A Reflection Following the Mess with the Panama Game: Of the Dangers of Canadian Soccer Focusing Too much on the CPL

[narduch]

15 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

It really burns me to see these stories from guys who have never written a story about CDN soccer in their life suddenly jump on this because their is blood in the water.  Labor dispute, possible corruption, inequality among the sexes etc etc.  Where were these geniuses years ago when this was signed??  I missed them writing stories about all the possible other ways for the CSA to market/grow the game and get steady income to run a decent top to bottom mens and womens program.  

Thats the whole point.  When guys are saying this deal is structured all wrong, it takes away incentive from CSA to grow the game and they gave away too much blaH BLAH.  They are talking out of their asses.  They dont know, i dont know and neither do the reporters.  What I can see is this week that the players want a bigger chunk of the FIFA WC bonus (still not sure how much or what was offered) and CSA doesnt want to give that much or wants to split it differently.  I guess now they'll have to open the books and we can all find out.  Now the CSA could screw up a wet dream, so nothing will surprise me

I think it's laughable that everyone is so certain than CSB is swimming in cash.

You can tell they don't really pay attention to CPL at all.

I think we deserve transparency about the CSA deal with CSB.

But my own educated guess is that CSB only became profitable when we made the Octagonal. Before that they were probably bleeding money 

Edited June 7, 2022 by narduch

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

13 hours ago, Aroundtheworld said:

...In the current deal, the CSA does not benefit from any of the upside. They get their $3 Million a year to happily run beach soccer and futsal programs without any incentive to take the game to the next level in the country...

Nick Bontis made a reasonable enough point during the press conference that the $3 million still arrived during the two COVID affected years and the CSA would have been in a much worse place without that.

[Aroundtheworld]

18 hours ago, narduch said:

I think it's laughable that everyone is so certain than CSB is swimming in cash.

You can tell they don't really pay attention to CPL at all.

I think we deserve transparency about the CSA deal with CSB.

But my own educated guess is that CSB only became profitable when we made the Octagonal. Before that they were probably bleeding money 

CSB weren't the ones bleeding money. You're thinking of Mediapro who paid CSB $20 M per year for the broadcasting rights.

CSB is earning $17 M per year net + Canada Soccer sponsorship revenue. They can almost run the CPL without anybody buying a single ticket or jersey at this amount of revenue per year.

[Aird25]

8 minutes ago, Aroundtheworld said:

CSB is earning $17 M per year net + Canada Soccer sponsorship revenue. They can almost run the CPL without anybody buying a single ticket or jersey at this amount of revenue per year.

What costs are you using to determine this?

[narduch]

12 minutes ago, Aroundtheworld said:

CSB weren't the ones bleeding money. You're thinking of Mediapro who paid CSB $20 M per year for the broadcasting rights.

CSB is earning $17 M per year net + Canada Soccer sponsorship revenue. They can almost run the CPL without anybody buying a single ticket or jersey at this amount of revenue per year.

CSB isn't getting $20 million per year from Mediapro.

Most of that money is for 'services rendered'. Ie. the costs of broadcasting.

You really think the FC Edmonton owner would back out of the league if they were getting $2 million per year in broadcast money?

The CPL salaries are shoe string for a reason.

[narduch]

6 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

What costs are you using to determine this?

Pretty sure he is just talking the MediaPro deal (10 years, $200 million so $20 million per year) and subtracting the $3 million CSB pays CSA.

Meanwhile we have no idea what amount MediaPro is actually paying each club for TV rights.

Do Valour fans remember what was listed on their financials?

Edited June 8, 2022 by narduch

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

2 hours ago, Aroundtheworld said:

...You're thinking of Mediapro who paid CSB $20 M per year for the broadcasting rights...

That's never been confirmed. All or most of that number could be projected expenses over the course of the contract on the part of the Mediapro.

[Aroundtheworld]

7 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

That's never been confirmed. All or most of that number could be projected expenses over the course of the contract on the part of the Mediapro.

It's what OneSoccer (aka Mediapro) themselves have said. 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Aroundtheworld

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

That number has been in the public domain for a long time but there's little sign of a cash bonanza when you see what's happening with the league salary cap that would suggest it's a rights fee.

Production for webstreaming was going to be done in house by CSB prior to the Mediapro deal so it's not completely unreasonable to include expenses accrued by Onesoccer along the way when arriving at a number like that because otherwise it's money that CSB would have been spending.

[Bison44]

6 minutes ago, Aroundtheworld said:

It's what OneSoccer (aka Mediapro) themselves have said. 

But its not............mediapro didnt buy an already produced end product like FOXsports did, you know just send the fee over and we'll put CPL or EPL etc on our streaming service.  Part of the 20mil was their investment/expenses producing the product.  Cameras.. crew etc etc.  If it wasnt then CPL would have had to foot those expenses first then get their 20 eh?? Which would leave them with what??   No one was doing that until MediaPro came into the picture.  Thus was all discussed years ago when the deal happened.  

[Aroundtheworld]

5 hours ago, Bison44 said:

But its not............mediapro didnt buy an already produced end product like FOXsports did, you know just send the fee over and we'll put CPL or EPL etc on our streaming service.  Part of the 20mil was their investment/expenses producing the product.  Cameras.. crew etc etc.  If it wasnt then CPL would have had to foot those expenses first then get their 20 eh?? Which would leave them with what??   No one was doing that until MediaPro came into the picture.  Thus was all discussed years ago when the deal happened.  

Ok, let's generously say 50% of that is going towards investments and 50% is going to CSB. That means CSB is earning $10 M per year. In one year, they were able to flip the media rights at over a 200% markup. And that doesn't include sponsorship.

To me, this just demonstrates the CSA's provincial mindset and incompetence.

[Colonel Green]

3 minutes ago, Aroundtheworld said:

Ok, let's generously say 50% of that is going towards investments and 50% is going to CSB. That means CSB is earning $10 M per year. In one year, they were able to flip the media rights at over a 200% markup. And that doesn't include sponsorship.

To me, this just demonstrates the CSA's provincial mindset and incompetence.

The bulk of the value of the media rights is derived from the CPL, though, even if you go with that calculation of what amount is actual revenue.

[Bison44]

34 minutes ago, Aroundtheworld said:

Ok, let's generously say 50% of that is going towards investments and 50% is going to CSB. That means CSB is earning $10 M per year. In one year, they were able to flip the media rights at over a 200% markup. And that doesn't include sponsorship.

To me, this just demonstrates the CSA's provincial mindset and incompetence.

How much does it take to produce every CPL, CMNT etc etc etc that is on Onesoccer??  I dont know.   Part of that money goes to the 8 CPL teams so that there actually are games/product/teams for mediapro to have on, cause the handful of CMNT games arent going to make anyone money.  And maybe the teams get 1 mil each??? ..its their TV right too eh..why shouldnt they get paid too?? So whats left over then??  Like everyone says..open the books and lets see what the deal is eh?  

Remember before this CSA was going in the hole paying TSN/Sportsnet to get them the games on the air.  So I dont know, you might think its provincial and incompetent.  But part of the deal and growing the game angle is having a CPL.  Everyone is excited about the media rights now at the apex of the interest, after successful qualifying and the upcoming WC. You make the money this year to tide you over the inbetween years.  What happens next year when Joe Hockey doesnt give a shit about soccer for the next 2-3 years and we could easily go back to paying TSN to put a friendly against Ireland on TV again with no Mediapro deal?   

[red card]

2 hours ago, Aroundtheworld said:

Ok, let's generously say 50% of that is going towards investments and 50% is going to CSB. That means CSB is earning $10 M per year. In one year, they were able to flip the media rights at over a 200% markup. And that doesn't include sponsorship.

To me, this just demonstrates the CSA's provincial mindset and incompetence.

CSA has little attractive inventory to offer. Less than 15 matches per year combined for men & women, mostly against unglamourous nations, irregular scheduling and a chunk outside of prime time.

CPL has regular occurring inventory and can be sold externally as Mediapro have done in a few countries. In all aspects of the football industry, club football > national team football except for 3 tourneys and a number of top ranked and past World Cup winning nations. World Cup rights aren't held by the CSA. 

Using the recent broadcast deal US Soccer signed as proxy, the pro-rated amount CSA should get is $2.5 million. This excludes currency differential, US Soccer having more attractive inventory, a track record of good ratings for women's matches and a large Spanish language audience base for men's matches. $2.5m is more than CSA would even get today.

The big upside is in sponsorship. In 2018, CSA had a limited number of tier 1 name sponsors. As of today, the situation hasn't really changed. Number of sponsors have increased in the past year but no new Tier 1 yet. CPL has more sponsors, a dedicated match of the week sponsor, 3 unique jersey sponsors and the same number of tier 1 sponsors. 

It seems like hosting a World Cup brings in big time sponsors like Bell & BMO for WWC15. So, the sponsors will be coming for 2026 but we're not there yet.

Jersey sales can double CSA's revenue but Canada isn't Nigeria that can sell 3 million in a going to a World Cup year. I doubt 100k Canada jerseys have ever been sold in 1 year. Pro-rating what Nike is approx paying to US Soccer, CSA could get $1 million. But given US Soccer larger penetration in the market especially on the women's side and Nike's disregard in producing a Canada World Cup jersey, $1 million is likely too high.

CSA also gets to leverage business and marketing expertise that everyone says they sorely lack given their small staff and non-profit mentality.

Years ago, CSA had a marketing deal with IMG that has been reported to be only $1 million/yr. 

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by red card

[Ivan]

Westhead reported a few weeks ago that the CSA (wonder if he meant CSB in accordance with the CSA) is about to announce a new Tier 1 sponsorship with CIBC worth "10s of millions of dollars".

[red card]

13 hours ago, Ivan said:

Westhead reported a few weeks ago that the CSA (wonder if he meant CSB in accordance with the CSA) is about to announce a new Tier 1 sponsorship with CIBC worth "10s of millions of dollars".

CIBC & Rogers both were sponsors for the Jamaica clincher. I was waiting for the official announcement but it hasn't come yet.

But there has been continued talk about CIBC. A big sponsor was supposed to be announced this week but now seems to be pushed back.

If Rogers comes on board, then we're back to 2015 when Bell & BMO were sponsors. Then, we need a quick serve food brand and get back a drinks brand.

Going next level means a crypto involved firm and a tech company needs to come on board. Canadian energy doesn't do much sponsoring but Petro-Canada lubricants are a Liverpool sponsor. 

[kacbru]

7 minutes ago, red card said:

Petro-Canada lubricants are a Liverpool sponsor.

Is this maple flavoured lube?