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12-21-2012, 01:47 PM | #21 |
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There have been times in that clubs history that it had big help from local revenue through things like stocks sales and local taxes. I'm not trying to draw a comparison; I'm just making a point that a local community can maintain a club that it supports.
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12-21-2012, 03:01 PM | #22 | |
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Can you go into more detail on those reasons?
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12-21-2012, 07:55 PM | #23 |
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Two reason for no real professional league in Canada:
1. Available talent (we have a shorter season) 2. Hockey They tried a few years ago, but I don't think it lasted a season. The Can-Am league that plays out of Windsor is full of former minor-leaguers and college players, and I suspect similar leagues exist around the country, but I wouldn't classify it as professional. Currently there is a professional basketball league trying to get off the ground. The Windsor team typically draws 500-1,000. Halifax and London are drawing over 2,000 a game, but again, not much better than a Class A team. |
12-21-2012, 09:29 PM | #24 | |
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12-21-2012, 10:49 PM | #25 |
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That was the ill-fated independent Canadian League of 2003. It was forced to close up shop about half-way through its inaugural season (not all that unusual for an independent league). It didn't help that the Montreal franchise had no permanent home and thus operated as a road team, and with four clubs out west and four in the east, travel was going to be an issue.
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12-21-2012, 11:46 PM | #26 |
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Many provinces don't have a large enough population or corporate presence to support a professional baseball franchise. Many of the more populous areas already have established sports teams. By the numbers you posted above, and with the MLB across the border, a Canadian league could at best support baseball of an A level quality. A Canadian league would not have the financial power to draw players out of major league and affiliated baseball.
Would Canadians watch and support that level of baseball sufficiently to maintain a league when they have access to the MLB? This is something other sports leagues have had to address too. Major League Soccer have done this by allowing clubs to sign marquee players. This has brought players like David Beckham and Thierry Henry to the MLs. This has helped the league increase its popularity but profitability is still a big concern for the MLS. The next issue is whether Canadian players themselves would want to play in a Canadian league. I assume most would rather join a major league organisation and play affiliated baseball with a chance of advancing the ranks than join an independent Canadian league. The Australian Baseball League is another league that has had this problem. They have addressed this by playing in the Australian summer with the season starting after the end of the United States baseball season. This means Australian players don't have to choose between playing in Australa and in the United States. Many Australian players play in both the affiliated minor leagues and in the ABL. Many internationals do too, coming to Australia for the winter league season. This works in Australia for three reasons. #1 The Australian government is a big supporter of sports and provides assistance to the league. #2 The schedule allows for MLB affiliated players to play. #3 The MLB is another supporter the league. Without the support of the govenment and MLB professional baseball would not exist in Australia. Baseball is simply not popular enough in Australia to attract the fans and corporate sponsors needed to maintain a league. That last point, popularity, is what killed the 2003 Canadian Baseball League after only half a season of play. As you mentioned neutral venues and travel were part of that but baseball is not sufficiently popular in Canada to support such a league. The schedule will also be an issue in Canada too. If a Canadian baseball league was to play in the Canadian winter it would compete directly with the NHL. If it were to play in summer it would have to compete with MLB organisations for players. If it were to play as an affiliated summer league the league would lose much of its local identity. |
12-22-2012, 12:23 AM | #27 | |
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I will have a 126-game schedule, but that becomes a big undertaking if I'm planning on managing a team. I'd like to do that, but I don't think I could invest the time over numerous seasons. So we'll see. As far as Canada supporting a league is concerned, my league will start in 1950. So this is long before MLB came to Canada, and it's back when the PCL was a major entity and almost an independent league in a sense. Of course, such a league could never attract even PCL level talent. The question is whether an independent league might have formed to provide baseball entertainment on a relatively low budget and at a lower talent level. There were some regional leagues like this in real life. Mine would involve an assumed national effort with some major startup funding. |
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12-22-2012, 08:30 AM | #28 |
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The answer is definitely yes. If it's not then you wont have a league to play.
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12-22-2012, 10:11 AM | #29 | ||
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So a 1950 league would almost certainly have sought to entry into organized baseball and affiliation for its member clubs. (Only about half of minor league clubs had a major league affiliation in 1950, the rest were independent; the number varied by league, with some leagues having all the members affiliated, others only some affiliated clubs, and some had no affiliations at all. But the leagues themselves were part of the National Association [i.e. were 'affiliated leagues' in OOTP parlance] and thus had protection for their territories and player contracts, with the players being subject to the Rule 5 draft.) ETA: 1950 is a tough year to start with because that's when the crash in baseball attendance started, which hit the minors very hard. The number of minor leagues dropped rapidly in the early 1950s. The majors had to step in a few times to increase the money going to their affiliates in order to keep them afloat financially. Eventually this led to the Player Development Plan of 1963, which resulted in the reclassification of the minor leagues and the minors giving up most of their autonomy in exchange for financial security. Last edited by Le Grande Orange; 12-22-2012 at 10:16 AM. |
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12-22-2012, 12:22 PM | #30 |
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Conferences are useless to me personally when it comes to small leagues, so they're still pointless on my account. But they might be useful or meaningful to someone else.
I think you're neglecting the small, semi-pro minor leagues that have operated in Canada. Someone posted some related links for Western Canada earlier. Those are the sorts of leagues I mean. I'm not referring to better known independents that were part of the more formal minor league circuit. One question, though, is whether regions or settings will be able to replicate how these leagues attracted talent. Most of the players were from the U.S. and had kicked around the minors or were coming from the college ranks. Many were marginal players at best. |
12-22-2012, 05:33 PM | #31 |
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Not if you're interested in keeping your stats differentiated. You can call a subleague in OOTP a division if you want, and practically speaking it'll function pretty much identically.
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12-22-2012, 07:22 PM | #32 |
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Agreed.
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12-23-2012, 02:35 AM | #33 |
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I don't see the point in keeping divisional stats in a 12-team league, but some folks like having that level of detail. I tend to prefer a simplified, old school approach.
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12-23-2012, 12:28 PM | #34 |
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See what you mean Charlie Hough, especially if interdivision play is a mainstay of the league. Almost took that rout for my league. However, for those who do not favor interdivision/league play, then two sub leagues would seem a good approach (keeping the stats separate) as the teams in both divisions would not play each other in the regular season.
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12-23-2012, 04:28 PM | #35 | |
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It's much more plausible that separate eastern Canada and western Canada leagues would have been created, which then agree to have their respective champions play each other. Even the CFL didn't start having regular season east vs. west games until 1961* and the high minors in baseball didn't start becoming more transcontinental until the early 1960s. Given this historical reality (based on geographic realities) the separation of your "divisions" in terms of regular season play and statistics makes sense. *Even with the adoption of a partially interlocking schedule, the eastern and western conferences in the CFL still acted largely independent of each other. The west, for example, played a 16-game regular season while in the east it was 14 games. (This persisted until 1974.) The playoffs were similarly different - the west had a two-game, total point series for the semi-final (later reduced to a single game) and a best-of-three final; the east had a one-game semi-final and a two game, total points series for the final. (The playoffs didn't become standardized until 1973.) |
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12-23-2012, 07:13 PM | #36 |
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This is why my league concept assumes a national approach with considerable financial backing. So there would be a high level of investment to help ensure stability and long-term viability. Maybe tax subsidies from the national government. Or maybe something from private investors. I haven't spent time thinking about it yet.
I have other league ideas as well, so if Canada proves too unrealistic, I might create one in Mexico or the U.S. But the key is keeping it small for enjoyment and immersion. |
12-23-2012, 09:04 PM | #37 |
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I can solve the dilemna.
Go entirely fictional universe and see if that works for you. Create your own region, cities, states etc. If you want to play historical go play historical. If you want to play fictional go play fictional. You are allowed to be a little pregnant with this game. Play it your way and be damned with logistics. Realism is not a requirement for immersion unless you are playing in a real league. Immersion is all about storylines.
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12-24-2012, 12:57 AM | #38 | |
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Even the majors did not become transcontinental until 1958. So there's no way a minor league would in 1950. It makes more sense for there to be separate eastern and western leagues which develop largely independently but later on decide to have their respective champions play each other. (The CFL is really the best model upon which to base a fictional Canadian baseball league. It's something I want to do myself someday.) |
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12-24-2012, 04:11 AM | #39 |
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The only reason the majors didn't become transcontinental sooner is because the owners would not allow expansion. It had little to do with transportation costs.
Let's be honest. The Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles in 1946 and, while they played far fewer games, it meant traveling across the continent to play every road game and opposing teams around the league traveling the same distance to play in LA. Then the 49ers joined the league in around 1950. That added further travel for all involved. Baseball was a much bigger draw and generated vastly greater revenue, so I don't buy the notion that it would be cost prohibitive for it to do the same as the NFL did. In Canada it's a bigger issue because the popularity wasn't there. But the mere fact that baseball didn't allow expansion westward until 1961 doesn't amount to an issue of realism in my mind. I shouldn't have to adhere to the same sort of greed and stupidity that plagued MLB. Things could have easily been otherwise. And the same goes for the CFL and its insistence on sticking with an east/west divide for so long. That smacks of greed and tradition rather than practical realities. For me, realism becomes more of an issue when we're talking about the size of cities and whether enough people could show up for a full season of baseball games. I'm less concerned about travel because teams already traveled by rail for 1000+ miles from the early days. And if city populations in the western U.S. had been greater in earlier decades and the selfishness of MLB owners wasn't so prevalent, I think we would have seen transcontinental play much sooner. Last edited by Charlie Hough; 12-24-2012 at 04:13 AM. |
12-24-2012, 01:48 PM | #40 | ||
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The longest distance between cities in the majors at the time was about 1,200 miles. That increases to over 3,000 miles with Los Angeles. The Pacific Coast League, in order to reduce travel costs for its teams spread along the west coast, used week-long series and had a designated travel day (Monday). As it was back then, major league clubs typically racked up between 8,000 to 12,000 miles of travel during a season, almost entirely by train. Adding a west coast team would have added an enormous amount to that. Quote:
Baseball is completely different. It's played daily, with multiple visits to a city during a season (three or four separate series). To do that with a club in LA or San Francisco would have presented many logistical difficulties. At least two days of travel would have to be allotted when going to and from the coast to Chicago, which in turn likely would have meant only two series, and probably only one, would be played. Not correct on a per game average basis. In 1950, for example, the NFL average per game attendance was over 25,000; MLB's was under 15,000. In 1953 the MLB average club revenue was slightly over $2 million; in the NFL it was just under $793,000. However, that baseball revenue was generated over 77 home games while football revenue was generated over 6 home games. Thus MLB generated about $26,000 in income per game while the NFL generated $132,000 per game. So on a per capita basis (i.e. per game) the NFL had both higher attendance and higher revenue. I trust some of the foregoing data disproves your notion. Last edited by Le Grande Orange; 12-24-2012 at 01:49 PM. |
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