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Duck Lightning said:
MLS isn't going to expand into Canada anymore. The only reason Canada Soccer allowed MLS teams to exist in Canada was because there was no tier 1 national development league in the country. Now that the Canadian Premier league exists there's no reason for Canada Soccer to approve MLS to expand further into Canada. MLS is the American tier 1 development league and requires a certain percentage of a teams roster to be American born players.
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Unless something happens with the CPL. The one constant about soccer leagues in Canada is constant change. I'm not saying the league will fold, but we've seen league's come and go. That said, MLS already has a number of teams, and the smallest market city in the league is Columbus with a metro area just over 2M, would MLS be interested in more Canadian teams? IDK.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Unless something happens with the CPL. The one constant about soccer leagues in Canada is constant change. I'm not saying the league will fold, but we've seen league's come and go. That said, MLS already has a number of teams, and the smallest market city in the league is Columbus with a metro area just over 2M, would MLS be interested in more Canadian teams? IDK.
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A soccer league failing here won't make MLS more likely to put teams in the markets that couldn't sustain the much cheaper CPL. (And Cavalry attendance is exactly middle of the 7 CPL teams, despite being in one of the bigger markets.)

MLS is already at 29 teams, with multiple viable expansion contenders:
  • Phoenix - 3.3 times Calgary's metro population; USL Championship team draws 1.8 times the Calgary CPL team
  • San Diego - 2.2x population; NWSL team draws 2.5x
  • Detroit - 4.4x population; USL Championship team 1.8x soccer draw
  • Sacramento - 1.6x population; 2.8x soccer draw
  • Las Vegas - 1.5x population; 1.6x soccer draw, apparently the leader in MLS expansion plans.
That's a lot of cities well ahead of us (and I didn't mention Tampa, Indianapolis, Louisville, San Antonio, Raleigh), in the musical chairs, with one empty seat left and perhaps a couple more in the next decade.
 
I wonder if basing strength of market solely on how well CPL does here is a bit misleading? Not saying that Calgary is a strong market due to pop. size, and MLS may have stronger canadidates ahead in the queue, thus making this a pipedream for the foreseeable future, but Calgary may be the type of city that's smug in their tastes. Granted with it being the only option within regional range, if they want MLS, they should support CPL. But I wonder if the clout MLS brings would drive a lot of the general market to pick up interest in the team? Especially with a lot of people moving to the city from Toronto and Vancouver coming to live here where they've been exposed to that level of soccer. Those cities have MLS teams, but not CPL teams until this year with Vancouver.

I think of Toronto, and how disinterested it is in the CFL. The NFL is very popular in Canada, and if a NFL team was to expand into Toronto, it should do considerably well. In the meantime, they are close enough to Buffalo that football fans in that area do get NFL level football. Because of that, I assume are stronger supports of the Bills than they are of the Argos since it's the top league. CFL is beneath them. It's a big reason why the CFL is in a bad spot health wise since it isn't as strong as it needs to be in the most important market in the country.

So I ponder that if Calgary's population continues to grow a good rate, and the economy can continue to evolve, would it be good enough to have a team like Vancouver does?
 
ByeByeBaby said:
A soccer league failing here won't make MLS more likely to put teams in the markets that couldn't sustain the much cheaper CPL. (And Cavalry attendance is exactly middle of the 7 CPL teams, despite being in one of the bigger markets.)

MLS is already at 29 teams, with multiple viable expansion contenders:
  • Phoenix - 3.3 times Calgary's metro population; USL Championship team draws 1.8 times the Calgary CPL team
  • San Diego - 2.2x population; NWSL team draws 2.5x
  • Detroit - 4.4x population; USL Championship team 1.8x soccer draw
  • Sacramento - 1.6x population; 2.8x soccer draw
  • Las Vegas - 1.5x population; 1.6x soccer draw, apparently the leader in MLS expansion plans.
That's a lot of cities well ahead of us (and I didn't mention Tampa, Indianapolis, Louisville, San Antonio, Raleigh), in the musical chairs, with one empty seat left and perhaps a couple more in the next decade.
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Totally agree that it would be an uphill battle for Calgary to get an MLS team and that there are other, better markets that are already in-line to host a team.

I do wonder though if MLS will operate like a traditional NA sports league with 30-32 teams long term, or if it might eventually end up with a promotion/relegation system. That’s where Calgary might have a shot, and it takes years of planning and lobbying to get to the front of the line.

Re: the Calvary attendance, I assume some of that can be chalked up to the field being in Spruce Meadows.
 
Having a premier division and a secondary division could work. It's how they do it in other countries, and would give cities like Calgary/Edmonton/Ottawa a chance to play in the big leagues once in a while, and if not in the premier division, at least a chance to play a few American cities. I think the problem is more of a general one in that soccer in most of Canada/US still isn't quite there yet. It's gaining momentum though.
 
I am certain that the stadium being way out in Spruce Meadows factors. Myself, personally I would like to take my kids to the odd game but it’s so far away.
My dad took me and my brother to a couple of Calgary Kickers games at Mewata Stadium. It was a nice atmosphere being downtown.
 
Alex_YYC said:
I am certain that the stadium being way out in Spruce Meadows factors. Myself, personally I would like to take my kids to the odd game but it’s so far away.
My dad took me and my brother to a couple of Calgary Kickers games at Mewata Stadium. It was a nice atmosphere being downtown.
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Its there because the Southern's own the team and the land. The start up costs for the Cavalry were quite low. I think they even use ATCO trailers as dressing rooms.
 
I will say for Cavalry that there are free shuttles from the Somerset LRT station. I've taken them to the game instead of parking on site. It's a much better setup that the Calgary Surge basketball team. I'd like to go to a Surge game but the location out at Winsport will mean I probably only go to one game. There just is no alternative for Surge (UofC and and MRU basketball don't have any venue for Surge to use over the summer). You can probably lump the hitmen in on this too. A smaller (5,000-8,000) indoor basketball, hockey venue would likely get some pretty good use. I thought about Seven Chiefs is equal to Winsport in accessibility. Needless to say we needed the Fieldhouse years ago.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Having a premier division and a secondary division could work. It's how they do it in other countries, and would give cities like Calgary/Edmonton/Ottawa a chance to play in the big leagues once in a while, and if not in the premier division, at least a chance to play a few American cities. I think the problem is more of a general one in that soccer in most of Canada/US still isn't quite there yet. It's gaining momentum though.
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Relegation won't ever happen in North America. Teams pay big bucks for the exclusive rights to play in their respective leagues. Imagine Charlotte FC being relegated to a lower league after spending $325MM USD for an MLS expansion team (only to be replaced by a $6MM CAD CanPL team).
 
CalgaryTiger said:
I will say for Cavalry that there are free shuttles from the Somerset LRT station. I've taken them to the game instead of parking on site. It's a much better setup that the Calgary Surge basketball team. I'd like to go to a Surge game but the location out at Winsport will mean I probably only go to one game. There just is no alternative for Surge (UofC and and MRU basketball don't have any venue for Surge to use over the summer). You can probably lump the hitmen in on this too. A smaller (5,000-8,000) indoor basketball, hockey venue would likely get some pretty good use. I thought about Seven Chiefs is equal to Winsport in accessibility. Needless to say we needed the Fieldhouse years ago.
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Public facility sprawl is a big factor here and it goes beyond sport events. Also includes large private developments like malls.

We are lacking certain types of facilities in size and quality, but also crucially we haven't put most new ones we do build in accessible locations. The ones that are reasonably close or have cobbled together decent transit access over time still lack the fine-grain detail of public space design to make the facility at all accessible by anything by car (Foothills medical clusters complete gong show for sidewalk accessibility, for example).

What was the last major public or semi-public facility built in a reasonably transit accessible location from opening day? Maybe Genesis Centre in the NE in the early 2010s?

The field house project is the only net-new facility I can think of that is likely being built (some day) in a central location with half-decent transit. All our replacement facilities (Central Library, arena, arts commons etc.) are all already transit accessible so yield no net change in transit access with the new facility.

In my opinion, any public or other high-traffic facilities high schools or larger shouldn't be approved if they aren't already on a transit line or within a station area.
 
Seems to be part of a larger pattern here. We have the money and population to support new facilities like Seven Chiefs, and to build dense new developments like University District, West 85th, and whatever the stuff near Winsport is called (Paskapoo?). We also have a decent light rail system. But the two are not being built in walking distance to each other.

Of course there are exceptions, like Motel Village, and I think Sunalta is finally starting to happen in a limited sense. Quarry Park might happen too, maybe even this decade.
 
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