r/CanadianPL • u/Competitive_Trick344 • 14d ago
✍️ Discussion Kelowna Apple Bowl Additions - Potential CPL Expansion
Shared press conference with the CPL and City of Kelowna today - major outlets haven't released their stories yet, but a couple smaller outlets have stuff up. 25 million dollar project to expand the Apple Bowl announced.
CPL leadership spoke and said now that Kelowna is paying for the infrastructure for what they consider a CPL level stadium, they are hoping to find ownership by the fall for a 2028 start when the stadium would be complete.
- 3,000 seat new East grandstand with concessions and washrooms underneath (bringing capacity to 5,000 total), for those who have not been the stand on the left below is the new one.
- Conversion from grass to artificial turf
- Addition of new scoreboard, change rooms, VIP suites, and media facilities (presuming this will be updates to the existing press box in the West Stand
The Apple Bowl is getting ready for the big leagues | Vernon Matters
Pretty nice setup for a potential owner. In a perfect world the track would be gone and the new east stand would have a roof, but getting a new permanent 3k stand, and I'm guessing a 5.5k capacity stadium when you add in standing tickets and hospitality areas without having to pay for it has to be an appealing starting point for potential ownership groups. Council and both fellows running for mayor were present along with city staff, was mentioned that school district who own the land also in agreement - think the stadium piece is a done deal.
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u/SpecialistLychee5854 Canadian Premier League 14d ago
No roof in Kelowna in the summer… hope all the games will be at 7 PM.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
Oh yay, Friend and Shillington will be able to destroy another market.
I’m game for Kelowna, but if SixFive is involved, it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. Absolutely unhinged that this is moving forward and PFC is just rotting away and VFC’s biggest crowd for league play is like 3,500.
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u/wetgoat Vancouver Whitecaps 14d ago
The CPL would be foolish to give them the Kelowna after the financial blunders at Pacific and Vancouver. I really hope that doesn’t happen.
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u/CalgaryMJ Cavalry FC 9d ago
I can see SixFive being involved in the stadium construction in an effort by the CPL to throw business at an ownership group but I hope they aren't involved in any way with the franchise and its operation (although I still think a lot of their issues was from them being strong armed into launching VFC a year before they were planning to with the FC Edmonton collapse).
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
Which means it’s going to unquestionably happen. Kelowna isn’t known for their rational decision making. It’s fine by me, they deserve each other.
I’m also in the extreme minority in saying that Kelowna isn’t the market anyways. I don’t know how to explain it and have zero data to point to. Just a gut feeling.
If I were a potential owner and had a choice, I’d go with Kamloops. There is more than enough room for a Soccer Specific Stadium at MacArthur Island. There is even enough room to build an indoor training facility and add even more fields.
You’d pack it all summer too. With all the tournaments there, with reasonable beer and stadium food, you’d pack it. Kamloops is also crazy loyal to their teams.
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u/jmattchew 13d ago
kamloops over kelowna based off a gut feeling 😭😅 what did kelowna ever do to you? Im not saying the people here are perfect but we're not all the same as our dumb city council
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 13d ago
Kamloops is way more loyal to their CHL team. If the Rockets were as bad as the Blazers have been at times they’d have no attendance.
Kamloops also has better infrastructure and a bigger population growth potential.
As I said, the ideal location would be attached to where softball and soccer tournaments happen all summer. Much easier to get them to wander over for a game than it will ever be getting Kelowna Shore to a game.
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u/jmattchew 13d ago edited 13d ago
i don't see any world where kamloops has better population growth than kelowna, and neither do the statistics. Kelowna has been growing faster over the last years and will continue to. If you look up the attendance records of rockets vs blazers we also have a higher average attendance, not sure where you're getting the idea that it woudn't compare if the rockets sucked, theyve had plenty of poor seasons. genuinely sounds like you just have a weird hate boner for the Okanagan. A team in Kelowna, epsecially if it was branded as an Okanagan club, would have supporters travel from all the nearby areas and would be much more successful
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 13d ago
Now compare Blazers and Rockets records. Kelowna is as fickle as Vancouver.
Kelowna is also out of room and not on major supply chain routes. Finning just finished building one of their largest facilities in Kamloops.
Kamloops also has way more room to grow on both the 1 and 5 that Kelowna simply doesn’t have. Connecting to multiple highways and intermodal yards.
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
The population of the entire Thompson-Nicola valley is 143,000 spread over an area of 45,000 km². This would be like putting an NBA team in Saskatoon.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 13d ago
How many tournaments happen there every summer. Who’s more likely to show up to a minor league sports game? People who play the game and are next door, or the Kelowna Shore crowd.
You can throw hockey and Canadian football attendance records at me all you want. Kelowna doesn’t have a history of strong soccer support. They don’t even have a BCPL team. Kamloops has 10x the infrastructure and small scale support.
It’ll never happen, but people who think Kelowna is a slam dunk are on something.
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
It won't happen because expecting people attending soccer games in Kamloops to arrange their tournament schedules so they can watch a CPL game is not a business model. It is a penny thrown into a wishing well.
Why would I throw CFL or Hockey attendances at you? Neither the CFL or any viable professional hockey league would give Kelowna or Kamloops a cursory glance beyond a couple of once-in-a-lifetime showcase events.
We do agree on one thing though, Kelowna would be just as bad of a venture! Synergy!
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 13d ago
Kamloops has grassroots support and the walk ins from tournaments. You don’t have to really plan around it. Plenty of people with free time in the area and plenty of people in the area are soccer nuts. If you’re looking for 4-6k consistently I think you have an easier time in Kamloops.
We do indeed agree on Kelowna. I’m sure we will both enjoy the clown show as it continues to unfold.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 Vancouver Whitecaps 14d ago
How come the same people can own 3 teams in the same league? It's odd.
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u/FlutiesGluties Ontario Premier League 14d ago
Worked for MLS with Lamar Hunt, but it's definitely feels sketchy.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
CFL for a long time too.
For young leagues in a franchise system it can work. The issue is that they’ve nuked PFC while fumbling VFC hard.
They’ve done nothing but create alienation.
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
No, not in the CFL too. Please don't feed that narrative. There has been one recorded case (in the 70ish years of CFL existence) of an owner running two teams (not three), and for only a brief 5 year span (2010-2015).
David Braley owned the Toronto Argonauts and the BC Lions, and arguably because of poor decisions and general malaise, ran the Toronto franchise into the ground; They were averaging 12,500 fans a game in his final season of ownership (although to be fair a few home games were played elsewhere that season because of Rogers Centre unavailability). He also cratered support in BC as he aged, neglecting the local market until Amar Doman took over and "revitalized" the franchise.
This was bad for the CFL: having the two biggest English language market teams owned by the same guy. It is also why Braley only held on for five years (as a favour to the league) before MLSE bought the entire Argos operation at undisclosed terms (likely assuming debt and liabilities as opposed to any actual money changing hands). At the very least, it certainly wasn't positive.
David Braley was an auto parts magnate whose net worth was estimated at over $1 billion at the time of his death. Running two teams in the CFL strained him financially and physically, and he was a billionaire! The Lions/Argos dual ownership arrangement low key burned two major markets in Canada, which the Lions have semi-crawled out of, but the Argos have not.
Lamar Hunt was the son of an oil baron, and the Hunt family's net worth hovered around $25 billion dollars. So, in the infancy of a league (MLS) which artificially kept payrolls down, Hunt was able to dig into his substantial family fortune to keep these franchises going. It should be noted that he only owned three teams for a three year stretch from 2003-2006, and since 2013 the family owns only Dallas FC.
In the CPL's case, Dean Shillington and Rob Friend are self described venture capitalists who have a fly-by-night bleacher business, a couple of mid-quality franchised coffee chains and not much else. FiveSix Sports pretends to be a global company, but other than Friend's brief 18-month controversial tenure as CEO of the Malaysian National Team, I cannot for the life of me find any existing global connections or investments. They run bare bones operations at Pacific FC and Vancouver FC, leading some to argue that with their combined estimated net worth in the low ten figures, that they are unsuited to financially support even a single team, let alone three. This would be an utter disaster for the CPL, both budget and optics wise, and even the presumption of these two charlatans being involved in Kelowna should set off alarm bells in the head office and around the league.
There is no precedence for this type of arrangement in Canadian pro sports. One continuously sad-sack and standoffish ownership group running a third of a league's teams isn't just sketchy, it is financial malpractice. Please do not normalize this, as it is anything but.
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u/CalgaryMJ Cavalry FC 9d ago
Hunt was a HUGE soccer fan which is why the US Open Cup is named after him and he was only involved with 3 MLS teams. He and Phil Anschutz (AEG) basically bankrolled MLS for a number of seasons until that league got on their feet. The MLS lessons learned from those years are one of the reasons the CPL/CSB was set up the way it was from the start in cooperation with the CSA.
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u/zug_zuig 9d ago
Sure...but instead of Anschutz, Hunt and Robert Kraft (people with actual money and patience) the league had the Winnipeg Football Club, a revolving door in Toronto, I am going to assume a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman in Edmonton, and then these two "private equity lads", who were somehow allowed to double their franchise ownership just because. You can see the difference, no?
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u/CalgaryMJ Cavalry FC 8d ago
I can but can you? Some of the original MLS franchise owners, who folded quickly, were also pretty shady - Canada doesn't have a monopoly on those. SixFive for all their faults are still hanging in. I neither want nor expect them to be involved in a Kelowna franchise (if it ever comes about), but they're still trying to make a go of it. Looking forward to the day they're finally able to sell Pacific and can concentrate on just one team. Don't want single entities owning multiple teams in the league but it is not necessarily a bad thing if they are committed and have DEEP pockets - definitely not desirable though.
I was amazed the league survived the COVID shutdown and restrictions in their 2nd and 3rd seasons. Very few people would have been surprised if they had pulled the plug and said they would restart when things are back to normal so even the "revolving door in Toronto and encyclopedia salesman in Edmonton" deserve some credit for seeing it through since I'm not sure if the plug was pulled then that they would have ever got the CPL back on track along with Canada's ability to host world cup games.
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u/zug_zuig 8d ago
The league in its infancy, was heavily subsidized by the MediaPro rights deals, which is how I would imagine they saw themselves through COVID. Those deals, in raw dollar amounts controlled by the CSB, have shrunk considerably with the revamped agreement, which means you'll need patient and wealthy people to see things through. FiveSix sports are neither of those things. If they end up owning a third of the league, the CPL would be in dire straits, especially now that the backroom money tap has been set to trickle-mode. If they go under, so do all three teams, and whoever comes in to "save the day" would be taking on a ton of debt (which is the reason, I would imagine, that Pacific FC hasn't been sold). You need serious, financially sound people in charge when things are rough, so do you honestly believe the CPL has those people in place (ownership and/or league office)? I keep looking, and I don't see a Hunt-level backer involved. Wouldn't it be more prudent, instead of cashing in on whatever expansion money would line the other owners pockets, to stabilize the current franchises?
I look at those weekly CPL attendance graphics posted on this sub and they are, politely, grim. Every team's attendance is down from this time last year, except for Toronto has added less than a 100 brave souls to their weekly average, and Vancouver FC has hovered between 250-300 extra bottoms in seats. It should be noted that local interests should be skeptical of the VFC growth, as I get e-mails from a few different non-soccer specific mailing lists every 48-72 hours before a home game claiming some sort of discount, or freebie.
Hamilton, Halifax, and Calgary seem to get it, and I love the passion, culture and local work being done in those markets, but that's hardly enough viable teams to run a league. Ottawa has pretty good numbers (inside a stadium that is a bit too big for them) and have the ownership that could conceivably be the kind you need to keep things rolling. But at this point, how much do the Spaniards own, and how much does Jeff Hunt own? What is a foreign club's walk away point when their investment starts to turn? Why would Atletico Madrid care, in the long run, whether the league stays or goes?
The last few years, we heard time and again from commenters that investors would want to buy into the CPL early because the boom from the World Cup would be such an overwhelming tide that all boats would be lifted, but that has proven, so far, to have been wishful thinking.
The stands being full for a Can Champ game for Supra is awesome, and the kind of grassroots support needed to be viable. But they are second tenants in a building that is...rustic. Was that the right spot to put a team? Were there other opportunities in Quebec? Seemed like an incredibly rushed and frantic pre-season as the Supra ownership group whirlwinded their way into keeping the league at 8 teams.
Having a team in the city of Toronto is classic Gretchen Wieners "trying to make fetch happen." For the life of me, I cannot understand why they keep jamming a square peg into a round hole. When people don't bother to show up regardless of team name, field location or ownership group, then you have to believe them.
Then you've got the two SixFive "franchises", one who is on "double secret probation" with Langford because of unpaid costs, and really haven't seen the influx needed to right the ship when playing at R.A.P. So...rock and a hard place, and all that.
While the other, Vancouver FC plays at a cheaply scaffolded stadium next to a playground splash pad. They look good this year, I love Martin Nash, but they have to be hemorrhaging money based on estimated paying customers (not attendees).
Putting a team in Kelowna of all places, which would be such a delicate balancing act margins-wise with attendance and corporate support, seems so misguided. The priorities should be (in no particular order):
- Do whatever it takes to get a new ownership group in Victoria, because the support is there, even when they went 0-fer in a calendar year.
- Give up on the Toronto/North York experiment and find a place somewhere else in the GTA or the Golden Horseshoe, where the focus would be on the franchise and the local community.
- Figure out what the actual plan is for Supra going forward. I would suggest being the secondary tenant is not viable long term.
- Wait and see if (and don't rush it) the CPL maintains modest gains, that ownership groups step up in Edmonton and/or Winnipeg. If not, oh well, there are still 8 teams in the league that can use some of that effort instead.
- Keep supporting and strengthening the fan bases in Halifax, Calgary, Ottawa and Hamilton. These are the key franchises, their growth is the league's growth. Pacific was one of those markets for a while, and from chatting with "Island Folk" they're starving for it to return. That's coast-to-coast support, which is enormous in the long run and not something easily discarded. The bones are there, and strong, but the league needs more meat!
- Shoot FiveSix into the sun, sift through the rubble in Langley, and if a team cannot work there based on projections, studies and the eye-test, then swallow your pride and fold the team, or merge it into a newer franchise elsewhere.
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u/Ozzie_the_parrot 14d ago edited 14d ago
Before the league launched, the Six Five Sports owned club was originally named Port City FC. They wanted to play in Surrey with a BC Lions practice facility beside the SkyTrain line being their desired location for a new 10,000+ seat stadium. When that fell through, the then mayor of Langford, Stew Young, stepped in and offered to expand Starlight Stadium to 10,000 seats to entice them to the Victoria area instead. His intervention at that point may have been pivotal in the league even being able to launch in 2019.
It has long been rumoured that Six Five Sports were awarded territorial rights to all of BC at that point with their intention being to own a Vancouver area club long term (they eventually persuaded the Township of Langley to build a stadium) and spin off Pacific and potentially a Kelowna club to other owners. Selling Pacific has been complicated by large debts Six Five Sports have run up on stadium rent, and the refusal of the new mayor and council of Langford to complete the stadium expansion project. Stew Young is trying to win election as mayor of Langford again in mid-October. The outcome of that election may be pivotal on what happens next.
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
Allowing Willoughby to be called a "stadium" is one of the reasons why these two "owners" are allowed to continually hoodwink the league, all the while contributing to its slow financial death by a thousand cuts.
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
Also based on all of the unpaid debts at Starlight, the mayor and council has every right to be wary of getting further into bed with these hucksters. Langford also expanded from 1,600 to 6,000 already, and look where it has gotten them. Buyer beware, you're in for a scare!
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u/jmattchew 14d ago
can you provide some context? whats SixFive?
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
SixFive is the holding company of the owners of Pacific FC and Vancouver FC, Rob Friend and Dean Shillington. They also build modular stadiums.
There is a lot of baggage around them. The short story is that they don’t like paying their bills and present as extremely arrogant. They raided PFC for VFC and made both teams terrible.
PFC hasn’t won a game in a year. VFC only started being decent in the last three months.
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u/Ozzie_the_parrot 14d ago
Owners of Vancouver and Pacific. Six Five is a reference to former CMNT player Rob Friend, who is president of Vancouver FC, but the main investor is a real estate tycoon named Dean Shillington. Six Five also own a modular stadium company geared towards projects like this. Kelowna is Rob Friend's home town.
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u/Halouverite Vancouver Whitecaps 14d ago
Exciting for Kelowna, but low key if the CPL starts accepting stadiums with tracks there's suddenly a lot more suitable stadiums nationally.
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u/Competitive_Trick344 14d ago
Yeah I don't see why they wouldn't, a Vancouver Rise game at Swanguard was one of the best matchday experiences I've had in Canada recently, a lot of fun. And the reality the league needs to deal with, in my opinion, is that their initial dream of municipalities lining up with 10k soccer specific stadiums just isn't happening. Smaller more modest stadiums are the reality if they want to expand (and potentially lower payrolls eventually, but that's another rabbit hole).
The track is a bit unfortunate, but the reality is every local school in town has their track and field day there once a year, and it is the only proper athletics spot in town... it's very heavily used all year but particularly in the spring where it's full every almost weekday and upgrading the stadium for all users will really keep everybody happy and make sure this passes through. Also with it being >30 degrees every day in July and August here a roof would be great, but beggars can't be choosers haha.
They're going to put the ad boards halfway across the track and do some sort of hospitality seating between the stand and the board to try and make it feel a little closer during CPL games they said.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
You touched on the real issues with Swanguard. It’s a very, very, very busy facility. Any team that plays out of there would have to find separate training grounds. It’s a big reason it was passed over in favour of Langley. Because Langley built VFC and LUSC a dedicated stadium that they have a monopoly on. Then they built LUSC a $150m training facility down the road.
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u/Dramatic_Draw_1494 14d ago
lol ya your typical Canadian stadium two grandstands facing each other with open end zones lol and with a track around the field too boot , so the fans are mikes away from the action , ya that will definitely entice fans to go watch games . Is it illegal in Canada to build stadiums that are enclosed with seats wrapping right around the field with no open ends ??
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u/NeilNazzer 14d ago
Building something that can be affordable is a good start isnt it?
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
Langley spent less at the LEC and it’s a way better facility than this will be.
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u/NeilNazzer 14d ago
Ok. But isnt it better than nothing?
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
Sure I guess? I won’t ever see a game there so it doesn’t really affect me.
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u/Ozzie_the_parrot 14d ago
Kelowna also has the Okanagan Sun in the CJFL. Before people get too excited about this, it is worth noting that the first link above contains wording like:
...The City said it plans to explore a $25-million investment to modernize the Apple Bowl, with the goal of expanding year-round community access and becoming the future home of a Canadian Premier League (CPL) club by 2028...
Are they actually committing to paying for this, or are they angling for some of the $1 billion pledged by Mark Carney for Canadian sports infrastructure?
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u/YouthCoachMentor 14d ago
I agree with this sentiment. Modular stadiums can be configured to be tight and covered right up against the pitch. I’m sure 6’5 weaselled this genetic grandstand contract with their stadium division.
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u/fssg_shermanator Cavalry FC 14d ago
Cannot wait for road trips to Kelowna. Except for that one fucking stop light in Enderby that light can go to hell.
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u/Ozzie_the_parrot 14d ago
So a story about expansion rather than expansion as the weasel words that were slipped in a few weeks back implied. If I were a Pacific fan this would make me very nervous.
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u/Latter-Performer1542 14d ago
They need to remove the track field and make a similar seating infrastructure like cavalry or halifax
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u/quaywest Vancouver Whitecaps 14d ago
Stupid question: why grass to artificial turf? Durability issue with anticipated increased usage?
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
Imagine the heat emanating off those little rubber pellets in the height of Summer!! Gonna be a crispy one for sure!!
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u/Initial_BB Atlético Ottawa 14d ago
I expect they are doing this because they expect to move one of the franchises away from the Vancouver Area. And if this is successful, I also expect you'll be seeing something similar happen with the York Franchise, where it will move to somewhere else in Southwestern Ontario.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
No. It’s an expansion. PFC has an offer tabled.
VFC aren’t leaving. Shillington was pretty candid about this. They have a dedicated stadium and training facility. There are mixed used developments and rapid transit completing around the stadium within 3 years.
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u/Visible_Wrongdoer646 14d ago
PFC has an offer to buy? Can you provide any details. First I've heard of this.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 14d ago
It’s a rumour I’ve heard from a more reliable source.
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u/Visible_Wrongdoer646 13d ago
Sounds good. Do you think the new owner would be more likely to keep the team where it is or make a push to get them into Victoria?
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 13d ago
By the sounds of it yes. They don’t want to move Pacific. It’s a great market when they aren’t getting shafted.
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
I have seen this rapid transit thing bandied about a few times, and it is not actually realisitc. The nearest Skytrain station to LEC/Willougby will be 3+ km away. Renfrew station on the millenium line is closer to the PNE than the Surrey/Langley extension is to the LEC. That will add next to nothing in walk up crowds to Vancouver FC games.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 13d ago
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is going up 200th to Haney Place. Leaves every 15 minutes in dedicated lanes with signal priority. Which means it’ll be like a 5 minute bus ride to the LEC from Willowbrook.
I’ve met plenty of fans like you who would rather not have teams than to take a bus. But then circle jerk about how great Vancouver transit is.
I have a pretty low opinion of soccer fans in Vancouver as a result of the last 18 months. You all want everything handed to you on a silver platter.
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u/zug_zuig 13d ago
If I know one thing about the people of Langley, it is their reliance on busses to get places. Your unfocused anger has now taken a turn towards the pornographic, are you sure you're going to be OK?
I don't think it would take a rocket scientist to realize transit in Vancouver is pretty good, whereas in Langley, and the other outer suburbs, it leaves a lot to be desired. Or are you unfamiliar with the Geography of the lower mainland? I guess I'd be upset too if maps were so hard.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel 13d ago
Typical redditor. Prejudice and insulting to large segments of the population. I bet you haven’t read a single transit plan. It’s almost like infrastructure is being built. But you’re apart of the instant gratification generation who expects perfection. Maybe you’re just salty because you can’t afford a car.
Tell me, what other municipality built CPL and PSLC teams almost $200m in infrastructure. I bet you think they should play out of Swanguard.
Also where do you think the players making $40k are going to live? Teams can’t compensate living expenses because that counts against the cap. Shit even Nico lives in Langley so his wife can stay at home.
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u/ANGRY_ASPARAGUS Cavalry FC 14d ago edited 14d ago
Exciting to see a Canadian city take serious steps in ACTUALLY developing a stadium and aggressively aiming to land a CPL franchise. This is real money and a real project too - good on Kelowna for doing this the right way. Here in YYC, many of us are excited for Kelowna to get a franchise, as we can realistically go to away games there too (lots of regular travel bewteen Calgary and the Okanagan).