Canada CPL Travel cost madness ruins the league

Could we please get your save file to look at, thank you. 

 

Uploaded: Carlos Asorey - Pacific FC (v05).fm

Thanks, we'll examine.  

It's worth noting travel costs have always been a big challenge for Canadian sports leagues. There's a reason Brazil, another big country, has a strong tradition of regional state leagues. Even the much smaller Germany initially had regional leagues before the formation of the Bundesliga.

After the winter update, I saw Forge FC had travel costs of about 400,000 euros over a season, with overall expenditure of 5 million euros (over $7 million Canadian). They made lots of money from gate receipts and broke even, but I don't know about the other teams.

For what it's worth, this CBC article says the CPL didn't make a profit from the 2021 season. On average, it cost more than $4 million Canadian to run a CPL team (almost 3 million euros). So maybe these expenditures aren't too unrealistic? The CPL's plan is to slowly expand the number of teams, take advantage of World Cup 2026 hype, and introduce promotion/relegation in the future. I think it's fair to say the current version of the CPL is in a transition state, since they weren't even making a profit in 2021.

But this means the FM23 version of the CPL might be perpetually stuck in a money-losing transition state, which is unfortunate for long-term saves in Canada. So then the question for me would be if the CPL gets a reputation boost as its clubs perform better in continental competitions, and if that reputation boost increases profits, and if the North American Champions League gives enough prize money at the group stage to improve things.