CPL General

[Winnipeg Fury]

7 hours ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

Could you elaborate on that? Was the old CSL growing in quality year by year before it collapsed?

Absolutely.  The increase in quality was undeniable.  Skill levels were doubling, but the budgets were the same.  Simply organic growth from having the same player pool train/play in a professional environment.

In those 6 years, we produced a quality European roster.  And it was the young guys that really benefitted.  

Peschisolido was 15 when he first broke into the first team.  In a few years he was becoming a legend in England, playing for West Brom, Sheffield United, among others.  He is legendary to those clubs to this day.

Radzinski was 15 as well.  Had a hugely successful career in Belgium, and EPL with Everton.

Bunbury (who is supervising the CPL trials) led Maritimo to the Portuguese Cup, Europe, Most Valuable Foreign Player and all time goal scorer for Maritimo.  Alex is another legend in Portugal.

There were lots of other guys that went on to lengthy, impressive careers in Europe.  And they all credited the CSL with their careers.  All the young raw, potential Canadian talent that has wasted away in MLS academies over the years can now have the opportunity to truly blossom and reach their full potential.  And that is why the CPL came to fruition.  To stop the rot and put us back on the map.  Whatever initial budget we need to make this league successful in the long term,  is good with me.  

 

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Part of that in the last couple of seasons of the CSL was that the number of franchises involved was steadily dropping. The soccer in the last season was noticeably better even if it wasn't getting on TSN. Not sure the league improved so much on average going from 87 to 90 as there was a bit of a dilution when markets like Victoria, London, K/W and Halifax got involved, but you could maybe make a case that the stronger franchises were doing so.

Think the key thing is that we need CanPL to mainly be about young Canadians getting a shot to show what they can do and we need to be happy with whatever that is able to sustain as an entertainment product in terms of how a cap is set. We don't need the FCE in the NASL scenario of having a team almost completely comprised of imports due to the New York Cosmos inspired arms race type of scenario that Shillington was mentioning. Tom Fath was adamant that the league had to be sustainable late last year, so if the low cap thing is accurate I suspect he's a big part of it as well.

[clb2c4e]

3 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Do you really need to pay 25 players like that when maybe 15 or 16 at most will be getting significant playing time? 

Yes you do if the goal is to put Canada into global competition. I would be surprised if there is anywhere in the world that is serious about soccer that doesn't have a league that pays all their players to be full time pros. 

That doesn't mean that if that doesn't happen the league won't help Canadian soccer or that it won't be a success but it won't be a fully fledged pro league. 

Edited September 19, 2018 by clb2c4e

[Dominic94]

Player sales will be a huge part of income, because of Davies and David and even even Ballou and Millar, euro clubs are aware that there is talent in Canada.

 

selling 2-3 players a year for a club could be huge on their budget.... Monaco model.

[LAK]

9 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Time to put you on ignore, if you are going to resort to playground level insults rather than deal with the question of whether a 500k cap is actually a bad thing.

Or if it even really is the cap? That's the real question.

[LAK]

8 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

...which is not the same as "EVERYONE"

Actually that is a fair point. You still have a narrative and you only quote evidence that backs your narrative and you dismiss evidence that opposes it.

[Initial B]

The way I see it, expenses for a CPL team's 28-game season could break down as roughly the following:

• Player Salaries: $500K
• Home Facility Operations and Maintenance Annual Budget: $300K
• Away Travel and Accommodations: $350K
• Coaching, Front Office, Administrative, Support Staff Salaries: $420K
• Administration Costs (Tickets, Advertising, etc): $200K

That's $1.77 million right there, not including if there are any stadium rental costs involved. Now let's look at possible revenue streams for each team, assuming 14 home games a season and 4000 *paying* spectators (not free ticket giveaways to kids, etc.):

• Concession sales: $500K
• Sponsorship: $50K
• In-stadium Advertising: $100K
• Tickets Sales: $1,120K  (That's for average $20 tickets)

Total revenues of... $1.77 million. Huh. I wasn't expecting that. Well, there are a lot of variables there. I don't know if the average Joe Public will pay $20 for a ticket, but movies are $12-16 for two hours, so I guess this isn't a bad average price for a live event. If some kids come free with their parents, I'm sure that could raise the concession sales figures on gameday. Another option could be to start a Youth Academy and use the player training fees to raise another $50-100K in revenue and train the next generation of players at the same time.

But averaging only 3000 paying spectators per game would result in a roughly $300K annual deficit. Averaging 5000 paying spectators would be a roughly $300K annual surplus. If the league centrally controls finances, it could smooth out the bumps for the first year.

Maybe it is doable after all, even without a TV contract.

...And I just noticed in the UndertheCosh article that PB isn't ruling out a more regionalized CPL structure in the future depending on how travel costs shake out.

[Ansem]

8 minutes ago, Initial B said:

The way I see it, expenses for a CPL team's 28-game season could break down as roughly the following:

• Player Salaries: $500K
• Home Facility Operations and Maintenance Annual Budget: $300K
• Away Travel and Accommodations: $350K
• Coaching, Front Office, Administrative, Support Staff Salaries: $420K
• Administration Costs (Tickets, Advertising, etc): $200K

That's $1.77 million right there, not including if there are any stadium rental costs involved. Now let's look at possible revenue streams for each team, assuming 14 home games a season and 4000 *paying* spectators (not free ticket giveaways to kids, etc.):

• Concession sales: $500K
• Sponsorship: $50K
• In-stadium Advertising: $100K
• Tickets Sales: $1,120K  (That's for average $20 tickets)

Total revenues of... $1.77 million. Huh. I wasn't expecting that. Well, there are a lot of variables there. I don't know if the average Joe Public will pay $20 for a ticket, but movies are $12-16 for two hours, so I guess this isn't a bad average price for a live event. If some kids come free with their parents, I'm sure that could raise the concession sales figures on gameday. Another option could be to start a Youth Academy and use the player training fees to raise another $50-100K in revenue and train the next generation of players at the same time.

But averaging only 3000 paying spectators per game would result in a roughly $300K annual deficit. Averaging 5000 paying spectators would be a roughly $300K annual surplus. If the league centrally controls finances, it could smooth out the bumps for the first year.

Maybe it is doable after all, even without a TV contract.

...And I just noticed in the UndertheCosh article that PB isn't ruling out a more regionalized CPL structure in the future depending on how travel costs shake out.

Clubs are expected to spend more than $5M a year...

Another reason why most don't buy the $500k thrown out by Fury Fanatic

[Initial B]

Just now, Ansem said:

Clubs are expected to spend more than $5M a year...

Another reason why most don't buy the $500k thrown out by Fury Fanatic

Maybe that was the original expectation, which would be worthy of Div 1 status.

But it sounds like they had to water down the proposal to get more clubs to buy in. I'm thinking $1.2-2 million is the new benchmark, which is more in line with Div2/3 aspirations.

[Ansem]

2 minutes ago, Initial B said:

Maybe that was the original expectation, which would be worthy of Div 1 status.

But it sounds like they had to water down the proposal to get more clubs to buy in. I'm thinking $1.2-2 million is the new benchmark, which is more in line with Div2/3 aspirations.

No, PLSQ commissioner recently said that clubs were expected to spend at least $5M a year. He's a better source than "Fury Fanatic". That's what Clanachan officially said too which was mentioned in Forbes.

Fury FO spinning nonsense is a way to spin this decision for their fans, attendance is down... so I guess you do what you must to not bleed more fans

Edited September 19, 2018 by Ansem

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

37 minutes ago, Initial B said:

Concession sales: $500K

In-stadium Advertising: $100K

These are probably too high given only some of the total customer spend on concessions will represent profit margin and only some of that (if any) will go to the team rather than the stadium owner in some cities, and given there will probably be no TV deal in the latter case. I suspect some of the expenses items are probably a bit on the high side as well though. Spending $1 million less on salaries than what may or may not have been originally anticipated could drop the break even paid attendance by around 3500 or so on $20 per ticket, so it definitely makes a big difference on what it takes to be sustainable for somebody like Tom Fath. If $1.5 million on player salaries was part of the equation when 6000 to 8000 was being floated on crowds, you would potentially be looking at 2500 to 4500 instead, which was where teams needed to be to just scrape by on a bare bones budget or do quite well back in the original CSL era.

Edited September 19, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Unnamed Trialist]

MANGY CATS AND FAT CATS?

What most bothers me about the numbers being thrown around is this: we have club presidents, sporting directors, coaches, marketing people, even assistants, all being signed and ensuring themselves healthy salaries. They are going to live well in the CPL.

Meanwhile we are projecting subsistence wages for a large % of the players. Who will pick up the dregs. If that is the case, we are in a fail pattern, I don't like it.

This mentality is best seen with Jim Brennan, who seems to be living pretty well for a guy heading up a club with a very weak support base and buzz around it. 

For this very reason, we cannot be pushing down the salary cap. All it means is ensuring poor conditions for the players, weaker quality on the field, and suggests that the guys we want to watch and have to perform are on a strict diet and making hard sacrifices, while those around them are more in the fat cat mode.

[ted]

2 hours ago, Initial B said:

• Concession sales: $500K
• Sponsorship: $50K
• In-stadium Advertising: $100K
• Tickets Sales: $1,120K  (That's for average $20 tickets)

If the team owns the venue they might get something  like that amount out of concession sales but I suspect $500k is way too high on average.

$50k in sponsorships seems low to me but I'm not sure how you separate that from in-stadium advertising. What kind of sponsorship doesn't get in-stadium advertising?!?

[C2SKI]

God I can’t wait for some football to talk about. This thread is a giant merry-go-round

[tyler453]

3 hours ago, C2SKI said:

God I can’t wait for some football to talk about. This thread is a giant merry-go-round

Yeah, too much he said she said and speculation going on. Can't wait til these trials are over, more info starts coming out, and teams actually are open to start signing people.

Edited September 20, 2018 by tyler453

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

10 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

MANGY CATS AND FAT CATS?

What most bothers me about the numbers being thrown around is this: we have club presidents, sporting directors, coaches, marketing people, even assistants, all being signed and ensuring themselves healthy salaries...

There have been comparatively few hirings so far from what I have seen and I doubt any of them are making obscene amounts of money out of it. In some cases it might even be more of a consultancy than a full-time gig. Beyond that it would be nice if 10,000+ was the norm on crowds and they could pay the sort of wages you would like to see the players getting, but if as I suspect 2500-4500 paid will be closer to the norm then a 500k cap would be about right to try to be able to break even or be close to it pretty much from the outset so investors don't get cold feet. It ultimately all depends on how many people will pay $20+ to watch the teams play on a regular basis and not what we would prefer to see happening and we'll get a solid fact-based picture of where things stand on that in only another 7 or 8 months or so.

Edited September 20, 2018 by BringBackTheBlizzard

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

There have been comparatively few hirings so far from what I have seen and I doubt any of them are making obscene amounts of money out of it. In some cases it might even be more of a consultancy than a full-time gig. Beyond that it would be nice if 10,000+ was the norm on crowds and they could pay the sort of wages you would like to see the players getting, but if as I suspect 2500-4500 paid will be closer to the norm then a 500k cap would be about right to try to be able to break even or be close to it pretty much from the outset so investors don't get cold feet.

What is the point of putting a cap on players if, as we are hearing that will represent only 10% of total budgets? Or if a million of 5, 20%. I have never heard of ensuring continuity and biting the bullet on the budget lines that represent less. You have to always go after what costs more and cut that first. 

I've seen this at universities over the past 2 decades, increasing salaries and budget for administrators, belt-tightening for profs doing the hard core, day to day work with students, with their own research. Paper pushing over the generation of knowledge and quality learning. We have lost sight of what a learning institution should put its focus on, and the only ones benefitting are admins hiring other admins to make their lives easier. 

If CPL is repeating such a pattern, and with no youth academies to speak of on top of that, well maybe that has a lot to do with repeating the bureaucratic mentality of our rule-governed social-welfare model in Canada. And that cannot now nor has ever, nor ever will, help us produce quality athletes. Fat cats dictating ultra-lean values to the ones fans want to see: I don't want that.

[SthMelbRed]

17 hours ago, Initial B said:

Maybe that was the original expectation, which would be worthy of Div 1 status.

But it sounds like they had to water down the proposal to get more clubs to buy in. I'm thinking $1.2-2 million is the new benchmark, which is more in line with Div2/3 aspirations.

Sounds like they had to water down the proposal...? Is your source BBTB?

[DrFitzpatrick]

I hate to say this, but I don't think this league is going to work.  This country is full of people that only care about one sport and you can't convince them otherwise. 

Just turn on your local sports radio station.  In Toronto they are discussing how to pronounce 'Tavares'.  In Vancouver they are talking about what they are going to do with their lottery pick in next years NHL draft.

I get that people here might disagree because this is a place for soccer fans.  I hope it succeeds and I will be first in line for a membership if/when it ever comes to Vancouver, but I just don't know.  We don't even have our own pro hockey league, so how is soccer ever going to work?

[Complete Homer]

3 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

What is the point of putting a cap on players if, as we are hearing that will represent only 10% of total budgets? 

We aren't hearing that. We are hearing some sources say a 500k cap (as far as I can tell the only source was an anonymous Facebook post saying they heard it from a ticket rep, I have seen FuryFanatic deny he ever quoted that number), other fairly reasonable guys like Sandor saying it's lower than previously rumored (I don't think he put an actual number on it either), and an entirely different source (PLSQ commissioner) quoting a 5+ million dollar operating budget.

We can't really mix sources, since we don't really know how up to date any of the more legitimate sources are. I assume the PLSQ commissioner is like Dino, likely told a certain amount to enable collaboration but probably incomplete with sporadic updates. The 5 million figure could be from a year ago or last week, we ust don't know

Especially when one of those sources is what a York9 ticket rep might have said. Some of what apparently leaking out from that side of things (insanely large investment in the stadium)makes me question the source, even if it was confirmed to have actually come from a rep. I would think that that kind of info would only be handed out on a need to know basis at this point

[SpursFlu]

I take the point about needing the mainstream media but honestly those talking heads on sports radio and tv are dinosaurs in the making. All they do is try and artificially create interest in the platforms they've invested in. More and more it just seems they're talking to themselves

Edited September 20, 2018 by SpursFlu

[DrFitzpatrick]

19 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

I take the point about needing the mainstream media but honestly those talking heads on sports radio and tv are dinosaurs in the making. All they dont id try and artificially create interest in the platforms they've invested in. More and more it just seems they're talking to themselves

One could argue, with the death of the local newspaper, they are the most front line local media people that we have.

[SpursFlu]

12 minutes ago, DrFitzpatrick said:

One could argue, with the death of the local newspaper, they are the most front line local media people that we have.

One could argue the next death will be them

[DrFitzpatrick]

2 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

One could argue the next death will be them

But radio seems to have lived on.  Video did not kill the radio star as the Buggles said all the way back in 1979

[Complete Homer]

44 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

I take the point about needing the mainstream media but honestly those talking heads on sports radio and tv are dinosaurs in the making. All they do is try and artificially create interest in the platforms they've invested in. More and more it just seems they're talking to themselves

I'm not necessarily saying mainstream media is the only viable sources...just saying that we have to be careful about combining information from different sources. In other words, we shouldn't be taking the 5 million dollar operating costs figure from PLSQ and the 500k salary budget from that FB post and extrapolating that the league is only planning on assigning 10% of costs to player salaries