Ok, you have to have at least a 20,000 seater of some standard to be in the running for a CFL team. Well, I think the CFL should adopt the soccer system like in Europe with all those divisions and that, this way we could see the CFL in places with 7,000 - 20,000 seaters. Some of this was discussed in a talent thread on Sporstnet which is where I got the idea from. It would be great and would really help promote the game more IMHO.
PS. Don't take everything I said on this thread at Sportsnet (I'm EarlGrey) as gospel, remember, I was talking in a soccer forum and wanted to cater a bit to them there so I could get some feedback on the topic)
I like the different divisions or classes of soccer in Europe but uncertain if the market can support more teams in Canada. In North America, we have junior leagues for NHL, NCAA for NBA and NFL.
Yes definitely. The difference is that in North America, sports organizations were bred primarily in academic & amateur institutions before professional clubs & leagues became prevailent. In Europe, organized sports found their birth in various athletic clubs that would go on to become professional clubs. In soccer, completely free market systems allow pretty much any athletic club to field teams under the same competitions. This allows certain clubs to become bigger than the competitions they play in while any other athletic club can field a soccer team in the same federation. The fact that there potentially 100s of clubs per federation means that they are tiered into different heirarchal leagues with chances for both promotion & demotion depending on performance.
Here in North America, in the age of salary caps & parity, pro clubs are not bigger than the leages they play in. To compete in such structured sports-economic systems, only so many markets can support a pro club for a given sport. We also have competition between 4 major pro sports that keeps the number of viable pro clubs for any given pro league to around 30. In Canada, (actually Toronto) some would even say that you need American dollars to keep a league afloat.
These are also the reasons why Canada doesn't have its own pro sports league with teams in every municipality & town from coast to coast. Junior hockey comes as close to this but it isn't the premier league in its sport. Don't tell me we don't have the population base like the United States does. Countries like Spain (48 million), Netherlands (16 million) & Portugal (10 million) all have pro sports leagues with way more than 8 teams. Spain in fact has a soccer league that definitely comes in the top three of all soccere leagues in the world & arguably the best. This is without the 300 million pop base in the US.
In Canada we have 8 CFL teams, 6 NHL teams, 3 NLL teams, 1 MLB & 1 NBA = 18 teams.
Now this could go to say that Canadian society has its priorities in order by not having such an importance placed on sports infrastructure. Nevertheless, its something we find ourselves behind in compared to countries half our population.
Joe, Let’s Compare Countries Shall We. Your Right In Saying That Spain Is One Of The Top However Spain Has Double The Population Of Canada. Italy, Gremany, And England, The Countries With Larger, More Successful Leagues All Have Two And Three Times The Population Of Canada. But Here’s The Biggest Difference; Population Density. In North America We Rely On Divisions And Locations To Determin Scheduals. Even If We Had Seperate Leagues For The Different Divisions There’d Still Be Peoblems Because Of Our Speratic Population. Say For Example In The West There Was 8 Teams In Division ‘A’ And 8 In Division ‘B’. Let’s Say The Teams In The ‘B’ Division Are Located In; Victoria, Vancouver, Red Deer, Prince Rupert, Vernon, Lethbridge, & Churchill. Transportation Would Be A Nightmare. The Churchill Would Have To Fly Everywhere And For Premuch Every Flight They’d Have To Transfer At Least Once And Sometimes Two And Maybe Even 3 Times. This Isn’t A Problem In Europe Cause No Country Is Much Bigger Then Manitoba So Worst Case Senario They Have A Long Bus Ride.
Now I’ve Actually Thought About Doing An Idea Similar To This Over The Last Couple Of Months. With Ottawa Coming Back Eventually It Brings Back An Uneven Schedual And Posts On Halifax Expansion. Instead Of Doing A Single Team Perhapes An Intire League Out East. Have A Team In Quebec City, Sherbrook, Halifax, Fredrickton, Sydney, St. John’s, Saint John, Saguenay, And Trois-Rivieres. Then Have The Winner Of This League Repersent The East In The CFL For That Year.
The League That Is Best Suited For A Religation System Would Be The NHL. Have Seperate Leagues Of 5-10 Teams For Each Division And The Bottom Team Of That Division Switchs With The Top Team Of The Corisponding League. Of Course For This To Work The Divisions Would Have To Get Switched Around Since There’s Not Enough Farm Teams And Junior Support In The Sout East And Pacific Divisions. Something Gery Buttman Would Never Accept.