David Clanachan is leading the effort.canadian premier league
With Soccer United Marketing as a blueprint for how commercial development around soccer has helped propel Major League Soccer and the sport in the U.S., a new Canadian league hopes to do the same with its own business venture aligned with the sport in Canada.
Aptly named Canadian Soccer Business, the new enterprise will represent all of the commercial interests for the upcoming Canadian Premier League, as well as all corporate partnerships and media rights for Canada Soccer — akin to the rights SUM represents for MLS and U.S. Soccer. Its deal with Canada Soccer is for 10 years.
David Clanachan, a longtime Tim Hortons executive, will serve as both chairman of CSB and commissioner of the CPL. Scott Mitchell, a co-founder of the league and CEO of the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, also will serve as CEO of CSB, overseeing all major partnerships and the media strategy for the venture.
The CPL, set to launch in the spring of 2019, aims to become Canada’s first top-tier national soccer league, launching initially with eight to 10 teams across the country. Each club will be independently owned, with owners holding a CSB board seat. Clanachan said the league will announce its initial teams in the coming weeks, with Hamilton and Winnipeg already confirmed. The goal is to have upward of 20 teams by 2024 and potentially promotion and relegation throughout the league. Clanachan said that collectively, the league will be investing more than $500 million Canadian in the first several years of the league.
“We’re a nation of more than 35 million, and yet in this country we don’t have a pro soccer league, nor a proper soccer industry,” Clanachan said. “There’s an opportunity to create this game coast-to-coast across communities while working unencumbered under one business framework to boost soccer on local, regional and provincial levels at the same time.”
Clanachan said that while the three Canadian MLS teams — Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver — have all done a great job in their respective communities, “they are all really considered MLS teams and part of the American professional league.” The CPL could have teams in those markets as well, he said. MLS Commissioner Don Garber has said the league is not considering additional Canadian expansion at this time.
The new business endeavor will sell not only a presenting sponsorship for the league, founding league partnerships and media partnerships, but team-level deals such as six venue naming-rights opportunities and all of the jersey entitlements.
The biggest opportunity will come from the line between CSB and Canada Soccer, as the new enterprise will sell training kit sponsorships for the men’s, women’s and high-level youth teams and exclusive presenting sponsorships to World Cup qualifying matches and international friendlies.
“Canada is the 10th-largest economy in the world and right now has more young kids playing soccer than hockey — it’s just a matter of Canada having the mechanisms to succeed,” said Jeff Marks, CEO of Innovative Partnerships Group. IPG360 is advising CSB on its commercial efforts.
Marks and Clanachan said they believe the ability to offer a full suite of assets to a partner that touched both local and global markets would be highly appealing.
“That’s the beauty of what we have available with community, country and global all being part of it,” Clanachan said. “We think there will be great interest for partners to come in and underpin the entire business of the game of soccer in Canada.”
