Steven Sandor's Blog, page 53

TSN had its playoff ratings miracle: Now it must build audience for MLS regular-season games

In the summer of 2016, Major League Soccer was the television property no one wanted. Despite strong ticket sales in the three Canadian MLS markets — and the fact that Toronto FC was, well, good, did nothing to move the needle when it came to people in this country turning on the television.

Ratings dipped below 50,000 mark per game and, as reported in Plastic Pitch 10, the topic of MLS was off-limits for Canadian network executives.

Then, MLS got its miracle. The playoffs. A semifinal between Toronto FC and Montreal, and an MLS Cup held in Toronto. Rating went from not even moving to the needle to beating hockey. MLS Cup got more than 1.5 million viewers in Canada.

Understand that the interest in the  MLS playoffs was not the product of a steady rise in the ratings. It was a massive spike, with many Canadians watching the league for the first time.

So, as TSN and MLS announced their new five-year deal on Tuesday, the question is: Were the playoff ratings the product of a perfect storm, or will those numbers translate into better regular-season viewership? Will the fans who watched the two legs of TFC-Impact tune in when Toronto travels to the west coast for a late kickoff, or when the Whitecaps head east and kickoff is at brunch time in Vancouver? Will fans who have already watched two or three Premiership matches on Saturday morning stick around to watch more soccer in the afternoon and evening?

That’s the big gamble. But, thanks to the massive MLS playoffs spike, it’s one that’s being made. TSN now has the rights to every Toronto FC and Whitecaps game, and will broadcast some Montreal Impact matches. TVA will get the exclusive French-language rights to the Impact.

TSN’s James Duthie speaking with CSA and CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani at the 2016 MLS Cup.
PHOTO: CANADA SOCCER

The length of the TSN deal, five years, allows the network to keep developing the audience. And if there’s one thing TSN does well, it gets behind a property it knows it has for the long term. See how TSN treats the Canadian Football League or the World Junior Hockey Championships. TSN has made them appointment viewing.

“By expanding our package of games, Canadian fans can expect MLS on TSN to continue to elevate the league and its players,” TSN President Stewart Johnston was quoted in a release.

In the end, TSN’s success will be determined by how well viewers across the country react to games in July in a league that has proven us the regular season doesn’t really matter until the fall — thanks to the large number of top seeds who fall early in the playoffs, and the number of just-get-into-the-playoffs teams that end up winning it all. Selling marquee matchups between Toronto and Montreal is one thing; midseason soccer is another.

Peterson’s departure marks another step on the path to a kinder, gentler NASL

The next step to create a kinder, gentler North American Soccer League was taken on Monday.

The league announced that it and now-former commissioner Bill Peterson had parted ways. A release put out by the league indicated it was an amicable split.

“The last four years have been incredibly exciting and challenging,” said Peterson. “The league and clubs accomplished so much during this time and I am very proud to have been a part of it. I am especially proud of the effort and accomplishments of so many others along the way. There is a lot of work still to be done and now is the time to allow someone else to come in and lead the next phase of development for the NASL. I would like to thank the owners, clubs, coaches, players, sponsors, staff, and fans for all of their support and I wish the NASL much success in the future.”

The NASL will start the season with eight teams and, after much deliberation, the United States Soccer Federation voted late Wednesday to allow the league to keep its Division-2 status. The move likely saved the league, which has seen the number of teams dwindle from 12 in 2016 to eight in 2017, including FC Edmonton.

Throughout the process with the USSF, the NASL took a more conciliatory tone than it had in any other time since Peterson took over. The league openly stated it wanted to work with the soccer authorities and find its place in the pyramid, which is closer to the tone the league had when David Downs was commissioner in 2011. Since Peterson took the reins of power, NASL had ramped up the rebel-league rhetoric, threatening to sue so it could get Division-1 status and compete head-to-head with Major League Soccer.

Peter Wilt, the former Indy Eleven and Chicago Fire president who is consulting several potential NASL expansion, had been linked to the commissioner’s job, but he told The 11 last week that he wanted to focus on consulting teams and the Chicago NASL expansion bid, not a shot at the commissioner’s chair.

Another sign of NASL’s new play-ball mentality is the decision from FC Edmonton to sell teenage standout Shamit Shome to MLS; this allows Shome to move up the ladder, and FCE to finally do business with the first division, showcasing its academy as a place that can nurture future top-flight players.

 

PLASTIC PITCH No. 11: Alphonso Davies’s Edmonton roots, NASL’s future, MDS, what next for TFC, should Scottish get a shot at Voyageurs Cup?

We put off the release of the winter issue of Plastic Pitch for one simple reason: We, like many of our readers, were waiting on the United States Soccer Federation’s decision on how it would sanction USL and NASL going forward. That decision was supposed to be made in December, but was delayed till the first week of January.

But now that we have a verdict, the issue goes forward. Thanks for your patience! What can you find inside the issue, other than our look back at the USL/NASL soap opera?

• We trace Alphonso Davies’s roots, to Edmonton’s Free Footie program, and show why the Vancouver Whitecaps pay particular attention to a specific Edmonton junior-high school.

• We talk to Marc Dos Santos about his decision to take over as coach of the San Francisco Deltas, and why he left jobs at Swope Park Rangers and the Ottawa Fury behind;

• Should Edmonton Scottish get a chance to play in the Voyageurs Cup? The coach of the men’s senior amateur champions sure thinks so;

• Jayson Leutwiler decided several years ago that he wanted to switch national-team allegiances from his native Switzerland to Canada. Finally, in 2016, he got his wish, making his first appearance for Canada’s senior team. We look at how he got his chance;

• Mark Polishuk talks to the brass and players at Toronto FC, seeing how they can build upon this year’s incredible run to the MLS Cup final.

How to find Plastic Pitch? Best way is to get it through the app, available through Apple and Google Play. You will be able to get free previews of all our issues, not just the new one. Try before you buy. You can also choose to go through our Shopify store, where you can choose to have PDF versions of the issues delivered to you via e-mail (we understand if tablet/phone reading is not your thing).

Seeing double: Both NASL and USL get Div. 2 sanctions

The United Soccer League — including the Ottawa Fury and the affiliates of Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps — got what it wanted.  The United States Soccer Federation — which, for all intents and purposes, directs the sanctioning of the major pro league in the U.S. and Canada — promoted USL from Division-3 to Division-2.

And, FC Edmonton owner Tom Fath was proven right; in December, when everyone seemed to have written off the North American Soccer League, he was openly confident about that the circuit would survive into 2017. On Friday, the USSF decided that NASL would keep its Division-2 status, ensuring that the league can try and recover from a challenging 2016 season.

So, in 2017, North America will have two Division-2 leagues.

Fath said the key for FCE going forward is to “build sustainability.” The Eddies have already set net off-season sales records for season tickets, and we know that a new third jersey will be introduced this season.

Fath, who has been working the phones, said that he’s relieved with the decision.

“I always felt that the was going to be the outcome, but until that decision is made, you’re never totally sure that it’s going to go a certain way.”

“I’m delighted,” said FC Edmonton coach Colin Miller. “I am really really please for [FC Edmonton] owner Tom Fath. He’s put in so much work, as have the other owners.”

In 2016, NASL’s Rayo OKC had an ownership meltdown that led to squabbles between the Spanish and American partners. The Fort Lauderdale Strikers ownership group walked away, leaving behind a trail of unpaid players and staff. The New York Cosmos released all of its players at the end of the season and furloughed staff. The Tampa Bay Rowdies and Fury moved to USL.

But there have been signs that the Cosmos may be saved. The San Francisco Deltas are coming into NASL as an expansion team. And, earlier this week, Peter Wilt, who is working with several potential NASL expansion groups, said he was bullish over the future of a new, revitalized NASL.

Miller admitted there was a time when he wondered what it all meant, but he kept being reassured by the FCE owner.

“There was a point where it was a bit worrying, but Tom Fath didn’t act on any of the rumours.”

Now, the coach is looking forward to talking about football – about the player announcement the club will be making in the coming weeks, about all the plans the team has going forward.

Miller said that questions about NASL were never about the quality of soccer offered by the league; that he understood that the “owners had issues that they needed to work out.”

Both USL and NASL will get waivers from USSF to be Div-2 leagues. The USSF says it will work with the leagues in order to bring up their standards, and that some further conditions will need to be met.

“The USL is honoured to receive provisional U.S. Soccer Federation Division 2 status, which provides further validation about our League’s financial sustainability, national footprint, ownership quality, stadium infrastructure and player development,” said Alec Papadakis, the USL’s CEO, in a release issued by the league. “Our teams have invested more than $100 million into stadium development in the last year to enhance the experience for the 1.5 million passionate fans that attended games in 2016, the 1,000-plus players and nearly 100 coaches that have positioned our League as a highly sophisticated competition model that cultivates strong regional rivalries.”

(Papadakis, by the way, is listed as a Canadian international in the NASL history books — he played for Atlanta in the 1970s; his brother, Nick, played for the Canadian national side).

“The NASL Board of Governors and I support U.S. Soccer’s decision to grant the league provisional Division II status,” said North Carolina FC owner Steve Malik in a release issued by NASL. “We’re excited about beginning play in April, and we look forward to the continued growth of our league and soccer in the U.S.”

 

Buchanan wins the MAC Hermann Trophy

She was named the best young player at the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Now, Canadian defender Kadeisha Buchanan can add the MAC Hermann Trophy to her case.

The Brampton, Ont. native, who helped the University of West Virginia get to the NCAA title game, was named the winner of the award as the best female player in American collegiate soccer Friday evening.

Buchanan, who won Olympic bronze with the Canadian national team in 2016, is the first woman from this country to win the MAC Hermann since Christine Sinclair won back-to-back player-of-the-year honours in 2004-05.

“I knew I wanted to be on that list with her,” Buchanan, on the podium to receive the award, said of Sinclair.

Buchanan had three goals and three assists with WVU in 2016. More importantly, the Mountaineers posted 18 clean sheets and averaged giving up just 0.44 goals per game.

Buchanan was a finalist for the MAC Hermann last year. She’s a four-time All American and has been linked to a move to French side Olympique Lyonnais. Her former WVU teammate, Ashley Lawrence, signed earlier this week with Paris Saint-Germain.

FC Edmonton sells Shome to MLS: Owner thrilled with breakthrough agreement

In what is a unique deal, FC Edmonton has received a transfer fee from MLS for the rights to teenage standout Shamit Shome.

FCE owner Tom Fath said the deal was completed Tuesday. Shome will become one of the new class of Canadian Generation Adidas player and be eligible for the upcoming SuperDraft.

“It’s exciting,” said Fath. “We are very proud of our academy developing Shamit here in Edmonton; that led to an opportunity with FC Edmonton’s first team, to achieving this honour.”

Fath wouldn’t disclose how much the Eddies received from MLS, but he said “it’s an exciting moment in the team’s history.”

Shome played 26 games for the Eddies last season, and balanced his playing career with his studies at the University of Alberta. He actually wrote exams and played in the same week. He captained the Canadian U-20 team last season and was part of the squad that beat Marcus Rashford and England. Shome said he hopes, if situation allows, that he can still take a couple of courses and keep up with his schooling after he makes the move to an MLS side, though he understands that soccer comes first.

“It all came together pretty quickly, to be honest,” said Shome. He said it wasn’t till a couple of days ago that the move to MLS went from being a dream to a real possibility. “It’s really exciting for me, a chance to go and take my game to the next level.”

Shome is an intelligent midfielder who thinks through the game at a level beyond his age. He’s a great passer of the ball and will likely be one of the hot properties at the SuperDraft. If picked, he’ll join what’s becoming a healthy contingent of Edmonton-bred players in MLS, along with the likes of Alphonso Davies and Tosaint Ricketts.

“I think Edmonton deserves to be recognized for the great players it produces,” said Shome. “I’m very proud to be representing Edmonton; Edmonton will always be my home.”

The deal is unique; usually, Generation Adidas deals go to players who aren’t under existing pro contracts that require transfer fees to shake them loose. It’s a testament to highly Shome is rated amongst the top youth players on the continent. As well, Shome was with the University of Alberta Golden Bears before he signed his pro deal with the Eddies, so it’s a big moment for the CIS to have one of its prospects potentially be a high MLS draft pick.

And, for FCE, this marks the first time the team has received transfer money from MLS. At the end of 2012, a deal was in the works to send then-Eddie Shaun Saiko to the Montreal Impact, but it was aborted. But, if the NASL does survive into 2017 and beyond, it needs to improve its relationship with MLS so more transfers can occur, as they can provide smaller clubs with revenue streams they need.

FCE assistant coach and academy head Jeff Paulus said the deal is a fantastic achievement for the organization.

“It benefits Shamit incredibly, and it also benefits the club and, in particular, our academy,” said Paulus. “If this can become the norm for us every couple of years, the Academy will continue to grow and reward Tom and Dave Fath for their continuing support of this program.”

Coach Colin Miller said that on one hand, he’s disappointed to see Shome leave the club, but he is thrilled that the player has been picked for such an honour.

“Congratulations to Shamit. It speaks volumes to the quality of the the player and the work that young man has put in to get to the next level… I think it shows that we are one of the best in North America at what we do [developing players] considering the resources we have.”

Miller said he now needs to fill a first-team hole in the roster. But, he’s already spoken to two separate agents about midfield possibilities.

“I can’t thank FC Edmonton enough for all they’ve done for me; Colin, Jeff and Tom,” said Shome.

Imagine there’s no divisions, it’s easy if you try…

In North American soccer, we go through a lot of needless angst. We waste so much of our lives on my-league-is-better-than-your-league banter. Why?

In a system without promotion and relegation, why is it important for us to have divisional distinctions for leagues? Really, why do we care so much what a series of suit-and-tie guys deem to be Divisions 1, 2 and 3 in North America?

Right now, a group of North American Soccer League owners — including FC Edmonton’s Tom Fath — and potential expansion-team owners are working to save the league. A lot of us North American soccer followers are waiting on the United States Soccer Federation’s decision on whether or not the NASL will keep its Division-2 status, or if the USL will move up from Division-3 to Division-2.

Neither the NASL or USL would qualify for Division-2 status based on the USSF’s rules for such things. Both would require sympathy from the federation to get the waivers needed to be able to tell their fans, “look at us, we’re Division-2! We matter!”

Yet, there is no competitive movement of teams between the three leagues; all movement from NASL to MLS to USL to MLS is done for financial reasons.

So, why do we need to be told that MLS is Division-1? Is it because, by holding meetings every year, the federations in the U.S. and Canada can “sanction” things? Is it because the word “sanction” is just cool to say? Sanction. Say it with me. Sanct-ION.

Isn’t it obvious that it’s the biggest soccer league in Canada and the United States, just like we know the NHL is the biggest hockey league in the world? We don’t need Hockey Canada and USA Hockey to tell us “the league that has the NBC and Rogers TV deals and the Rangers and the Leafs and the two L.A.-area teams is bigger than the American Hockey League.” Toronto FC and the Montreal Impact set Canadian TV ratings records for their MLS semifinal, do Canadians really need a divisional distinction to understand the league that’s home to TFC, the Whitecaps and Impact is a level up from the ones that have Edmonton and Ottawa as members?

Likewise, do American fans really need to be told which league is the biggest based on an arbitrary set of rules? Why do we need our leagues all put into boxes? They do the divisonal structure in other countries because, well, if you win a lower league, you get to move up to a bigger league. We don’t do that in North America — in any sports league, whether it be soccer, hockey, baseball, basketball or football.

Yet soccer, unlike the other sports, has to give us the penis-measuring-sticks of needing to let us know what constitutes first division, second, third and so on. Shouldn’t we instead be letting leagues focus on building their teams, no matter how big or small their markets, or stadiums? Shouldn’t the owners decide how big or small a stadium or market they can live with? Why is it that we feel we need to tell the person, who is going to lose millions upon millions (at least in the short-term) investing in something as silly as soccer, what to do? Shouldn’t we simply hope for soccer to be successful in as many markets as possible, without needing to have someone tell you that the league you support is bigger than the league the guy across the street follows? Shouldn’t we have an environment where we’re thankful for investment into the game, no matter the league?

Like, what’s wrong with us? To outsiders, this whole divisional debate must seem laughable and pointless. Because it IS laughable and pointless.

Funny; MLS can put teams in football stadiums in Seattle, get average attendances that rival some European leagues and have national TV deals outside of streaming entities. Teams have the budgets to sign star players. Wait, I need someone to tell me it’s Division-1. Right. OK. NASL and USL are smaller-scale leagues, with many USL teams acting as feeder teams to their MLS affiliates. Guess what? USSF tells us that they are lower-division teams! Wow, thanks. I’d never have figured that out.

But, divisional debates are entrenched in the leagues. At one time the NASL considered court action so it could get the vaunted Div-1 status. Exit fees in NASL are scaled based on what happens to the league’s sanctioning. If the NASL drops to Div-3, the exit fees are discounted.

To the leagues, these distinctions are important because of the optics. We are told that a league needs a divisional sanction so it can notify potential and sponsors of its place in the pyramid.

That’s because a  potential sponsor needs to be told how big the league is. The sponsor’s agency isn’t going to look your TV ratings, your reach and what markets the league is in — no, no no. What it needs to know is, well, what division are you? You know, sponsors don’t do any market research. They never base their decisions on how many eyeballs are on your games or what’s the median income of your fan base. They don’t look at how many young, single males you have watching — the kind of viewers who tend to spend money like, well, young, single males.

Cups and such

There are is one valid reason for the divisional sanctions; and that’s to seed the teams for the cup competitions. In both the U.S. Open Cup and Voyageurs Cup, the MLS teams get to be parachuted into the tournament at later stages, just like the Premiership teams join in the late rounds of the FA Cup. But, really, maybe both the American and Canadian cups would benefit if all the pro clubs came in at the same time; really, it’s not like the MLS teams play their starters in the Cup games, anyway.

The Canadian Soccer Association has long watched the USSF divisional debate — which affects five professional teams north of the border – with a bit of a head shake. CSA president Victor Montagliani, elected to the top CONCACAF post in 2016, has openly wondered why there’s so much fretting about divisions when all team movement is based on finances. MLS has selected both USL and NASL teams to join their league, so it’s not like the divisional distinctions matter that much in terms of moving to the biggest league. Montagliani has said that, with all five Canadian teams qualifying for our national championship, the Voyageurs Cup, divisional distinctions are unnecessary.

(Yet, we also fall into the trap of calling the under-construction Canadian Premier League “Division 1A.”)

And, as long as we have divisional rankings and distinctions, we keep the promotion-relegation debate alive. We invite this back-and-forth by saying one league is level three, while another is level one. Of course the natural reaction to ranking leagues is to debate the merits of allowing teams to move up (and down) the ladder based on their wins (and losses). So, if you think it’s so important that NASL be Div-2 and USL be Div-3 — or vice versa — it’s massively hypocritical to rip people who support pro-rel.

So, imagine if the USSF decided to tear up its rulebook and said, “to hell with this.” What if the USSF domos said, “we’ll give support to pro soccer in the continent, you leagues do what you need to do in order to build your fan bases. We will sanction you as professional leagues, but that’s all. No rankings. We want to be a resource to help build the game. Pay your players on time. Pay them fairly.  Good luck to you all.”

Well, Twitter would lose out. I mean, how much time have we wasted on social media with divisional debates? We could all go back to our lives, or something. Or maybe we could all discover that we might indeed HAVE lives.

A 20-team NASL by 2018? As league works to save itself, there is optimism from the ranks

Peter Wilt admits he’s an unbridled optimist. And there’s no doubt many who will read the coming paragraphs with a “bah” and a “humbug.”

But Wilt, whose Club 9 Sports entity is looking to bring several expansion teams into the North American Soccer League and is working to find new investors for an existing franchise, is bullish about the prospects of the league, just weeks after so many were sounding the NASL’s death knell.

“Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I think that by the fall of 2018, we could have a 20-team NASL,” he said Tuesday. That bullish projection is based on the groups he’s currently consulting – and what he’s seen in terms of interest from potential investors across the continent. Consider that we could be looking at a six- or a seven-team NASL — if the league survives — for the spring of 2017.

Wilt, the first general manager of Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire and the first president of the NASL’s Indy Eleven, is also working to bring a Windy City franchise to NASL. He has a large, vested interest in helping the league not only survive its current crisis, but create a foundation for growth.

Wilt can’t say much about the current process; he said all NASL owners have agreed to not make public comments about their work to keep the league alive.This is what we do know; the United States Soccer Federation has delayed its ruling on divisional sanctions till early 2017. We were expecting some word Tuesday, but that may have been an overly ambitious reach. Now, the word is that we might hear more by the end of the week.

As it stands, the NASL is sanctioned as the second division, while the USL is the third division. The USL has petitioned for second-division status. The USL has added the Ottawa Fury and Tampa Bay Rowdies, which left NASL at the end of the 2016 season. To meet second division status, both leagues would require waivers from the USSF.

The NASL’s New York Cosmos exist on paper, but released all of its players. The Fort Lauderdale Strikers need a new owner and were missing paycheques through the 2016 campaign. Rayo OKC had a tumultuous year which saw dwindling crowds, ownership squabbles and front-office clearouts.

So, in December, the Twitterverse was predicting the end of the NASL.

But, Wilt says the NASL owners have been confident that the league can be saved.

“Within the league, people are optimistic. People are working towards the same end, they want to go forward for 2017.”

That optimism is best reflected in FC Edmonton’s Tom Fath, who co-owns the team with his brother, Dave.  In December, Fath repeatedly said that he expected that his team would play in NASL in 2017. The club is hiring new staff, selling season tickets at a better pace than any previous season and has given coach Colin Miller a three-year extension.

Wilt said Fath’s public confidence mirrors what he has seen amongst the current group of NASL owners.

“Tom, as an original NASL owner, he is a major proponent for the league,” said WIlt. “His temperament has been even-keeled. His common sense, his stick-to-it-ness, these are all the qualities we are seeing and, to be honest, what we are seeing from most of the people involved.”

If NASL can survive, the question is how the league will be sanctioned. But this is very much an American issue, not a Canadian one. The stance of Victor Montagliani, the president of both the Canadian Soccer Association and CONCACAF, is that the divisional distinctions don’t matter very much. In Canada, FC Edmonton, Ottawa Fury and the three Canadian MLS teams all compete against each other for the Voyageurs Cup, the official national championship that determines our CONCACAF Champions League participant.

Without promotion and relegation, the divisional distinctions mean very little, if anything. We know that Major League Soccer is the league that has the highest visibility and the most money out of the North American circuits. Then, there is NASL and USL. Even Wilt admits that outside of the optics, there is a point to the “divisional distinctions don’t really matter” argument.

We still wait on pins and needles on a decision about NASL’s future. But, if the league survives, Wilt said he is happy with his role as a consultant and as a franchise builder. So, that puts a bit of cold water on rumours he might be working for the league in some capacity.

Lawrence makes the move to PSG

Canadian fullback/midfielder Ashley Lawrence has signed a deal with French powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain.

The Canadian, who won bronze with the national women’s team at the Rio Olympics and a was a regular starter at the 2015 World Cup, helped the University of West Virginia get to the NCAA final in 2016. Lawrence will forego her senior year of eligibility at WVU to begin her professional career.

Yes, it did come in a press release (so a grain of salt is needed), but the raves are in from her new boss.

“Ashley is one of the most promising young players in the world under 22 years of age at her position, “said Olivier Letang, Paris Saint-Germain’s sports director. It’s very satisfying to see her sign for us looking to continue her development and show her talents to the Parisian fans. Her arrival is in perfect keeping with our policy of bringing up talented young players alongside established world-class talents.”

Lawrence, as the jersey shows, is signed till 2019.

PSG finished second in the French league last season and got to the final of the Women’s Champions League in 2015.

Playing surfaces, competing Olympic bid: A joint World Cup bid has a lot of hurdles to clear

Victor Montagliani, who at the moment is president of both CONCACAF and the Canadian Soccer Association, says he will speak to federations in Mexico and the United States about a joint bid for the 2026 World Cup.

Since Montagliani became the leader of the region earlier in 2016, the Canadian Soccer Association’s stance towards co-hosting a World Cup has become a lot softer. Remember that, in the run-up to hosting the Women’s World Cup in 2015, the CSA had been strong in its messaging that its bid to host the 2026 mundial would be exclusive to Canada.

Of course, when Canada first announced its intention to bid for a World Cup (a topic that was covered extensively way back in Plastic Pitch No. 2), the idea was that the country would be hosting a 32-team tournament in 2026. Now, with FIFA president Gianni Infantino backing an expansion to a 48-team tourney, more stadiums are needed to host the extra games. If a 48-team tournament comes to pass, we can expect to see many more co-host bids in the future.

But there are some interesting kinks in the plan. First off; while no formal bid has been launched, there were some strong indications that Canada’s bid for the 2026 World Cup would have included artificial turf as the exclusive playing surface for the matches. The 2015 Women’s World Cup was played solely on artificial turf, and in the run-up and during the tournament, FIFA officials gave every indication that they saw artificial turf as critical to developing the game — that it offered an economically viable alternative for nations with weather and/or financial issues. Really, if you were in a room with FIFA officials, you got the feeling that they’d PREFER bids for World Cups — women or men — with artificial turf as the featured surface.

Remember, though, FIFA has a rule about senior World Cups. All games must be played on the same surface. Either they’re all on grass, or all on artificial turf. Unless that rule changes, or the Mexicans and Americans agree to tear up a lot of grass, a joint bid would mean that Canadians would be left with the very pricy option of placing grass surfaces in stadiums. And, unless the technology radically improves in the next decade, we have seen the folly of putting dying temporary grass fields over artificial turf. It’s dangerous, the turf comes up, there are dead spots that make concrete preferable as a playing surface. You need permanent grass fields.

As well, since the Canadian Soccer Association made the initial announcement that it wanted to host the World Cup in 2026, we’ve had a change in federal governments. Say what you will about the Harper Conservatives, but they loved backing big international events. The Liberals have yet to endorse the World Cup bid — and, this year, Calgary City Council put money  into exploring the idea of bringing back the Winter Olympics… in 2026. Could the federal government fund both an Olympics and a (partial) World Cup in the same year?

Remember that when Canada first announced its plan to bid for the World Cup, oil — one of our biggest cash-cow exports — was at over $100 a barrel, though we rarely see market value for our product because of our difficulties in bringing it to market. Prices have plunged since then, and those numbers hurt in a petrostate such as Canada. The value of our dollar has plummeted since the  announcement of the World Cup bid. And while it makes Canada a more savoury destination for tourists, it makes life more expensive for Canadians, and our governments. The price tag on hosting a major event goes up as the dollar falls. And, of course, our dollar is tied to, you’ve got it, oil.

So, to be fair, the Liberals have got it a lot tougher in terms of needing to do more with less.

 Earlier this year, Carla Qualtrough, the Liberal Minister of Sport and Persons With Disabilities, made this a part of her statement when it came to looking at both the possible World Cup and Olympic bids for 2026.

“We would be particularly interested in activities aligned with broader Government of Canada goals such as: Engaging persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, youth and the development of recreational and cultural infrastructure.”

A World Cup does not tick off the boxes like an Olympic bid would (as the Olympics come packaged with the Paralympics). So, if Canada would want to co-host a men’s World Cup, it needs to find a way to make soccer not just about… well… able-bodied men.  Tough one. As well, if we go into anything with the United States, we need to face the reality that the world will see it as an American bid (with Canada and Mexico) rather than a true three-way partnership. If their culture dwarves ours, where is the cultural value that the Liberals would seek?

Add to that the cost of grass in stadiums, the building of new stadiums, a possible competing Olympic bid, and we see all of the hurdles a joint bid involving Canada would need to clear.