Nutrilite Canadian Championship and MLS

Does it matter at if all 3 canadian teams are in the same league?
I doubt it.

The canadian championship is the equivalent of the Us open cup...albeit smaller obviously.

Concacaf only provides 1 spot for a canadian club so there has to be some sort of competition to decide the representative.

And no way will CSA get rid of the tournament. Makes no sense from a marketing perspective.

These games give the clubs extra revenue for starters. The tournament also is meant to generate more soccer fans in canada...especially for the exisitng clubs.

Think about how much more fans MTL got from their run in the CL.


Makes no sense whatsoever to get rid of the tournament. And it makes no difference which leagues the teams play in.

 

By the time Vancouver gets in to MLS they will have more than 16 teams so for their 30 game schedule they won't have a balanced schedule. So the likelihood of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver playing each other an even amount of times in MLS is pretty slim.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if by the time Montreal would potentially join MLS if there were other Canadian teams in MLS (like from Ottawa or Quebec) -- if that's the case, then you'd have more potential teams that could participate in a Canadian Championship. If the number grows enough, I'd expect the competition to shift away from a group/home and away format to a bracketed knockout type competition.

 

If Montreal does join MLS, the Canadian Championship is dead. They'll just use the MLS standings. As it is, Toronto isn't too thrilled about having to qualify for CCL by playing USL teams. Also, there is the small chance, very small, of the Canadian Championship leading to a Canadian League, and MLS will want to squash that possibility. There was already an open and serious debate in the Toronto forum this year about which was more important, MLS or Canadian Championship games.

 

I think this would be the best possible outcome.

Also, just because they all could join, that doesn't mean the Canadian Championship is dead. Is the US Open Cup dead?

 

Well the Open Cup is theoretically open to all U.S. teams, regardless of league, and I can't see three Canadian MLS teams competing in a seperate tourney that only includes themselves if they don't have to. The only reason the Canadian Championship really even exists is because the teams are currently in different leagues.

It will be interesting to see what happens if the Canadian Championship adds another team or two. If it goes to a straight knockout format, then a US Open Cup style tourney may be in the cards; if it keeps the current home and away format, it will start to resemble more of an actually league, which would beg the question of the benefits of Canadian participation in MLS longterm. Interesting parallel to Cardiff in the English system, since they theoretically cannot qualify for Europe even if they were in the Premiership or won a Cup.

 

For the sake of brevity I'm going to ignore some of the more ridiculous things said in this thread (3 MLS teams leading to a Canadian league, etc) and answer the original question.

In my opinion, comparing the Voyageur's Cup to the US Open Cup does a bit of a disservice to the Canadian Championship in that people actually care about it. In the first 2 years of this competition, it has proved extremely popular with fans in all 3 cities and I have no reason to believe that won't continue.

Things will probably continue unchanged if and when Montreal joins MLS, playing seperate games outside of the MLS schedule. To be honest, having all 3 teams in MLS would actually help fixture congestion by allowing the teams to schedule Nutrilite games earlier in the season, whereas right now they are limitted by the USL's later start (mid-april vs. mid-march).

The only way I see this tournament running into trouble is when they try to incorporate future USL teams into the works. If you add a USL/MLS team from Ottawa/Hamilton/Victoria that means 6 games per team, which becomes a real scheduling headache. That is the only real scenario where they might have MLS games double as Canadian Championship games.

 

Or assuming that the MLS participants become financially strong, and after some time having big-time fan involvement and love after having seen intense matches and gotten used to the concept already, they could reasonably begin to break away. No one was insinuating that 3 teams could form their own league. What was implied was that as those teams joined MLS, in all likelihood other teams in other cities would replace them in USL and whatever minor leagues they have there. Keeping a home away format would enable each team to hit each town, and they're playing for a trophy. Repeat for a couple of years and a league cold come out of it.

 

I can't see what 3 successful MLS teams would have to gain from breaking away from a league that they paid nearly $100 million combined to be a part of. Especially if the other teams in that league are going to be formed from the very small markets in Canada that remain after Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. I can understand the Canadian fans' want for such a thing. But it's a pipe dream, pure and simple.

 

That and North American sporting culture has a long tradition of cross border leagues. Maybe in Europe this would be considered sacrilege, but here its just par for the course.

 

I doubt the NCC will be erased if both MTL and VAN move to MLS, especially considering the NCC serves as Canada's only entry into the champion's league. I don't even know what the argument is here. Unless Concacaf decides to change the qualification process.

This doesn't even have to do with which league MTL and VAN play in.

And one of the posts said it right...think of the NCC as the US open cup.
It serves as a ticket to the CCL.

And a Canadian soccer league will flop so bad if it was ever attempted. Teams in Ontario/Quebec/B.C. would probably survive, but I doubt it would last elsewhere. It is a nice dream no doubt, but I doubt it would last long. It'll never get top name players to play in its league.
And it makes no sense considering how much TFC and Vancouver, (and assuming how much MTL wants in) have paid to gain entry into MLS.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself. There is absolutely nothing to gain by breaking away.

 

Yeah, the TFC front office hates having two more sellout games in its stadium.

 

Ok, no argument there, but I'm sure TFC would also like the potential four or more Champions League sellouts (maybe even at Rogers). When TFC lost last year, they sounded alot like the Mexican clubs in the Champions League or the MLS teams in the Open Cup (who are, after all, playing for the same thing). TFC (or their fans) made it sound like playing USL teams for the spot was beneath them, or a forgone conclusion, until they lost. If anything, they probably feel that they should get an automatic invite like the PR Islanders currently have for all practical purposes (their is a Puerto Rican league) or the tourney should be weighted in their favor, since they are currently the only 1st division team.

If all of the Canadian teams were in MLS, you could have a scenerio where Toronto finished top of table in MLS, but by performing badly over four games in the summer, failed to qualify for CCL. So, in effect, the MLS regular season would be meaningless, for Canadian teams. If you paid $50 mil to get into the league, would you want that potential. I guess that gets to the crux of the issue, what are the longterm benefits of Canadian clubs joining MLS? If the Toronto Lynx had had a SSS and a Canadian Championship during their existence, would they have been viable in USL like Montreal?

 

Not with the idiots that own that team.

 

3. They should, and probably will, keep it the way it is. For three reasons.

First, these games and this tournament make money. Remember, it's the Nutrilite Canadian Socccer Championship. Why throw away the sponsorship money? The games sell tickets. Why throw away the ticket revenue?

Second, the schedule congestion in Canada is much lower, since Canadian teams don't compete in the U.S. Open Cup and only one of them will play in the Champions League. Four games should be pretty easy to slot in with only league games (and, theoretically, SuperLiga) to compete with.

Third, using league results would mean doing what MLS does, and qualifying almost a year in advance. This means the MLS teams that get a shot at playing in the knockout rounds in March or April of 2010 aren't those that are playing well now but those who played well in November of 2008. By qualifying in their own tournament, held in the summer, Canada can send the teams that are best right now and increase their chances of advancing.

 

this nutrilite championship should not exist. what about the csl, what about their champion. toronto/vancouver/mont are basically american teams because of the fact they play in american leagues. Toronto FC is not the canadian champ, trois-riviere is. canada needs to recognize its league.

 

You're an idiot.

 

im an idiot because csa shits on its own league? i assume you are a montreal impact fan and it hurts anytime someone talks about your team. all these toronto fc, vanc, mont teams should make a canadian league with the csl teams. there wasting time with the US. the game needs to develop here not down south. we dont benefit.

 

The CSA does not run the CSL. Its privately run.