Check out the clock on that picture. One second into the game. Change the red seats for grey and yellow ones and that is pretty much how THF looked at the start of each game in Hamilton.
Sure THF has lots of no-shows for some games but It doesn't matter that much how many people show up - it is tickets sold that matter most - until the no-shows stop buying tickets - then you've got a problem.
My buddy who has TFC season tickets (and Argos and Raptors and Leafs) often gives me his tickets if he knows well in advance he can't make it to a game but sometimes things come up last minute and he can't use his tickets. When that happens with Leafs or Raptors - he says he has no problem finding somebody to use them at the very last minute. Argos and TFC almost impossible to give away at the very last minute. So he figures his TFC tickets went unused for four games (of 20) last year. His Argos tickets unused for two of nine home games.
So about 1/4 to 1/5 of the time his TFC and Argos tickets went unused. If other season ticket holders (including corporate seats where it is likely to happen even more) have a similar no show rate seeing empty seats not a big deal - as long as you are selling the tickets. I read somewhere once that the average no-show rate for MLB teams is 20%. So empty seats not that big a deal unless it is an empty seat for which no ticket was sold.
TFC have always - so far - managed to sell the tickets. When that started to become a real issue for the franchise for the first time in its history 12 months ago they delayed season ticket renewals until they had time to sign players during soccer's January transfer period - and problem solved. Almost 100% season ticket renewal and thousands of new season ticket holders plus others on a wait list.
MLSE has that money. But because of just how much they spent on players - they likely still lost money for probably the first time in the team's history this year. Hence the stadium expansion to generate more revenues. That combined with their increase of a couple of million from their share of the new ESPN, Fox Sports, Univision TV deal plus money generated by hosting other events at BMO - like the Gold Cup games being hosted there next year should generate a tidy sum for MLSE to make the $90 million dollar investment worthwhile.
Adding the Argos as a tenant would just be some extra gravy from money MLSE would make on the lease deal and/or concessions.
The other thing with a TFC crowd is that it is a younger crowd that likely consumes significantly more beer at $11 - $15 per beer and one shouldn't underestimate just how much MLSE makes from things like beer sales at TFC games. It's A LOT - especially in their supporter sections. lol
No question that companies like MLSE can run an MLS team as a loss leader or a Saputo as a toy but almost ALL teams are bleeding money operationally. Its a classic ponzi scheme.
Are you drinking the MLS kool aid?
This league is nothing more then a ponzy scheme with the vast majority of teams hemorrhaging big time.
It is exactly like the old NASL, a virtual house of cards.
Just a matter of time.
MLS isn't going Bankrupt soon. They have a tolerable TV deal, and a swath of cheap talent making under six figures. In fact, nearly 50% of their player Roster's make around $50,000. They've smartly clung to their salary cap system like a life preserver, because the second they abandon it, parity will be destroyed entirely and teams will go under by trying to sign too much talent from across the pond then their current income can handle.
The questions behind the league, really are, are they going to keep getting tolerable TV deals. The major networks see how much the world cup brings in, but once it's over, MLS soccer tanks, and the Premier League simply annihilates the already lackluster MLS ratings, never-mind the other major North American sports. The other question is, the league is getting to the point where it's too big to keep expanding and getting lucrative franchise fees. Either promotion/relegation needs to happen, which no owner will accept in MLS, or major schedule adjustments that will not go over well with the purists who follow the league.
From what I can tell, MLS is going through the motions, and doing average. It's there, it's surviving and making a buck, and while it keeps aspiring to better things, it's in too many shadows to shine and is simply waiting till they've been around long enough to have history and have fans develop an emotional attachment to them and the sport. Any league with 20 teams generally doesn't fold overnight.
Seems that way to me Hammer. The MLS model is working adequately enough to get investors to pay fairly high franchise fees and cities to build stadiums. When you get a team like the Sounders with the attendance they are getting and a fanbase that doesn't even think it should play second fiddle to a very successful NFL franchise in an NFL stadium, well tough to argue that the league is anywhere near folding. And Toronto averages well for a team that has never made the playoffs.
But still, at some point the peculiarities of the MLS will be questioned by the more discerning fans that will probably eventually demand it to operate more like the major leagues if it wants to call itself major.
MLS needs expansion money to keep themselves in business. Even their commissioner is saying the league is losing 100 MILLION Dollars per year. Without expansion money this ponzi schemes collapses. You cannot bleed 100 Million per year and stay afloat.
What is league going to do, have 30,40 or even 50 teams in league to stay afloat. Anyone who puts money in this league is pissing it away.
The MLS commissioner is saying that because CBA negotiations are about to start. Just like Cohon who for years had been talking about how solid and rosy everything was suddenly was claiming how precarious any financial progress the league had made was and that three teams were losing money during the CFL CBA negotiations last spring. Just like the NBA and NHL commissioners have done - low balling how much money owners were making - crying poor in their best effort to mimimize players’ shares of the revenues being generated.
Sorry.. Bit it comes back to TV and the MLS does not draw anyone.. The MLS plays on the same day preceding or following the EPL and the EPL destroys it every single time, all of the time..
The MLS has tried everything in its power to increase TV ratings and the ratings are stagnate at best and have usually gone down. The New York Red Bulls are lucky to sell 10 thousand seats a game in what is the best stadium in the whole league, and now we are suppose to believe that someone was stupid enough to pay 100 million dollars for a second franchise in the city without a stadium to play in.
Yes.. The MLS got a Huge increase in its TV deal... However, so did NAscar and their ratings are down 40%. Nascar also does not have to give 20% of its revenue away to a national team that is ultimately responsible for the lions share of the increase..
Anyways.. To get this thread back on track.. After the MLS goes bankrupt, what type of gridiron football league will play in their stadiums?
If you are stupid enough to believe that the MLS will not go bankrupt, then you really are trolling this thread..
Please only post if you have something logical to post , like you believe the CFL could have expansion teams but only on Northern markets.
Orlando s a shoe in to get into the MLS with accounting practices like that..
What I find crazy is that the Argos lost less this past season then the average MLS team.. Yet the Argos have no value and MLS teams are worth 100 million. The only thing that separates the MLS teams from the Argos is speculation.
The speculation is that someday the MLS will sign a billion dollar TV contract. Even the most optimistic CFL fans see 100 million a year as the CFL's ceiling, so there just is not as much growth potential.
The insane franchise valuations will tumble to Argos value once it becomes apparent the next TV contract will remain about the same. If the next MLS TV contract doubles in value, it will still not be enough to save the league.. The investors need a huge contract next time to maintain their artificial team valuations. To put it bluntly, with out the current franchise valuations, only Seattle could stay afloat.
The two pictures above. One is a home game for Chivas who the league have basically folded. It was supposed to be LA's 'Spanish' team - but almost all the LA soccer fans both English and Spanish ended up supporting the Galaxy. As for New England - they need their own 25,000 or so seat soccer specific stadium closer to Boston. Foxborough is too far out in the middle of nowhere. NFL has that tradition of tens of thousands of fans driving miles way out into the outer edges of a city's suburbs to huge parking lots and tailgating. Soccer tradition is not about that - at all. It is more about walking (marching as a group) from the local supporting 'pubs' to and from the stadium.
Even with the stadium way out in Foxboro NE did manage to draw over 32,000 for one of their play-off games last month. DC is getting a new stadium for their team in Washington not far from the Nationals MLB park - so no more playing in dicrepit RFK Stadkium for them. Lots of good things happening - but just like every other league not called the NFL - with some weak franchises - and undoubtedly some challenges.
They'll be some hiccups along the way, maybe a few more Chivas situations - but there are enough strong and growing soccer markets - that they will be fine in the long run.
Playing in 70,000 stadiums in places like this is NOT the future of soccer in North America and the MLS is wise enough to know that.
In most cities not only is no one attending, but no one is watching this low caliber crap.
Toronto is the perfect example, only family and friends, sometimes even less then infomercial numbers.
And that is all you need to know.
Because if they did, detractors would just come back and say “Yeah, check the date, that was when the franchise first began. Things aren’t like that anymore” so they really serve no purpose, save to make the counter arguement that “Yeah, well one day after this span of losing, things will change” which holds water from some franchises, but holds none on an MLSE owned franchise.
The red seats at BMO and the red TFC jerseys were a stroke of genius on somebody's part. I tuned in to a couple games and the ones late in the season after fans stopped showing up, that sideline view actually makes it look more full than it is. Once you see a closer shot there's just large swaths of empty seats. And what does MLSE care, most of those empty seats are season ticket holders who keep coming back at the start of each year and so even if they boycott games later in the season those seats have been paid for.
I'm not pro MLS, but the league isn't dying soon IMO. They have a pretty low salary cap ($3.1M excluding designated players), they got $100M from the new NY team, $30-40 million from the last 5-6 expansion teams before that so they have some rainy day money, and they're not afraid to contract or suspend under performing teams like the aforementioned Chivas. As long as they don't let teams hurt themselves and the league by paying more than they can afford for designated players, MLS teams can get by with moderate attendance figures and low TV revenue. This last season, even including DPs, more than half the teams in MLS paid less than $4M in salary which is less than the CFL cap and they play almost twice as many games as a CFL team so their break even point based in attendance is lower than it would be for a CFL team. They're fortunate too that they are based in the US because there's a lot of regional and national cable sports channels with money that will pay for content because just because they need something to air. It's the regional networks that are their best bet for TV money IMO.
But for sure, the Yankees and ManU didn't put up $100M and some of the other new owners with big pockets like Arthur Blank didn't joint the league without certain expectations and I'm sure a lot of promises of a big national TV payday down the road. I too doubt they'll get it, and I think it'll be interesting to see how things progress as it continue to devolve into have teams that freely spend on DPs and the have nots which could be what eventually kills the league. You see that now where you have TFC ($15.6M) and LA ($12.3M) outspending the bottom teams like New England and Chivas ($2.9M each). That is not sustainable.
The leagues average attendance (tickets sold - not bums in seats - which is the way all the Big Four report attendance too) for the last five seasons.
2010 - 16,675
2011 - 17,869
2012 - 18,798
2013 - 18,608
2014 - 19,099
Looks like it is trending in the right direction to me. And the new New York team who will temporarily be playing out of Yankees Stadium - they'v already sold 12,000 season tickets with the teams first game still almost three months away.
Look things are not perfect. Far from it. But with smart growth - which is what they've exhibited so far - they'll be fine.
Edited to add - when MLSE launched TFC - they thought they would be doing well to average 14,000 - 15,000 per game. The success of TFC has greatly exceeded MLSE's original expectations. Pretty incredible considering the team has never even really challenged for a play-off spot.
Travel is correct, TFC fans are there and loyal for a team that hasn't produced. Imagine if TFC had of made the playoffs for even a couple of years. It's a potential gold-mine really despite MLS's operational wheeling and dealings that don't jive with a major league, and MLSE paid pittons for the franchise. The TFC fans don't really care how the league is operated it seems despite what they might say, if that team starts making the playoffs, the place will be jammed game after game. Single-entity won't even surface in the Toronto media.
Please let's get back to Canadian Football - there is a forum for other topics let's leave soccer there - why does it seem that certain posters try to advertise the MLS everytime they can - I like mostly all sports but this is the CFL forum - can we please stick there - let's be alittle creative and talk CFL - I doubt we could ever go to a NFL forum and see pages after pages of guys in little shorts kicking a round ball around - being the pics and the talk of the day - I hope most come to the CFL. CA forum for football - Canadian style -
Let's bring this site back to what it once used to be - thank you
