My issue is I don’t see someone stepping up in Edmonton and trying given the track record. A new stadium is absolutely mandatory and then a rebrand of a rebrand? There are easier ways to light money on fire.
This is different than your previous point. If no one in Edmonton is interested, then staying isn’t really an option. You aren’t wrong that there is a deep hole in Edmonton, but you’d be surprised how quickly it could turn around with the right owners. You don’t get much deeper of a hole than Kansas City, but it only took a few seasons to go from barely getting 10k at Arrowhead, to selling out a minor league baseball stadium every game, followed by years of sellouts in their own stadium..
Forge FC restructured their ownership and creates HSG (Hamilton Sports Group) Manages Tim Hortons Field Owns Forge FC & Hamilton Tiger Cats Bob Young retains majority Stelco joins the group ($1.5B worth) and minority owner of Atlanta Falcons Woodbine Entertainment joins with over $325M in yearly revenues The ownership group behind @ForgeFCHamilton is adding some high-profile figures, including a minority owner of the Atlanta Falcons.https://t.co/8ZNOIrLqlU#ForgeFC #CanPL— Northern Tribune (@northtribune) January 2, 2022 Forge will be a soccer powerhouse for years to come.
Edmonton: For a non-Edmontonian, can someone explain what the problems are? What specifically is Fath doing wrong? I've heard complaints about Clarke Field, but what are the specific issues? It's right beside Commonwealth and fans for the Elks and the NT don't seem to have difficulties getting there so location can't really be an issue. (It's also right on the subway line, no?) The stadium itself may not be awesome but it doesn't seem worse than Pacific or Calgary. And it's a good size for the CPL - fans aren't lost in an empty cavern. I guess I'm just wondering what a new owner would actually change to make things better. Because realistically the CPL needs a team in Edmonton. There just aren't that many large cities that we want to be skipping out on Edmonton.
Bad stadium, no game day experience/atmosphere, bad part of town, nothing around the stadium. Marketing could have been better. The Fath Brothers will always be remembered as bringing soccer in to bigger leagues in the city and growing the sport. They made it possible for CPL to have a club in Edmonton...but they couldn't nor were they willing to go "2.0" within the league. They pretty much told the league they wouldn't continue paying the bills after the 1st season forcing the other owners to get together to pick up the tab. I understand that the pandemic was brutal for them and they lost millions by keeping NASL afloat until the bitter end...but CPL needs different owners. I always said that the less fortunate owners in CPL were the Fath bros. Guess I was right. It's that much worse than both Pacific and Cavalry stadiums who are said to have great game atmosphere and a fun outing for fans. Issues with Clarke is that it's borderline a high school stadium upgraded by the Fath bros over the years. Game day atmosphere is terrible and the stadium looks amateurish. It's next to the LRT station but most feedback I read is that it's not in a great part of town either. The Elks are an institution in Edmonton but FCE aren't. Worst, FCE were denied 1st tenant rights (controlling the dates of the venue), the right to upgrade the stadium to soccer specific and dont even gette concessions sales revenues because the Elks and a bunch of high schools using the pitch for football opposed the changes. Clarke Stadium isn't up to CPL standards and the commissioner was already saying they should be moving out of there. There were opportunities to get a hold of the baseball stadium Re/Max and retrofit it and there was some land downtown but ownership chose not to pursue and those ships have sailed. In a nutshell, it's impossible for a pro soccer club to ever be viable out of Clarke Stadium. Those schedule dates that have been terrible? Have to schedule outside of the Elks practice time and whenever high schools arent using the pitch. Rebrand, new stadium are the bare minimum.
I'm not often a fan of the rebrand. Just changing the name and sweater and expecting people to act differently toward the team seems useless. If you're making actual, meaningful changes so that the team will be better then keeping a recognizable name seems good for the fans who have stuck it out (who are, after all, your hard core). Who doesn't want to see their old team finally succeed after all those years? But maybe that's just me. I enjoyed my one visit to Edmonton but I don't know the city. It seems to me that if they want to build a stadium, something like they did in Halifax would be the way to go. Something accessible with a capacity in the 6000 range. A quick internet search doesn't tell me so does anyone know what Halifax spent on their stadium? I hope Edmonton can be rescued. It would look really bad for the league not to be able to make a go of it in a city that size with that history of soccer support. It would not be inspiring to potential ownership groups looking at smaller cities with less soccer history. So hopefully we see new owners with the ability and desire to make the necessary investment well before the new season kicks off.
The launch of the NASL era was bad. No marketing, incompetent, mixed messaging by the club. They started out at the U of A in a bad situation and then moved to Clarke, which is also a bad situation. There were no soccer guys running the club and it showed. Clarke is a crumby setup in the roughest part of town in Edmonton. The club gets no revenue from the stadium, and no fan really enjoys going there very much. During the Colin Miller era there was lots of alienation/infighting with the local soccer community. Examples of local Edmonton guys like Shaun Saiko and Antonio Rago being perceived as being treated unfairly tuned a lot of locals off of the club. Another issue people keep overlooking is that in about 10 years, the club has never been successful. It never got to host a playoff game in it's history. Pretty hard to build hype with no success. Fan apathy really took over. Things a pro soccer club needs in order to be successful in Canada: 1. A decent stadium with a fun game day experience. 2. A successful launch with hype by a competent organization. 3. Eventually, your team has to win occasionally. If Edmonton is ever going to get a stadium, where should it go? That's the million dollar question, there's no good answer. There's no Halifax Wanderers type setup they could ever get in Edmonton. Which then leaves me with the belief that some replica of Calvary's situation, whether it be in St Albert or South Edmonton or whatever, is probably the only realistic answer. It's going to be a commuter setup in the burbs. Would that be successful? More successful than Clarke, yes. Successful enough to come anywhere close to justifying the cost? I strongly doubt it.
I found this article ( https://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/pop...come-together-this-summer/Content?oid=6626158 ) which gives an estimate of $3 to $4 million for Halifax's stadium. That's stadium only - they don't own the property. And let's round up to $5 million because everything has gone up. Is there somewhere in Edmonton to put a small stadium? I have to assume yes even if it's a bit out of town or something. Or maybe with a few million to play with you can arrange something with U of A for Foote Field? Like pay for upgrades in return for dates and at least some of the revenues? It works for the Alouettes and McGill. Regardless of exactly how, I have to think the stadium situation is solvable. But is there an ownership group willing to sink the capital and sustain the subsequent losses in the hope of future returns? I very much want there to be both for Edmonton and for the stability of the league.
David Clanachan steps down as the league's commissioner to lead an ownership group to expand in Windsor, Ontario. News: Commissioner David Clanachan has been awarded the exclusive rights for a #CanPL expansion club in Windsor/Essex County. As a result, David will step down as the League's first Commissioner to focus on bringing a professional soccer club to his hometown.— Canadian Premier League (@CPLsoccer) January 10, 2022 The expansion rights are conditional to securing a soccer-specific stadium in the area. The population of the Windsor-Essex population is estimated at over 385k but there's no doubt the club could draw many fans from Detroit with many Canadians living in that city.
I wonder if he negotiated some sort of inexpensive franchise option as part of taking the commissioner position. And who his partners will be. Clearly there won't be anyone who knows the league any better but he isn't in the same income bracket as the other owners. Certainly he won't be funding a stadium. I have great doubts that many people from Detroit will cross the border to watch a team in a Canadian league. A few probably will but not enough to move the needle. This is going to be a Windsor team, not a Windsor-Detroit team.
He most likely gathered a group of investors for this bid, he isn't the sole owner and he's not getting a discount on the expansion fee. The Canadians living in Detroit would, might be some Americans who work in Windsor daily and/or have family there might attend. Also, if that club qualifies for a CCL or goes deep in the domestic cup, Windsor is the closest place hosting an MLS club or potentially a Liga MX club for Detroit residents. These 2 cities are much more intertwined than people realize. (When there's no COVID)
I would think where Edmonton currently plays would be a good spot for a small stadium. Foote Field would also be a good idea. That's one of the issues that I had with the Faths. Everything they did was a half measure. When the team was at Foote Field, they had the ability to build a proper stadium, but instead they went with "temporary" stands and got absolutely screwed by poor drainage that made their field terrible to play on. Rather than address those issues, they just threw up their arms and told the fans to deal with it. Then when they moved to Clarke, they approached the Elks about upgrading the stadium, but when the Elks balked at it, they gave up and, again, told the fans to deal with it.. Any new owner in Edmonton's first priority should be getting a proper stadium built, either at Foote Field, where the Faths already had the option, or at Clarke. They also need to be willing to pony up the cash themselves. As you noted, it shouldn't be that expensive to build a 5k-10k seat stadium. It really doesn't need all the bells and whistles right off the bat. Get fans packing the stadium and get revenue rolling in and they can upgrade it as needed to make it fancier.
It's more one direction tho. A lot of people living in Windsor (Canadian or otherwise) and working at one of the car companies/suppliers in Detroit. The opposite isn't really the case. Not only that, Detroit already has DCFC. While it was "only" a NISA team, it is still getting around 4k-5k per game and that was with players that were barely paid. Now that they've jumped ship to join USL-C, they'll have proper USL-C quality players and will have the opportunity to host MLS clubs via USOC, so they should be able to get an even higher attendance (stadium can hold about 8k). My concern with Windsor is that MLS wants to put a team in Detroit really bad. Heck, they already would have a team there if the ownership group hadn't burned MLS by making them spend time and money lobbying the City Council to get them the prison site and then pulled a bait and switch to move the team to Ford Field.
A don't think the bid hinges on attracting Americans from Michigan, if they do - it's a bonus. The Windsor-Essex area is more than capable of supporting a CPL club. Yes, lots of Canadians work in Detroit, that doesn't prevent them from going to Windsor games on weekends, likewise for Canadians in Detroit who are from that region. I don't think DCFC has a huge following in Windsor - didn't see it when I was there. But not Champions League. For Canadians on the US side, Montreal, Vancouver and TFC playing their hometowm will be a big incentive to go support their city. That would great for Detroit to have it's own MLS club although this looks complicated over there. Regardless, even with MLS in Detroit - that won't prevent CPL from working in Windsor
I wasn't disagreeing with you on the Windsor residents going to games. Just how intertwined the 2 cities are. That's certainly a fair statement as long as an MLS club doesn't end up in Detroit. DCFC only gets attention in Detroit, so it shouldn't conflict at all with a Windsor team It could make things complicated. From what I've seen Windsor's media is very Detroit focused. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if Detroit did get an MLS team. Would Windsor's media ignore it, or split attention with the Windsor team. Regardless, a potential MLS team in Detroit is not a strike against Windsor in the least. If a local CPL team can't out compete a Detroit MLS club, that's a much bigger issue than the market.
Small, but a lot of money thanks to the auto industry. It's also not like they need a lot of people. We're only talking a 5k+ to have a "successful" CPL club.
It could make things complicated. From what I've seen Windsor's media is very Detroit focused. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if Detroit did get an MLS team. Would Windsor's media ignore it, or split attention with the Windsor team. Regardless, a potential MLS team in Detroit is not a strike against Windsor in the least. If a local CPL team can't out compete a Detroit MLS club, that's a much bigger issue than the market.[/QUOTE] I'd say contrarily to the other major sports who have history in the area and are the best leagues in the world at what they do, MLS is a bit different in that regard Windsor. An MLS team in Detroit would definitely attract people who wants to see Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto play regardless if they arrive before or after CPL (most likely). I think a club setup like Halifax, which Clanachan kept citing as an example will do well to build a solid following I just don't think they will be competing, just attracting different type of fans for different reasons who are very likely to consume both
The population of the Windsor-Essex area is estimated at around 385k. It's a good size for a market - Canada is more similar to it's European counterparts than US who have so many cities with over 1 million people. From an American perspective, these are too small but for a European - they are perfectly fine. There are plenty of clubs in Europe with great clubs in top league with markets this size or smaller hence the added benefit of having an all Canadian league. Places like Regina, Saskatoon, London, Kelowna, Moncton, Quebec, Mississauga, Kitchener-Waterloo, Surrey, St. John's and even Toronto's borough like North York, Scarborough all make sense for us
Depending on how large the CPL intends to get I can see Windsor getting a club I'm just a little surprised it is so early. Of course I was surprised to find out that St. John's CMA was smaller than Windsor's so what do I know.
I think the league had an idea where it wanted it's clubs. It learned quickly that ownership with a stadium plan trumps everything. They don't want another York United or FC Edmonton
Halifax is the only one located downtown. Such a location are a tough ask to municipalities unless you really make it worth their while. Montreal is far from downtown Montreal Toronto is close (which is ideal for both sides) Vancouver is downtown but they don't own the stadium (owned by the BC Government - City of Vancouver denied their request to build a waterfront stadium)