CPL new teams speculation

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Think it's safe to assume that Mediapro's Onesoccer coverage isn't revenue positive for them, if that's accurate.

I'm pretty sure we resolved that the deal is for services only and not cash awhile ago. Which still doesn't make it a bad deal for the league, as otherwise they'd have been in the position for paying for their own  broadcasting and added to the costs.

[Cheeta]

East-West divisions?  

Eeeewwwwww.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

20 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

I'm pretty sure we resolved that the deal is for services only and not cash awhile ago. Which still doesn't make it a bad deal for the league, as otherwise they'd have been in the position for paying for their own  broadcasting and added to the costs.

That was before Timeless Inc (complete with Scott Mitchell as CEO) rather than Mediapro was the entity making the complaint about access to Rogers Cable to the CRTC where conventional linear brodcasts are concerned.

A $125 million combined fiscal loss would be a mind boggling number, if accurate, given playing and coaching salaries over the time span involved are likely not hugely more than $50 million and they have been selling tickets at reasonably high admission prices rather than giving them all away.

No idea what Brian Noonan is playing at by highlighting that number if the goal is to push expansion. 

[Watchmen]

16 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

That was before Timeless Inc (complete with Scott Mitchell as CEO) rather than Mediapro was the entity making the complaint about access to Rogers Cable to the CRTC where conventional linear brodcasts are concerned.

Think this is irrelevant as to whether MediaPro is providing any cash to the league at this time.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Really? Have heard it claimed that CSB had to renegotiate the original deal to stop Mediapro from walking away.

There is zero transparency on this stuff so what I'm pointing out is that it's not safe to assume the scenario you are outlining is still applicable if, for example, Mediapro is only on the hook for the webstreaming angle at this point with Timeless Inc (i.e. probably CSB) holding the linear rights.

As for the $125 million in the hole stuff surely that must be combined total expenditures rather than a combined cumulative fiscal loss? Weird way to phrase it though.

[masster]

3 hours ago, K Edgar said:

https://northerntribune.ca/canadian-premier-league-operating-loss-right-direction-noonan/

Mentions Quebec, Laval, Edm, Kelowna, Sask, Maritimes, GTA

"with a potential Laval team being cleared to use Stade Telus as a temporary ground while things are put in place for a permanent home" -- I think this is incorrect (correct me if I am wrong), Stade Telus is in Quebec City not Laval.

With clicks being so important...why don't we post the original source article (Canadian Press via Global) instead of just an aggregator like Northern Tribune.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10191676/cpl-commissioner-soccer-league-teams/

[Colonel Green]

4 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

But God forbid anyone on here suggests that they should downscale operations a bit so the league can be around for the long haul.

Downscaling operations would make the team less likely to be around for the long haul, and also much less useful as a development league.

2 hours ago, Cheeta said:

East-West divisions?  

Eeeewwwwww.

That's always seemed to me like the most logical route for the CPL to go take if it actually gets to a certain number of teams. It would help with travel costs and also (arguably) be a meaningful differentiator between the regular season and the playoffs.

[toontownman]

7 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

That's always seemed to me like the most logical route for the CPL to go take if it actually gets to a certain number of teams. It would help with travel costs and also (arguably) be a meaningful differentiator between the regular season and the playoffs.

I think this was unfortunately always inevitable, eventually. I prefer the whole coast to coast league but if it's more cost effective and they have the V Cup more coast to coast (beyond the eventual L1 early rounds maybe being east/west) I could settle. 

Bit crappy if we end up with CPL teams that never play each other though.

[phil03]

32 minutes ago, toontownman said:

I think this was unfortunately always inevitable, eventually. I prefer the whole coast to coast league but if it's more cost effective and they have the V Cup more coast to coast (beyond the eventual L1 early rounds maybe being east/west) I could settle. 

Bit crappy if we end up with CPL teams that never play each other though.

I don't think this is the case in any coast-to-coast league in North America so I don't see why it would be the case in CPL.

Edited December 27, 2023 by phil03

[SpursFlu]

I think once you get to 12 EastWest makes sense 

East

Halifax, Ottawa, York, Forge, Maritime, Quebec, GTA

West

Valor, Cavalry, Vancouver, Pacific, Edmonton, Kelowna, Saskatchewan 

 

[Stanley]

8 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

I think once you get to 12 EastWest makes sense 

East

Halifax, Ottawa, York, Forge, Maritime, Quebec, GTA

West

Valor, Cavalry, Vancouver, Pacific, Edmonton, Kelowna, Saskatchewan 

 

Bleh.  Single table all the way.

[SpursFlu]

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

Bleh.  Single table all the way.

I would say once the league is financially comfortable 1 table all the way

[Shway]

37 minutes ago, phil03 said:

I don't think this is the case in any coast-to-coast league in North America so I don't see why it would be the case in CPL.

Uhhh this is MLS today. And "travel" isn't a reason. 

TFC don't play LAFC, Galaxy, Sounders, RSL, Earthquakes or the Timbers in regular season play, and chances are slim for leagues cup bullshit.

So imo the supporters shield has lost so much value.

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, toontownman said:

I think this was unfortunately always inevitable, eventually. I prefer the whole coast to coast league but if it's more cost effective and they have the V Cup more coast to coast (beyond the eventual L1 early rounds maybe being east/west) I could settle. 

Bit crappy if we end up with CPL teams that never play each other though.

I don't think you'll ever end up in a scenario where teams don't play each other. Rather, instead of 4 games against every team (a balanced schedule) it will be more like the CFL with home and away vs the other conference and additional games within your conference.

[SthMelbRed]

9 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

I don't think you'll ever end up in a scenario where teams don't play each other. Rather, instead of 4 games against every team (a balanced schedule) it will be more like the CFL with home and away vs the other conference and additional games within your conference.

In a 12-team league, you'd expect home-and-away against the other conference (12 matches) and double home-and-way against your own conference (20 matches) for a 32-match regular season. Then, you could have 2 vs 3 in each conference in a single-match playoff to make the conference final at the home of 1, then a CanPL Cup final to satisfy the perceived need for a playoff champion. Basically, the CFL format without any bullshit crossovers in the playoffs.

Each team is guaranteed 32 games, with up to 3 more for playoffs. So, the best teams will play 35 matches, plus V's Cup, and potentially CCC, for about 40 total matches per season, which is about right.

[Aird25]

1 hour ago, SpursFlu said:

I think once you get to 12 EastWest makes sense 

East

Halifax, Ottawa, York, Forge, Maritime, Quebec, GTA

West

Valor, Cavalry, Vancouver, Pacific, Edmonton, Kelowna, Saskatchewan 

 

Where's all this talk about conferences coming from? Surely the Ontario teams are a faster and cheaper away trip for Pacific than Winnipeg and Saskatoon. We really only have a few travel hubs. Conferences would probably increase travel costs for some teams while more than likely hurt revenue at the same time

4 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

A $125 million combined fiscal loss would be a mind boggling number, if accurate, given playing and coaching salaries over the time span involved are likely not hugely more than $50 million and they have been selling tickets at reasonably high admission prices rather than giving them all away.

From the article, that includes expanding the lower-tier League1 framework from 40 teams in 2019 to 162 and creating a women’s interprovincial championship. 

[Watchmen]

3 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

Where's all this talk about conferences coming from?

It's coming from Noonan.

At some point, as numbers grow, the league will adopt East and West divisions to ease travel, he added.

[Aird25]

11 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

It's coming from Noonan.

At some point, as numbers grow, the league will adopt East and West divisions to ease travel, he added.

Cheers, I missed that in my scan. That's incredibly disappointing 

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, Aird25 said:

Cheers, I missed that in my scan. That's incredibly disappointing 

I think the big disappointment is that Calgary this year really seemed to be treating winning the regular season as a big deal, much like it is in Europe, but an unbalanced schedule would diminish it in the future. It's North America and I'm not sure either the CPL or MLS can fully breakaway from the "post season Cup matters the most" mentality, but Calgary leaning in to "the regular season matters" is/was good at helping establish that it's also a big deal. But I think that only really works with a balanced schedule.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Watchmen

[Aird25]

1 hour ago, Watchmen said:

I think the big disappointment is that Calgary this year really seemed to be treating winning the regular season as a big deal, much like it is in Europe. It's North America and I'm not sure either the CPL or MLS can fully breakaway from the "post season Cup matters the most" mentality, but Calgary leaning in to "the regular season matters" is/was good at helping establish that it's also a big deal. But I think that only really works with a balanced schedule.

I don't follow you. How is it disappointing that Cavalry celebrated winning a trophy?

[Aird25]

4 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

Downscaling operations would make the team less likely to be around for the long haul, and also much less useful as a development league.

Fully agree

[Watchmen]

6 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

I don't follow you. How is it disappointing that Cavalry celebrated winning a trophy?

It isn't. I think that's good, but winning the league is always better when the schedule is balanced. There's no excuses about one team having a weaker schedule because of their opponents, since everyone plays each other the same amount.

Edit: Yeah, I went back and reread that. I was trying to say I appreciated Calgary celebrating it, but an unbalanced schedule in the future would render it less meaningful.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Watchmen

[Shway]

1 hour ago, Watchmen said:

It isn't. I think that's good, but winning the league is always better when the schedule is balanced. There's no excuses about one team having a weaker schedule because of their opponents, since everyone plays each other the same amount.

Edit: Yeah, I went back and reread that. I was trying to say I appreciated Calgary celebrating it, but an unbalanced schedule in the future would render it less meaningful.

This is the MLS today.

I have no issue with conferences even if it means some teams play others more. BUT.... I draw the line at teams in a single league not playing eachother at all and awarding a "regular season" winner....MLS today.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

15 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

Downscaling operations would make the team less likely to be around for the long haul, and also much less useful as a development league...

What I wrote was in the context of this:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10191676/cpl-commissioner-soccer-league-teams/

... Noonan says the CPL owners are “probably $125 million in the hole” from developing “an ecosystem for soccer in Canada that didn’t exist.”

That includes expanding the lower-tier League1 framework from 40 teams in 2019 to 162 and creating a women’s interprovincial championship...

If that's the added context to the $125 million number that was missing in the Northern Tribune rehash, it's difficult to read that as anything other than a collective cumulative loss for the CanPL/CSB investors since 2018, which is truly mind boggling, if accurate. No wonder they are not able to run merit-based youth academies similar to the three Canadian MLS clubs, if they are drowning in that much red ink. To generate that size of loss I doubt taking ownership of League Ones was a significant issue. Difficult to see how things could be that bad in the overall "ecosystem", if Onesoccer was set up in exchange for a one-off up front rights fee and was revenue neutral for the league due to a services only approach from Mediapro after that.

This idea that there was no soccer "ecosystem" before they showed up doesn't bear close inspection. Canada continues to have MLS to much the same extent in per capita terms that the United States does, so the notion that they are providing top flight soccer for the first time is bizarre. Ontario, Quebec and BC already had provincial pro-am or amatuer leagues plus in two out of three cases PDL clubs. Even League One Alberta is basically a case of repackaging what was already there in the shape of the AMSL. The CSA was actively blocking any more clubs joining the Fury and FCE at USSF D2 or D3 sanctioning through their sanctioning moratorium but that could have happened if the CSA hadn't been fixated on having a CFL clone national league of their own.

What's supposed to turn things around for CanPL with their current business model still in place? The World Cup co-hosting is probably going to be 10 mainly group stage games in two MLS stadia. If you are somewhere like Winnipeg is that really going to make you want to rush out and watch the Valour so much more than the CMNT games in Qatar did? The modular stadium in Langley has been a bit of a dud so far, so that angle doesn't appear to ensure success. Are they ever likely to be able to put the finances together to do something like the David Beckham signing to legitimize their product in the eyes of at least some eurosnob types?

https://globalnews.ca/news/10191676/cpl-commissioner-soccer-league-teams/

... While Noonan expects his league to continue to have operating losses, the hope is franchise value will go up as it expands “and we get better at what we do in terms of selling sponsorship and selling tickets and media and all those sort of things that make the business go.” ...

If these investors don't start to see their franchise values escalate there will be a limit to their patience in a Fath brothers in Edmonton sort of way. Meanwhile something a lot more downscaled like a souped-up Canadian version of PDL may not be what we really would ideally want but a team like the Thunder Bay Chill can trundle along for over 20 years in a relatively small city and expansion team launches would be a lot more easy to achieve in cities from coast to coast. The first set of investors in CSB do not receive much in the way of an expansion fee if you do it in closer to a genuine independent club manner though... 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[MtlMario]

20 hours ago, narduch said:

Yup.

Looks like they are confusing Laval University (in Quebec City) with Laval the Montreal suburb

Just to make it clearer Laval is not a Mtl suburb but a city on its own on a island north of Mtl.

PS Which it's why I always said its better to have a team in Laval (its own team) than another team on Mtl island (where it will be seen as the little brother of CF Mtl)