football_world

It's happening!  We're seeing the tangible benefits in this WC qualifying cycle!

I'm gonna bump this thread.
I really, really think MLS is helping Canada get back into the World Cup.  I don't want to spoil things, we haven't qualified for the WC yet, but the only thing that changed in the last 20 years since we won the Gold Cup was the introduction of MLS in Canada.
Of course, the CPL is helping too, don't get me wrong.  But it started with the MLS, which has increased the popularity of football/soccer in Canada, and then the increasing popularity of football/soccer lead to the CPL.
The best part is the academies in MLS and the CPL.  Those academies are a huge boost to our talent.
Anyways, go Canada!

I'm gonna bump this thread.
I really, really think MLS is helping Canada get back into the World Cup.  I don't want to spoil things, we haven't qualified for the WC yet, but the only thing that changed in the last 20 years since we won the Gold Cup was the introduction of MLS in Canada.
Of course, the CPL is helping too, don't get me wrong.  But it started with the MLS, which has increased the popularity of football/soccer in Canada, and then the increasing popularity of football/soccer lead to the CPL.
The best part is the academies in MLS and the CPL.  Those academies are a huge boost to our talent.
Anyways, go Canada!

I'm gonna bump this thread.
I really, really think MLS is helping Canada get back into the World Cup.  I don't want to spoil things, we haven't qualified for the WC yet, but the only thing that changed in the last 20 years since we won the Gold Cup was the introduction of MLS in Canada.
Of course, the CPL is helping too, don't get me wrong.  But it started with the MLS, which has increased the popularity of football/soccer in Canada, and then the increasing popularity of football/soccer lead to the CPL.
The best part is the academies in MLS and the CPL.  Those academies are a huge boost to our talent.
Anyways, go Canada!

MLS usually want 2 million plus as the population in the metro area. Salt Lake City is the only outlier and they achieved it by getting in early when the league wasn't in a position to be too choosy.
Ottawa briefly had a chance when Eugene Melnyk pursued it for a bit not long after RSL got in and before Montreal did, but in the present day Canada's generally viewed as tapped out as there isn't a fourth media market that really fits the bill that way.
They probably won't go much past 30 and there are still several significantly larger American markets on the outside looking in (e.g. Phoenix, Detroit, San Diego, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Cleveleland).

I'm pretty sure MLS is done with Canada.

I'm gonna bump this thread.
I really, really think MLS is helping Canada get back into the World Cup.  I don't want to spoil things, we haven't qualified for the WC yet, but the only thing that changed in the last 20 years since we won the Gold Cup was the introduction of MLS in Canada.
Of course, the CPL is helping too, don't get me wrong.  But it started with the MLS, which has increased the popularity of football/soccer in Canada, and then the increasing popularity of football/soccer lead to the CPL.
The best part is the academies in MLS and the CPL.  Those academies are a huge boost to our talent.
Anyways, go Canada!

Again if you still think the MLS in the three Canadian cities with there big crowds and a kind of Major league feel around them will not influence some young kids to want to stay in the game and take their game one step further what can I say. The amount of young kids going to MLS games and watching on TV will have an influence on our young soccer players of today I believe no doubt about it just wait a few more years and you will see the difference but if your a MLS hater than I can't change your mind, it is what it is.

Ya but without the Raptors those academies might not be around, come on of course the Raptors have played a significant role in getting kids interested in Basketball, the popularity of the Raptors has helped immensely, so will kids going to games and seeing the added mainstream media coverage that the MLS is getting in the 3 Canadian MLS cities , with kids in soccer in Canada it's never been a question of the numbers of kids that play the numbers are there, it's keeping these kids playing longer and getting more kids to try and reach higher level rather than just playing with no aspirations of making the pros one day . Hopefully this is what the 3 Canadian MLS does to some of the kids that are playing youth soccer, they see the big crowds, they see the added media coverage and it makes some of these kids want to take the next step of getting better and trying to make it as far as they can.

Yes it will because kids will watch if they think that it looks important, and when you have crowds like over 60000 in Montreal and another crazy electric crowd of close to 36000 in Toronto and the TV coverage it has been getting all over the place,  kids will watch and want emulate the players they are watching and they will realize these are not teams playing in front of these big crowds in Europe,  but here in Canada where they live,  it will influence these kids and will give these kids the will to keep playing and getting better that's what these MLS Canadian teams are doing for these kids,   and it will help when they see all the attention these MLS Canadian teams are getting .

It took a generation for the Raptors to have the effect. Think we need to be patient and that it will take a few cycles to build to the point that the CMNT is a regular fixture in the hex again, but that the answer ultimately will be yes.

A friend of mine in Toronto has two kids in OPDL. All his youngest does all day is practice and practice and practice with the soccer ball at his feet trying to pull off Giovinco's moves. And with no exaggeration, the 9 yr old kid can pull off a lot of them. If there's a generation of new youngsters coming through the ranks like that (or imitating Piatti in Montreal ... or formerly Camilo in Vancouver I suppose) there is going to be quite the talent surge over the coming years.

MLS will have the same impact as the NBA? I think it has the potential to have a greater impact, just because it has more of a presence in 3 teams instead of just 1. When I look at this list, it is dominated by the Toronto or the Golden Horseshoe and Canadians who moved to the US before highschool by a LARGE margin. (Like pretty much everyone except 4 from Vancouver, 2 from Montreal and 1 from Saskatoon). It's also a number in it's 30s, all time, which isn't nearly enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign_NBA_players
However, when I also look at that, I'm left asking "Well, just about all these players went to the NCAA and went from there" how much as Basketball really grown in our country when CIS programs are still a joke, and you have graphs like the one bellow, which are still very true. I think it's more a case that Toronto highschools have benefited because of the Raptors and the NCAA is swallowing up the cream of that crop. We're still failing to qualify for the FIBA Worlds, failing to qualify for the Olympics and just now getting Bronze at the FIBA Americas. It's better then it was, don't get me wrong but it's not the springboard to say we are a Basketball nation (although outside the US, Spain and France who really is?)

It really is no stretch to see soccer eclipse basketball in Canada quickly over the next few years, because the NBA's presence is concentrated in Toronto. I don't think a lot of people out West or in Quebec care much about it. Frankly, it's a miracle that the MLB still draws as well as it does (although a generation seeing the Jays stick it to the US and Expos regret might be a factor there) and the fact that 28 Canadians have made it to the show, I think sorta speaks volumes about Baseball development in our country.
Now back to the question. Will MLS help? Sure, any time you have a local professional presence in the sport, you will see gains because you have exposure to it, even if you don't have a lot of local player development. Inspiration has a power to drive development, so yes it can and does help. There is no question MLS helps our National team, if only by raising the profile of the game, but also in development (for what it does provide).
However, the broader question, can it help enough as it stands with it's current model to get us to the World Cup, on it's own? My answer is, probably not. Why is that? Well, couple reasons.
First off, we have swaths of talent in our country not being properly cultivated out West, nevermind out East. It is no shock that the West produces a great amount of both NHL and CFL talent, and why? Because there are teams out that way. You have NHL and CFL teams in every major city save Saskatoon and Regina (mainly due to the Riders being Saskatchewan's team and the Saskatchewan not being big enough for the NHL to consider) and long established WHL and CIS Football programs in every metro of note. Having three teams is not enough to cover out country, not only from a development perspective, but from an inspirational perspective. There's not enough interest out there to have swathes of the population invovled.

Second, there is a lack of roster cohesion. It's no coincidence that most teams who win the world cup, have squads composed of players who play in their domestic league, many on the same club. It's also no surprised that Europe and South America routinely dominate because they have the strongest national leagues, and thus not only to they benefit from the strongest domestic competition, but benefit by having their best players nearby to practice together as a national squad. Say what you want about Floro, he made one VERY true statement, in that "It's hard to pull players playing in Europe and across MLS and get them together and on the same page, on the same system". So what does this have to do with MLS? Well, simply put there aren't enough players playing there to even attempt a cohesive team. There is never the problem of "Z is a better player, playing in Europe, but X and Y both play for TFC and are better together, we're sticking with them"
Third, is requirements, in that there still aren't any. Now don't get me wrong, the new MLS rules do now give an incentive for more top level Canadians to get minutes as domestics, but we're still drowned in the face of the US's population. Clubs develop talent, not the national team and Clubs only develop local talent when they either have to because the governing body demands it, or it's cheaper to develop them then to buy abroad. It's as a simple as that. Clubs are businesses the same as any other, and like any business it's up to the government body to reign them in for the benefit of the country. The problem is we can't reign in and force MLS to play more Canadians, and thus develop more Canadians. We can only request.

Now that all said, we do play in CONCAAF, which lets be honest, is not only one of the weakest federations, but also, when you think about it, one of the hardest to get into, if you aren't one of the top 3 countries. Two of the 3.5 spots will forever be locked by the US and Mexico (barring a civil war in either country) leaving 1.5 spots left, and Costa Rica has a pretty strong hold on one of those spots too. So I'm left asking, can MLS alone, get us to the point where Canadian soccer is better then Costa Rica and the next best guy? My answer has to be a no. The only way we get in, is when CONCAAF hosts and we slip into one of the spots that has opened up. Even when you take the better but still limited domestic rule in account, over time it may get us into the hex, but not much further then that. Too much of our population is disinterested in the sport, which is something that only local, independant teams can solve, because it's hard to invest in a team miles away or in a farm squad where my roster could be pillaged at any moment.
Thankfully, that's why we have the CanPL and why it needs to take off for us to get there. Not only from a development, academy standpoint, but to get butts in seat, money in CSA coffers, development programs started to target youths who can't afford to pay an academy when they have the skills and to educate the public as a whole on the game.

In the short term, MLS helps Canadians on that front by giving national team level Canadians first team minutes. On that front, this year was better than most. When it comes to the effect of the teams on kids choosing soccer and developing in the sport, I suspect the effect will be largely local (nearly all of Canadian NBAers are from the GTA, hardly a coincidence). On the bright side, the 3 MLS teams 'local' areas cover nearly half of Canada's population.

The population of the 3 Canadian MLS cities are bigger than a lot of countries that are way above us in the soccer rankings, so if it only affected kids that live in the MLS Canadian cities it would still be good.

It's an interesting debate. I remember being a fan of the NBA even before the Raptors and Grizzlies came into the league. Let's just say the Canadian NBA expansion solidified the culture for the sport here and helped blossom the seeds planted by the AAU teams.

When asked, most cnd players in the NBA say that Vince Carter was their biggest influence and idol.   
I am not sure that programs like CIA bounce would be around today if there were not a culture for the game and desire by many to join and get involved in these programs. 

I coach a U9 MJ team and while there are Messi and Ronaldo fans but they all loosely follow TFC.
In fact I asked my son who he thinks of as the best soccer players and he said and I quote.  " of course Messi and Ronaldo are the best but Giovinco is great and Michael, the guy with no hair for TFC, is good".
I'd say that the TFC impact is around but less than the Vince Carter impact on Basketball fans.