Canada is insanely expensive to do business in. Just renting the offices and doing all the paperwork would set them back more than they're willing to spend.
Are you saying that they should set up a whole separate hiring structure for Canadian players playing for American MLS teams? That seems needlessly complicated.
They won't - Garber initially said he'd do it and never followed through like adding more teams here. More reasons that lead to the creation of the Canadian Premier League. MLS said one thing initially and Garber ended up not following through, so the CSA under Montagliani at the time acted because there's no way that 3 pro clubs was ever going to be enough. After our elimination at Copa America even the players understands that fixing the depth issues means drastically expanding the pool of players and CPL will be key to achieve that Stephen Eustáquio says on TSN that he wants to see the Canadian Premier League continue to grow and create even more opportunities for #CanMNT player development. Get out and support this beautiful league. We're only getting started 🇨🇦⚽📈pic.twitter.com/ds30CTkwiO— Benedict Rhodes (@BTFR17) July 10, 2024
When did Garber say he'd add more Canadian teams and when did a Canadian team ever put in an expansion bid?
Edmonton (Daryl Katz - NHL Edmonton Oilers/Rexall), Calgary, Ottawa (Eugene Melnyk - NHL Ottawa Senators) and Hamilton (Bob Young/CFL Hamilton Tiger-Cats) were either in talks/discussion or wanted to bid. Then Garber decided that the 3 main cities would be it. The CSA imposed a moratorium on granting CSA sanction to clubs competing in a US league afterwards. It was around that time that Bob Young opted to explore a national domestic league. He hired Paul Beirne as project manager and CPL was born, he owns Forge FC.
Ottawa did bid https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/ottawa-presents-expansion-bid-mls At a time, MLS was open to further expansions in Canada but then Garber changed his mind to settle on just the 3 major cities. Clearly, that's not what the CSA had in mind back in 2007-08
Apologies I didn't realize that there was actually a bid. But even if MLS were to expand further Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton are just too small compared to cities like Detroit, Phoenix, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, San Antonio and Indianapolis.
Agree! But nothing is stopping TFC, Montreal and Vancouver from selling their franchise to US based owners and then they moving to CPL. They'll make bank by selling those franchises but they know that in CPL there isn't any money to make.
Those 3 have yet to turn a profit yet. Anyways, I wish them well especially the national team. Once it goes back to being mediocre and it will, that's going to put the spotlight back on how the CSA is run and the decisions it takes. Changes will follow at that point. Won't be short term and by the time Davies and David are past their prime (10 years top) this will be revisited. It's a cycle and I'm old enough to have seen the CSA change trajectory when enough people and media gave a crap about this sport. New generation and loads of people coming from places where football is managed differently... give it time - I'll be too old to care at that time
Oh well, more Canada Soccer drama this time with the transfer window https://canadasoccer.com/news/statement-mens-professional-transfer-windows/ Canada Soccer Statement Canada Soccer is providing an update on the men’s professional transfer windows, an item that is part of its regulatory oversight responsibilities. Background: Canada Soccer has historically aligned its professional male transfer calendar with the U.S. Soccer Federation to ensure consistency of transfer windows for Canadian-based Major League Soccer (MLS) clubs with the rest of the MLS. This alignment has been maintained since the inception of the Canadian Premier League (CPL) in 2019 without any conflicts. However, as the CPL continues to grow, and its competitive and business needs evolve, Canada Soccer’s longstanding practice of defaulting to the U.S. Soccer Federation’s transfer windows may no longer be the right solution. Canada Soccer has a responsibility to structure its professional soccer regulations in a manner that serves all domestic professional soccer members in the best possible way. FIFA regulations currently do not permit clubs within the same country to operate on different transfer window calendars. Transfer windows in 2024: The process of determining Canada Soccer’s 2024 transfer windows began in late 2023, with much of the communication between stakeholders about this issue taking place in early 2024. The CPL preferred a secondary transfer window that would start on July 5. The MLS wished to maintain alignment with the U.S. Soccer Federation’s secondary transfer window, which starts on July 18. To reconcile this discrepancy, Canada Soccer sought a regulatory exception from FIFA that would allow the three Canadian MLS clubs to adhere to U.S. Soccer Federation transfer windows. This would allow the Canada Soccer transfer windows to differ without creating a misalignment for the Canadian MLS clubs. Unfortunately, this exception was not approved, and was further denied on appeal. Accordingly, Canada Soccer determined a compromise and communicated to MLS and CPL that the secondary transfer window in Canada would start on July 12, 2024 – one week later than preferred by CPL and one week earlier than favoured by MLS. Moving forward: Creating regulations for professional soccer stakeholders who have different preferences for the transfer window calendar is complex. It will require compromise from stakeholders and strong leadership from Canada Soccer, who has a responsibility to serve all domestic professional soccer stakeholders in the most appropriate way. Canada Soccer will continue to engage in dialogue with MLS and CPL to find the best possible solutions moving forward.
30 years in and still not turning a profit? Riiigghhhhttt. Even if we only go by their piece of the pie from the franchises sold after they came in, they already made back what they paid for in their franchise fees. But let's say they aren't making a profit at 30 years in for MLS, what makes you think CPL will? Pretty difficult to grow when for the next 30-40 years all you will see from CPL are losses too.
“We actually have the athletes in this country. But we need to now develop them.” 💪 Fascinating clip of Jesse Marsch talking about putting responsibility on young Canadian players. 🇨🇦 It’s the “this country” part that hurts the most. 😢 pic.twitter.com/D9ey8Lxik6— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) July 12, 2024
TFC (oldest canadian club in MLS) has been in the league for 16 years, never turned a profit not that it matters since the Maple Leafs and the Raptors compensates for the loses and MLSE is still very profitable. That's no different than how Valour and Winnipeg Football Club are structure who are profitable as an entity due to the CFL side Valour's numbers for last year 2023: -$1.25M* *Winnipeg Football Club states that its overall revenue totaled $50.5 million in 2023, up 11.2% from the year prior, with an operating profit of $5.7 million. Forge and Hamilton Tigers-Cats are structured the same way and it's doubtful they are losing money due to their CONCACAF runs, attendances, sell of players and league titles. Halifax is most likely breaking even having virtually sellout all their tickets since the beginning. Cavalry isn't far off in my opinion due to they're own set of circumstances. However, Montreal president and directors have confirmed multiple times that they've never turned a profit since joining the league in 2012 losing on average $15M a year and it must be the same for Vancouver with that bad lease deal with BC gouvernement for BC Place. By all means, criticize the league and it deserves its share of it on some aspect but at least now you know the actual numbers.
There is a new roster rule this year, however it should be League 1 Canada that plays more younger players with mandatory minutes for younger guys otherwise they arrive in CPL and the level is too high for them The Exceptional Young Talent designation, implemented in 2023, allows a CPL Club to sign up to two additional Under-18 domestic players to Standard Player Contracts outside of its 23-man Primary Roster. A player designated Exceptional Young Talent is eligible to remain in the category up to and including the year he turns 21 years old. For the 2024 League Season, new players signed under this designation must be born Jan. 1, 2006 or later to be eligible to be signed as an Exceptional Young Talent Player.
CPL is breaking even or making some profit in just 5 years but MLS in almost 30 years isn't. Yet TFC, Montreal and Vancouver won't leave MLS to join CPL because they want to continue losing money for at least another decade or more. I mean, yeah, it makes total sense from a business point of view. Who wouldn't want such a great deal like that?
Yes but you also need to look what’s happened with the valuations of those clubs. Even some of the top clubs in the world don’t actually turn a profit.
Why? Is see this argument from Canadian soccer fans, and it really just comes down to the aesthetics of having cross-border leagues.
Honestly, none of us know the real numbers, regardless of what the teams release publicly. When a team says it took a "loss" in a given year, that's often an accounting trick to reduce taxes. If you set up separate companies for the team versus the stadium it plays in (which is a common structure for sports team in the US across all leagues), you can structure the various income sources versus expenses in a way that's most beneficial for tax purposes. Just as one example, the entity that owns the stadium has a "loss" on paper every year due to the depreciation of the stadium. To take advantage of that loss, the owner will have the entity that owns the team pay higher rent on the stadium. This can result in a reduction in profits, or even a loss, for tax purposes, but the owner still has positive cash flow. When rich people who own a business tell you they've been "losing money" on that business for years or decades, you should be very skeptical.
They aren't spending as much as MLS clubs, CPL are living within their means as much as possible. Montreal spends over 10X more than Forge while TFC 30X but they certainly aren't 10 or 30 times better than Forge. Just different business model - you can't compare the 2 leagues
The League paid bonuses to the clubs making a deep run in Concacaf league but your right - most of it was during lockdown. Forge and Cavalry made money hosting Liga MX and MLS clubs - same hosting MLS clubs during the Canadian championship. Someone estimated that Forge hosting Toronto FC might have paid 1/3 of this year salary mass