiate and pre-professional players. The A-League is a minor-pro circuit based mostly in the United States, with salary ranges comparable to minor-league baseball. Several Saskatchewan-bred players have ties to the Storm. Saskatoon's Jordan Gillespie, Doug's son, played with the organization last year. So did Keegan Thomas, Mark Korthuis and Mike Kennedy of Saskatoon along with Brett Bachelu of Regina. Some of them will play in the June 14 game. Storm owner Michael Vandale, a native of Kamsack, says he'd love to see Saskatoon land a PDL franchise at some point, but he points out that this city's relatively remote locale could be a problem. "There's no question that you'd have great crowds in Saskatoon, and that's why we talk about it," Vandale said. "There's no doubt the support would be there, but it becomes a travel issue. We've tossed the idea around, but until we have somebody closer playing . . . it's quite a distance when you go Salem to Abbotsford to Saskatoon. "But the Saskatchewan Roughriders always make a go of it. If there's support because so many people are playing soccer, why not? It could be a positive step. First things first, though; let's see who shows up (in June)." More importantly, from Vandale's perspective, is the marketing potential his team can realize from staging a game in Saskatoon. "From doing things like this, I think you'll see more players coming out of Saskatchewan," he said. "There's always this thing that you have to see it, and once you see it, you'll know you can do it. This will help us in trying to attract more Saskatchewan players to our program, and I think it will give a lot of younger kids the impetus to realize that getting soccer scholarships to the U.S., or trying to fulfill a dream of getting to Europe, is a reality."
I think it would be better for Saskatoon to get a PDL franchise (especially if Winnipeg joins in 2004).
Not again... I always like to see a writer covering the beautiful game on this side of "the pond", but I just wish they'd get it right! The A-League is the 2nd DIVISION in the USA - NOT "minor league"....and the 1st DIVISION IN CANADA! Why is this concept and distinction so hard for the "4th estate" to understand? ...and yes, there really is a BIG difference, but I don't want to go on forever here as to why.
They have enough trouble trying to keep their CFL team afloat. And with less than a 1/4 of a million people in the city, it'll be a big task to keep a soccer club afloat. Most of the a-league teams are in markets much larger than that.
What are you talking about? Their CFL team plays in REGINA not Saskatoon, and as far as I know they aren't having trouble keeping the CFL team afloat. In fact the CFL team averaged 24226 per game last season over 9 games (4th best average in the league). Not bad for their population huh? Its not the population of a city that matters its the amount of people in that city that go to the games, just ask the Toronto Lynx (4.6 million people, 1500 lynx fans). Besides as the CFL team has shown, people come from outside of the city to go to games. Saskatoon has 2 stadiums suitable for A-League play (at least a handful of A-League teams play in sub par stadiums-thats if you actually can call some of their parks stadiums), can probably average more than half the A-League teams presently do, are strong supporters of sports, yet people still seem to care about putting teams in cities based on their population size. I'd expect they'd draw over 3000 per game which is certainly better than Cincinnati (734 per game), Atlanta (1006 per game), Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach (1018 per game) and Charlotte 1081 per game).
No trouble keeping the Roughriders afloat? I could swear a few years ago the province had to rally to raise money to keep them afloat. Anyway, football isn't the best comparison for a few reasons. It's much more popular of a support in terms of fan support. Plus, with so few home games, it's gains the advantage of being a special event. Really? Have you been conducting market research? Are their some experienced investors ready to pony up the cash needed to get these butts in the seats? The fact is that having an A-league franchise in Saskatoon would make it by far the smallest market in the a-league would be in. I would much rather see the a-league worry about markets that have a lot more potential such as Detroit, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, and others.
Actually theres not much difference in home games for CFL football and soccer. CFL plays 9 home games the A-League only 5 more. No I haven't been conducting market research, perhaps I just know more about that market than yourself. Lets not forget either that the A-League doesn't really concern itself about where potential A-League franchises can be put, if someone puts up the cash and can afford to run a team the A-League sells them a franchise. Thats all I was saying, if someone in Saskatoon has the money to run an A-League team that the team would be supported, certainly better than half of the A-League teams presently are. Useless figures such as "small markets" and "large markets" which seem to have no bearing on actual attendance as A-League attendance figures seem to bear out, don't come into play. You'll find that people in those large markets won't consider the A-League "good enough" for them (Once again look at the Toronto Lynx) while smaller markets will be quite happy just to have a team. By the way, look at my original post. I said IF they could make a go of it I don't see why they couldn't have an A-League team. Note the "IF" part of the quote. After the game in June we'll soon see how many people are interested in attending soccer there.
Butts in the seats doesn't translate into revenue. YOu need to be selling merchandising, be able to charge big bucks for the seats and the suites, sell tv rights, and all sorts of things like that. As for the cushy loans the Roughriders got, here are some links. I'm suprised you need them know given your claimed greater knowledge of the market especially given how recently this occured. I suppose when I mention remember Saskatchewan farmers doing some fund raising for the team I'll have to find likes for that, too. ;-) http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/030401/6/sgwt.html http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam030331/cfl_ssk-cp.html http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/teams/news_story.asp?ID=35871&hubName=cfl-roughriders
Thanks for the links, they prove that the team wasn't going to fold without the money, and it was only a loan and it was 2.8 million. Quote: "It's already existing debt - it's just that the bank will become the government rather than the bank because we can give them better terms of credit" Complete rubbish about the team folding without getting the loan. I would suggest that is why jaydog2008 didn't post any link because he was not telling the truth. I could certainly have found the links if I wanted to, however I didn't need to bother considering I knew jaydog was being misleading. As for your comment about my knowing the market, yes I'm sure I have a better idea than you. I know that they averaged 24226 fans for their CFL team in a stadium that has capacity listed as 27732. That is while playing under .500 as they usually do. Which really means nothing because we are talking about soccer here. CFL football teams cost a lot more to run than A-League teams. All I know is that they are only selling 4000 tickets for the upcoming A-League regualr season soccer game between Vancouver and Calgary, it will be interesting to see how many people attend. Doesn't matter to me if they get an A-League team or not, and they probably aren't even trying. All I was saying was that if they could make a go of it I don't see why not. They certainly could draw better than any of the A-League teams did last week.
Why would the goverment step in and make the loan? And at those terms? It was because the province didn't want to loose the team & the team was in risk of defaulting on their bank loans.
Did you actually read the articles? By the way, it's a sure bet that a Saskatoon team would average a lot better than Virginia Beach or Richmond has averaged this season.