Hyper-patriotic? lol...it takes more than little slogans to discredit an argument.
I didn't know that about the Old Firm clubs, but I guess it's not a huge surprise considering how much bigger England is. What impresses me about Scotland is that with a population less than the GTA, it still manages to have a professional league bigger than anything in Canada. If Celtic and Rangers started playing in the Premier League, would that really be good for soccer in Scotland? Do the Toronto Raptors do anything for basketball development in Edmonton or Montreal? Would English players want to play for Scottish teams? (although Scotland isn't really foreign to England the way that Canada is to the US)
The Scottish league is smaller than the CFL. The CFL actually has attendance figures on par with the German Bundesliga. So I would say it's a huge stretch to say that the SPL is bigger than any professional league in Canada.
Also, Celtic and Rangers are huge clubs compared to the rest of the league and bring in a significant amount of the league-wide revenue. Without them the league would be probably on par with Ireland's soccer league (re: not even on the radar). I'd argue Scottish football would be better off if Rangers and Celtic (and the rest of the SPL) competed in England. Scottish homegrown players would compete with far better competition especially at the Reserve level and that would only raise the quality of Scottish footballers. There's an old saying that if you want to be the best you have to play the best.
The reason the Raptors aren't great for Canadian basketball is that there isn't a development system related to the Raptors. If the Raptors were expected to develop Canadian Talent who would eventually rise through the ranks and play with the team one day, then it would be a different story, but there's no comparison between the NBA and any soccer league.
Would non-Scottish players want to play in Scotland? Sure, why not? If the Old Firm played in the EPL, they would have significantly more money to attract players and they would probably be top-ten clubs in the EPL. As long as they're willing to pay players at a satisfactory level they'd be fine. And English players have played for Scottish teams before. It would be nothing new.
I could see a European super-league working for the same reason the EU works - there's no single dominant power. That's also why the Raptors and Blue Jays can have trouble attracting talent while the Leafs don't - the first two are American-dominated while the latter isn't.
It would be horrible if the top teams broke away from their domestic leagues. You're talking about the collapse of a dozen leagues all because the rich want to get richer. They make enough money right now and far too many teams depend on the Arsenals and Chelseas of the world as a means for survival. Every team in the EPL gets a cheque at the beginning of the year for 22 million pounds from their TV contract and by the end of the year they usually rake in 9million more. All of that money would be gone if the big clubs left the EPL. Considering clubs in the Championship only receive 1million pounds per year, an EPL club in a league without Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City, etc. would barely see more than that. What a huge blow that would be for soccer as a whole.
The raptors and Jays don't have trouble attracting talent. Look at the Raptors roster. You could make the argument (and people like Michael Grange, Eric Smith and Doug Smith have) that it's the 5th best in the East this season. And the Jays have attracted many big names over the years.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The Canadian NHL teams are more valuable on average than the American ones - all the Canadian teams are in the top half of the league in both revenue and overall value except Edmonton. When it comes to operating profit their performance is even better. Canada could support another 3-4 teams at the NHL level.
They are, but that's because they're in a league with American teams and there's a salary cap in place that helps stabilize expenses. Hypothetically, if there were two separate leagues, would they both of an identical cap? Probably not. Would they both even have a cap? maybe not. So essentially, the biggest factor is money, and we've seen what happened before the lockout when teams like Edmonton kept losing their star players because they couldn't afford them. We're talking about a hypothetical situation here but really all it would take is for the dollar to drop back down to $0.70 for a Canadian league to be in serious trouble.
You say 3 more teams in Canada... How could Winnipeg or Quebec City suddenly support a team without much corporate support? Fan support isn't enough. You need companies to buy boxes and purchase season tickets.
Obviously the CFL can't attract the top talent the way the NFL does, but "scraps" in an exaggeration at best. The CFL game is better suited to smaller, more versatile players and sheer sized doesn't work as well. CFL players have gone on to the NFL with great success, but the reverse isn't always true. Ricky Williams routinely puts up better numbers in Miami than he did with the Argos.
The NFL will always be the top destination for any football player. If they can't make it there they come to Canada, and maybe over time they establish themselves here as talented players because they learn to play our game our way. But I don't think any player with any skillset picks the CFL over the NFL (at least not since Rocket Ismail). I'd argue few CFLers would make an NFL roster, and you see that every year when talented CFLers get offered tryout contracts down south and then get sent back. Very rarely do you get a Jeff Garcia or Doug Flutie, who goes down there and makes an impact.
The NHL will never split in two, but considering the Canadian teams bring in a third of ticket revenues and several American teams are losing money, I don't share your pessimism about a potential all-Canadian league. If it were to happen the number of Canadian teams would likely increase and the number of American teams would go down, and all of them would be competitive for the best players.
But you're essentially adding weaker markets to the Canadian league and removing the weak markets from the American league. If there's any sort of revenue sharing or cap, the American league improves and the Canadian one gets weaker. If one league's cap is higher they're going to attract the better players. And, once again, what happens when the dollar falls against the US$? Also, currently any real TV revenue going to the NHL is coming from TSN and CBC. Do you think those TV contracts are worth the same if the Canadian league only has a third of the talent?
I don't think a Canadian league lasts long nor does it do anything for Canada or the US. It's a continental league and is stronger because of this.