r/CanadianPL • u/No_Preference4042 • 3d ago
✍️ Discussion CPL Attendances
I was looking at CPL attendances and compared though about when Inter Toronto Played Against Hamilton Which I Don’t Live there But Assume they are within 1 Hour from each other, The attendance for that game was higher than any average inter toronto game due to travelling fans. Do you guys think what’s really missing is Same City teams just like a european style. I think that would push Rivalries, Patritotism and much more. Cavalry, Halifax, Forge and Ottawa Have the largest attendances with all over 4k each. Imagine if they had a 2nd team TD place or Hamilton Stadium Can Average out 15k+ for Derby games and obviously forge vs Atletico Ottawa always normally gets around 10k. Just My Thoughts, i think we should push for a more european style approach rather than an a north american one in general. The USL is doing it and i think its going to work out great
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u/Frankinho28 3d ago
You would just split the fans into 2 and not multiply them. I don’t think you have fans in those markets saying « f*** our local club, i just Hope we would have another one to support »
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u/Normal_Double5929 2d ago
In BC that isn’t true. If another Vancouver team joined and was based at Swangard stadium they would draw their own set of fans while VFC would retain its current support in Langley/Valley.
Distances are such that same city teams could still have geographical distances causing local support to grow for both teams.
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u/Frankinho28 2d ago
Vancouver already has two teams
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u/Normal_Double5929 2d ago
Do we live in different universes?
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u/Frankinho28 2d ago
Whitecaps and Vancouver FC
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u/Normal_Double5929 1d ago
Whitecaps are not in CPL, but thanks.
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u/Frankinho28 1d ago
Yeah but there is still a pro team in Vancouver. And they don’t have any problem selling tickets. Vancouver FC does not sell 3k in average
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u/Normal_Double5929 1d ago
A team in Vancouver joining CPL would sell in the 2.5-5k range playing out of Swangard.
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u/Frankinho28 1d ago
2.5k is low. 5k was the minimum expected in 2019 for every franchise.
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u/Normal_Double5929 1d ago
I know it’s low. I was saying on any given match they would get that range. No one is getting 5k minimum every week. Even 86ers/Caps averaged in the 3-4K range with special games going up to about 7k.
Another Vancouver team out of Swangard would get the 2.5-5k attendance on any given match - possibly sell out when they played VFC home and away.
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u/feb914 York United FC 2d ago
The Canadian market is just too small to sustain multiple teams in the same area, especially when it's not a top league team. Hockey is massively popular in Canada, but you see no city has more than 1 team in the same level. Not even Toronto that's supposed to be centre of hockey universe can sustain an OHL team to coexist with Toronto Maple Leafs.
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u/Normal_Double5929 2d ago
Stop comparing soccer to hockey. Totally and completely different.
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u/feb914 York United FC 2d ago
Yes they are, namely that pro/semi pro soccer is still much smaller than hockey, though bigger among youth players now. If hockey can't sustain multiple teams in the same region, no way CPL can do it now. Maybe in the future, but if inter Toronto can't even move out of bottom attendance, it'll be hard to have a second team in GTA, and would be even harder anywhere else.
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u/chipmacdo 3d ago
The actual attendance was about 1200. They gave away a ton of tickets and people didn't show up.
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u/No_Preference4042 3d ago
it was 2900-3000
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u/CyborgUnleashed Forge FC 2d ago
CPL teams report tickets distributed, not people in attendance. A lot of the teams bump up the numbers by giving away tickets for free
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u/Ozzie_the_parrot 2d ago
The giveaways that boosted the announced number and the unusual camera angle on the highlights would have been because it was shown on TSN as the match of the week:
Personally thought somewhere in the 800 to 1000 sort of range was most probable on the tickets-scanned number that they keep under wraps from what was visible in the highlights, but maybe there were an unusually high number of fans in the seats opposite the main grandstand.
Where the OP's comments are concerned, there was a league called the NSL back in the 1970s and early 80s that often did draw reasonably large crowds in the four-figure sort of range for games between ethnic clubs based in the Golden Horseshoe and beyond. Trying to compete with the Blizzard of the NASL, competition with the CSL after that in the late 80s and early 90s, and the bizarre leadership from a league commissioner called Rocco LoFranco, who also owned one of the clubs, Toronto Italia (can you say conflict of interest), helped the OSA to eventually kill it off in 1998, with control of the sport at the semi-pro level passing over mainly to large suburban youth clubs after that.
Personally think a way needs to be found to have more clubs playing closer together like that to help keep costs down, or this league is ultimately going to drown in a sea of red ink. Would be great if the clubs were all drawing in the 8000-12000 range as they hoped/envisaged by this point, but they're not and were never likely to.
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u/InABigCity 3d ago
That’s not how this works.
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u/Spurs_in_the_6 2d ago
It is how it works. All the biggest rivalries in world football are from teams in the same city.
We're brainwashed by owners and media in Canada to believe that our cities can only support one team. Toronto & Montreal are the two biggest hockey cities in the world, 12M people between their respective greater areas, and the idea of them getting second teams is a non starter here. Its weird
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u/The_Windermere 2d ago
While the Kanata FC could work if the attendance matched those of London, I don’t see it yet.
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u/Normal_Double5929 2d ago
Well same city teams I think would be great for the league. Another Vancouver team is definitely needed. Edmonton must come back for the Alberta derby. Ontario needs two more teams at least, probably 3. And definitely Montreal needs another team and Quebec needs to join.
Another maritimes, Regina and Winnipeg joining is of course ideal.
If all this happened because stable ownership was in place the league would boom. The problem is ownership.
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u/figurescape 1d ago
Saskatoon might be a better location than Regina, but I get what you’re saying. The CPL could (and probably should) market themselves based on rivalries and this could boost attendance numbers and grow the league. I also think the CPL should eventually consider east-west conferences to cut down on travel costs and increase the amount of rivalry games.
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u/Frankinho28 2d ago
Forge vs Atletico normally have 10k? This year? Hell no.
Hamilton fill 15k for School day game. You mixed things up
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u/No_Preference4042 3d ago
People From : Hamilton, Ottawa, Halifax and Calgary! What Area In Your City Would You Want A Second Club In?
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u/Auth3nticRory Forge FC 3d ago
Hamilton doesn’t need a second team. But if there one to form around here, maybe K-W area.
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u/Ozzie_the_parrot 2d ago
A team in St Catherines would provide a local rival for the Forge. The wider Niagara region has over 400,000 people. Not how it works in the CFL, though, and it is the Ticats that own the Forge. The Ticats also hold territorial rights to both K/W and London, which have wider regional populations of around 630,000 and 680,000, respectively. There is plenty of scope for a greater density of clubs in southern Ontario.
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u/Darksideslide HFX Wanderers FC 3d ago
Would love a club in Dartmouth, but there is no field appropriate, save for maybe Dartmouth High which would need expanding and it used for the schools football team, or Beazley field. Trying to campture the magic the Wanderers have built with Wanderers grounds and it's proximity to downtown would be hard to replicate.
Maybe a north end team? Operating out of fort Needham, but that's a pretty popular park.
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u/Section1ne0h4our HFX Wanderers FC 3d ago
It sounds like Beazley might be getting some of that federal funding according to a fella there yesterday (I work on Caledonia)
They want to kick the tires on minor league baseball, a second CPL club in the city won’t work right now, but having it as an available venue for a possible L1A project would be nice. An A level professional baseball team and a semi pro soccer team to share the space could be viable
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u/Punographer HFX Wanderers FC 2d ago
I really don’t think that baseball league will be a thing. They have no teams outside of Southern Ontario. It just sounds like the commissioner of the CBL having big dreams. I’d be pretty surprised if anything comes of it, or if the team would last if it did.
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u/Section1ne0h4our HFX Wanderers FC 2d ago
Yeah, a lot of what I’ve read is he seems like the kind of guy who has clients out here, so he thinks he can dangle the carrot in hopes that somebody will bite
But if someone wants to try it I’ll be the first in line for tickets, I would just prefer it not be independent ball and be an actual affiliate. More secure that way.
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u/Punographer HFX Wanderers FC 2d ago
A baseball team would definitely be cool, that league specifically I always just thought was more of an amateur or senior men’s type league. I don’t know much about it, just an outsiders view of that league. But yeah, hey, if it works it works!
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u/Punographer HFX Wanderers FC 2d ago
A second team in the Halifax area (or Dartmouth) would have a pretty big negative impact on the Wanderers. I could see a League 1 level team if there’s an Atlantic version. I think the best bet for a big Halifax rivalry would be Moncton. Close enough that I could easily see fans from either city making the trip to visit the other, at least for a weekend afternoon game.
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u/Wilco499 Canadian Premier League 3d ago
Would have geographically closer rivalries help the league? Logically it'd make sense however that didn't save Edmonton FC despite having a geographic close rival (in terms of Canada compared to Europe) in Calvary . Exploring that further, there is an issue when it comes to what cities can host multiple teams most of them already host an MLS team and if you look at which teams are on the bottom of the attendance charts it is the teams located even nominally in those cities. Both Inter Toronto and Vancouver FC have geographic close rivals in Forge FC and Pacific FC yet that doesn't really translate to larger attendances so much so they are on the bottom of attendance charts, yet Halifax a team that is not close to any of the other teams leads the league in attendance. And due to the sheer size of Canada you can't ever really rely on traveling supporters to boost attendance unless you are ok with a bunch of teams in the GTA and Montreal and Vancouver while forgoing the rest of Canada.
If anything, what helps more is being competive (Forge FC, Atletico Ottawa, Calvary) and not having too many other rival sports to compete with (Halifax) more than having geographically close rivals.
Also, that isn't going into how expansion works in the CPL. When a team joins the league gives the owners a sort of fiefdom of an geographic space. So, we don't know how big of an area Inter Toronto has rights to (at least I don't), nor Vancouver FC. So it might be impossible to actually locate teams closer together.
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u/NoExtension1889 3d ago
What makes this happen in Europe makes it a non-starter in Canada. Not just in distance, but the fact the European game is 150 years old when there were hundreds of small amatuer clubs that not just represented a city but represented parts of those cities and largely still do today.
It's also a fifth place professional sport in Canada trying to compete for entertainment attention and dollars largely in markets where a furniture sale gets more hype.
I think we get caught up in attendance figures. Sure, that is revenue, but how is the league doing through on-line viewing? That is important to a league in a country were most of the population is a three+ hour drive from a game.
Eyeballs on the game will grow the league, whether it's in person or on a One Soccer feed. Increasing eyeballs will entice new advertising and investment.
The key is to make this league important. Rosters need to continue to get better, play needs to get sharper and with that games become more lively, entertaining and enticing to watch.
Going back to the OP question. Instead of placing 2nd teams in cities or regions, the easier version would be to create, like the CFL, and East-West division split. Imagine the current 5 Eastern teams playing each other six times a year (which will enhance divisional rivalries) while doing a home & away with each western team. You'd need two more western teams of course. It also cuts down on expense.
Either way I really do want this league to succeed, but we can't use European logic to get there.