Canadian Soccer Business (CSB)

[SpecialK]

21 minutes ago, Markoaleks said:

The investors in CSB when/if the names are announced will be interesting ….

All CPL owners such - Scott Mitchell and others too

has the ownership of CSB been disclosed ?

Well Scott Mitchell is the CEO of CSB. So basically Bob Young crew. 

[kohanz]

34 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

Yes, hasn't that been known for years? CSB got the sponsorship and broadcast rights to pro soccer in Canada and the National teams, for a guaranteed annual income to CSA and promise of developing the Canadian soccer pyramid. I don't understand what the confusion is.

https://canpl.ca/article/canadian-soccer-business-looks-to-build-on-momentum-and-transform-soccer-in-canada

The confusion for me was that ray said:

Quote

It sounds from the Rick Westhead article as though the corporate sponsorship dollars go to CSB.  If so, what is the incentive for the CSA to sign theses deals?

To which you replied

Quote

I don't think they do.

I interpreted this as saying that you didn't think that the corporate sponsorship dollars go to CSB, but perhaps you meant to say that you don't think the CSA has an incentive to sign sponsorship deals?

Edited July 14, 2022 by kohanz

[canuckgbp]

 

[Gian-Luca]

I'm assuming that can't be the full statement from the Sport's Minister...wouldn't it include the actual words indicating she is declining and the reasons for it?

[Sal333]

On 7/13/2022 at 9:16 AM, Gian-Luca said:

I am pointing out that he has his biases, just like everyone else, and I'm demonstrating why that is the case  with factual examples. The fact that he ignored Canadian soccer until now I personally find annoying, because there was actually a need for this kind of stuff before (but with the only agenda being exposing the truth).

He also ignored Canadian hockey until he wrote the article about Beech and the Blackhawks.  Busy journalists are like that. The really good ones don't have time on their hands like us coach potatoes.

[Sal333]

5 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

. What happens when Davies is 35, playing for like Besiktas or TFC, Johnny David is wrapping up his career in Qatar, and we don’t have young phenoms who fall ass backwards into top 5 league teams?

Hey, do I need to tell @MtlMario that you're borrowing his crystal ball or worse that you pilfered it.

[InglewoodJack]

21 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

Hey, do I need to tell @MtlMario that you're borrowing his crystal ball or worse that you pilfered it.

Hey I hope the good times keep rolling! But we have some truly generational players playing for us and we can’t assume that will forever be the case. 
 

(I lied- Phonzie is gonna sunset for Benfica)

[ray]

4 hours ago, kohanz said:

I had the same thought when I saw this, but it makes sense if you take it together with the fact that the deal included the CSA basically handing off or outsourcing their marketing (which I assume includes sponsorships) to CSB. So CSB supplies the team/effort to go out and get sponsorship deals and reaps all the benefits of those. CSA is no longer incentivized to seek out sponsorship and doesn't have to do so. 

I'm not saying it's fair, but it explains how sponsorship deals are still happening. 

 

That being the case I wouldn't mind seeing some of the men put out a statement letting potential sponsors know "if you want to be seen as supporting the men's, women's, youth teams or the grassroots, that's not what you will actually get - only a fraction of your sponsorship dollar will go toward those goals".  

[Stryker911]

48 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

I'm assuming that can't be the full statement from the Sport's Minister...wouldn't it include the actual words indicating she is declining and the reasons for it?

You're assuming a government minister would give a full statement with a logical explanation. I am sure all their focus is on Hockey Canada right now. Canada Soccer can pretty  much do whatever they want.

[Aird25]

27 minutes ago, ray said:

That being the case I wouldn't mind seeing some of the men put out a statement letting potential sponsors know "if you want to be seen as supporting the men's, women's, youth teams or the grassroots, that's not what you will actually get - only a fraction of your sponsorship dollar will go toward those goals".

Why do you think sponsors are unaware of what they're sponsoring? Most of the recent sponsorship announcements include specifics of what sponsorship means for each individual organization (National Teams, CPL, camps etc). Not dollars allocated to each organization but whether it means advertising on the benches, or media etc.

I'm also genuinely curious what concerns you have with how CSB has been building the men's pyramid (CPL, League 1 Canada, League 1 BC, League 1 Ontario, PLSQ), and the proposed women's league? 

Edited July 14, 2022 by Aird25

[kohanz]

33 minutes ago, ray said:

That being the case I wouldn't mind seeing some of the men put out a statement letting potential sponsors know "if you want to be seen as supporting the men's, women's, youth teams or the grassroots, that's not what you will actually get - only a fraction of your sponsorship dollar will go toward those goals".  

Sponsorship at this level is a marketing activity driven by supply and demand. Maybe this is cynical, but I highly doubt that Gatorade, CIBC, Nike, etc. care whether their $ ends up improving soccer in Canada. What they care about is ROI on their sponsorship $ and looking good in the eyes of their bosses.

[Unnamed Trialist]

Could someone here who understands the legal and economics explain the idea that an association of the nature of the CSA signs a deal with an external company for part of its business activity?

I am used to this a bit now with FC Barcelona, which has a special legal status as member-owned. We have created independent companies to be able to properly exploit various aspects of the brand, such as merchandising, naming rights, sponsors, the FBC schools, negotiating media rights and revenue streams. In all cases we can allow part of them to be exploited by third parties, including investment groups, but never losing majority control, and always with revisable deals. This is in fact one way that FCB has gotten out of the mess of debt left by the previous board, as others have bought in here and there, and is now close to being able to sign and spend to win trophies.

But no one ever buys into FCB, it is always into an independent enterprise controlled by FCB. Anyways, my knowledge of this is amateur.

So I understand the models are changing, and accept that the CSA perceived they needed to do this to have some greater margin of manouver. But what is the legal and economic justification for it? How did it become necessary for the CSA to alter the previous business model and how did CSB meet that need?

 

[Colonel Green]

2 hours ago, canuckgbp said:

 

He deleted that tweet because he misunderstood the context, here's the amended one with the statement.

 

43 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

So I understand the models are changing, and accept that the CSA perceived they needed to do this to have some greater margin of manouver. But what is the legal and economic justification for it? How did it become necessary for the CSA to alter the previous business model and how did CSB meet that need?

The CSB is a corporate vehicle for the CSA to transfer assorted commercial rights over to the CPL owners, as part of the larger deal that created the CPL.

[Gian-Luca]

 

[SF]

2 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Could someone here who understands the legal and economics explain the idea that an association of the nature of the CSA signs a deal with an external company for part of its business activity?

I am used to this a bit now with FC Barcelona, which has a special legal status as member-owned. We have created independent companies to be able to properly exploit various aspects of the brand, such as merchandising, naming rights, sponsors, the FBC schools, negotiating media rights and revenue streams. In all cases we can allow part of them to be exploited by third parties, including investment groups, but never losing majority control, and always with revisable deals. This is in fact one way that FCB has gotten out of the mess of debt left by the previous board, as others have bought in here and there, and is now close to being able to sign and spend to win trophies.

But no one ever buys into FCB, it is always into an independent enterprise controlled by FCB. Anyways, my knowledge of this is amateur.

So I understand the models are changing, and accept that the CSA perceived they needed to do this to have some greater margin of manouver. But what is the legal and economic justification for it? How did it become necessary for the CSA to alter the previous business model and how did CSB meet that need?

 

I'm not a lawyer, but do have a lot of experience with these concepts in a business/economic sense.  Your understanding, I think, is quite good and the Barca example sounds like a good one. 

In the context of what has happened between the CSA and the CSB, I think there are two general elements.

One, the CSA has effectively purchased an annuity vs. their potential for a cash flow stream derived from the Canada Soccer brand (i.e. national teams). Whether it's a good idea to purchase an annuity is essentially a math problem.  People do it all the time - Bruce Springsteen sold the rights to his music (or some of the rights) for hundreds of millions of dollars.  A good deal?  Probably is for a 70 year old musical genius with 50 years of work.  For the CSA with a poor historic record and, maybe, some commercial upside?  Probably a bad idea and probably a bad price at $3mm per year.  But, we don't really know unless we see the underlying numbers and contracts.

Two, the arrangement with the CSB is a de facto subsidy of the CPL by the CSA and its membership. Whether this is money well spent or poorly spent can be debated.

Pulling all of this together is an incredible lack of transparency and, if we believe what we read, extraordinarily poor governance.  

[ted]

19 hours ago, SpecialK said:

...why does the CPL need the CSA to get sponsorships deals and vice versa. 

2 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

How did it become necessary for the CSA to alter the previous business model and how did CSB meet that need?

For decades (literally decades) the CSA correctly recognized that giving more young Canadians a professional career path through a domestic pro league was a good thing.

Through many attempts and studies it was also abundantly clear that the CSA itself was incapable of making it happen so they made the decision (one of the few good ones) to outsource it but support the project in a way that had worked for MLS in the US. They worked with private interests to create CSB as a company that would be able to leverage national team rights and would operate at least a national professional league.

The CSA got a guaranteed revenue stream without having to put any work into it and they got a league started without having to pay anything directly from player registrations which, at the time, were the only reliable income source. They also got the co-host slot for World CUP 2026 which was in part based on having a domestic league in the planning stages when the bid was made.

Now, could they have negotiated a better deal that was perhaps based on percentages rather than fixed sums or some other formula? Maybe. But would the investors in CSB have done that deal? I don't know, but I doubt they would have agreed to much more at the time. The situation when the deal was signed was dire with no TV networks showing national team games and sponsors mostly uninterested (for the kind of $$ needed anyway).

In the years since the deal was signed we got our league and John Herdman and this talented generation of Canadian players have proven the naysayers wrong on the pitch. This means that suddenly there is more money on the table which CSB gets and the deal suddenly looks bad. If we had failed to qualify then most of that money would not be there and nobody would be complaining.

Prioritizing the startup of CanPL and reliable revenue over imaginary windfalls from qualifying for 2022 sure seemed like a safe and sensible deal in 2018.

[RJB]

8 hours ago, SpursFlu said:

So is this about everyone knowing the CPLs financial inner workings or is this about CMNT players getting more money? 

Neither. At this point, it is about supporting a call for greater transparency at a publicly supported organization, that represents Canadians.  We should expect nothing less of organizations like these in Canada, be they the CSA, Hockey Canada, Canada Basketball, etc.  Why is transparency such a bad thing in your opinion?

[Unnamed Trialist]

4 hours ago, Gian-Luca said:

I'm assuming that can't be the full statement from the Sport's Minister...wouldn't it include the actual words indicating she is declining and the reasons for it?

You were right, good call.

[Gian-Luca]

9 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

You were right, good call.

Sort of...as far as I can tell it's still the full statement (I still can't find it online anywhere else - the Minister's recent twitter is filled with pics with her and a guy who at first glance looks like Quentin Westberg as she announces donating $30 million to Quebec tourism), it just makes more sense why the words "I must respectfully decline" are not there. I am assuming that Westhead must have assumed in disappointment that the Minister telling the two groups who are behaving like kids to sort out their own problems and start behaving like adults behind closed doors was her declining to do anything, and so after his tweet she sent him another message something along the lines of "I haven't actually closed the door yet on doing something, I'm just not persuaded yet by uncorroborated allegations made by a single source - some guy in the Yukon - that the onesoccer panel just spent a good deal of time ridiculing on their show".  Or something like that.

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 minute ago, Gian-Luca said:

Sort of...as far as I can tell it's still the full statement (I still can't find it online anywhere else - the Minister's recent twitter is filled with pics with her and a guy who at first glance looks like Quentin Westberg as she announces donating $30 million to Quebec tourism), it just makes more sense why the words "I must respectfully decline" are not there. I am assuming that Westhead must have assumed in disappointment that the Minister telling the two groups who are behaving like kids to sort out their own problems and start behaving like adults behind closed doors was her declining to do anything, and so after his tweet she sent him another message something along the lines of "I haven't actually closed the door yet on doing something, I'm just not persuaded yet by uncorroborated allegations made by a single source - some guy in the Yukon - that the onesoccer panel just spent a good deal of time ridiculing on their show".  Or something like that.

Sorry, I saw a correction on Twitter by Westhead and assumed it had been posted here. He says he deleted the earlier and has posted the proper statement.

I also see on his Twitter that he is back on the abuse cases at Hockey Canada, probably, as you say, surer ground for him.

 

 

[narduch]

 

 

[TOcanadafan]

1 hour ago, ted said:

For decades (literally decades) the CSA correctly recognized that giving more young Canadians a professional career path through a domestic pro league was a good thing.

Through many attempts and studies it was also abundantly clear that the CSA itself was incapable of making it happen so they made the decision (one of the few good ones) to outsource it but support the project in a way that had worked for MLS in the US. They worked with private interests to create CSB as a company that would be able to leverage national team rights and would operate at least a national professional league.

The CSA got a guaranteed revenue stream without having to put any work into it and they got a league started without having to pay anything directly from player registrations which, at the time, were the only reliable income source. They also got the co-host slot for World CUP 2026 which was in part based on having a domestic league in the planning stages when the bid was made.

Now, could they have negotiated a better deal that was perhaps based on percentages rather than fixed sums or some other formula? Maybe. But would the investors in CSB have done that deal? I don't know, but I doubt they would have agreed to much more at the time. The situation when the deal was signed was dire with no TV networks showing national team games and sponsors mostly uninterested (for the kind of $$ needed anyway).

In the years since the deal was signed we got our league and John Herdman and this talented generation of Canadian players have proven the naysayers wrong on the pitch. This means that suddenly there is more money on the table which CSB gets and the deal suddenly looks bad. If we had failed to qualify then most of that money would not be there and nobody would be complaining.

Prioritizing the startup of CanPL and reliable revenue over imaginary windfalls from qualifying for 2022 sure seemed like a safe and sensible deal in 2018.

I think that if Nick & Earl made the points that you just did and opened up the books on the deal and the process in which it was signed, there would be no issue here.  
The huge problem people are having, bad deal or not, is the sleaze factor and the general circus show that is the CSA, and that it appears the friggin President is more concerned about pleasing the CSB mafia,(and likely setting himself up to be financially rewarded in the future by Mitchell and gang) than the actual good of the game in this country.  Dr. Nick reeks of selfishness and his conduct throughout has been deplorable.  Such is politics in 2022 that clowns like this don’t / aren’t forced to resign. 

[TOcanadafan]

12 minutes ago, narduch said:

 

 

So if the women received ‘clarity’ on June 24th, how come they’ve amped up their fight now Gareth?

[RJB]

Unfortunately, Wheeler has shown himself to be quite biased; he has no interest in biting the hand that feeds him.  I don't blame him, however he can't really be relied upon to break much about this story. 

[dyslexic nam]

3 minutes ago, RJB said:

Unfortunately, Wheeler has shown himself to be quite biased; he has no interest in biting the hand that feeds him.  I don't blame him, however he can't really be relied upon to break much about this story. 

I posted this in the OS thread under the CPL section but it also probably warrants mention here.  In light of everything going on, OS was doing a bit of timely self promotion in the pre game show for the women’s game against Jamaica.