Toronto FC Becoming the Benchmark
Copyright Š 2014 by Rethink Management Group, LLC. Some of the descriptive materials and related data in this document contain information that is considered proprietary, trade secret, or confidential to Rethink Management Group, LLC. This information is submitted for use by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) with the express understanding it will be held in strict confidence and will not be disclosed, duplicated or used, in whole or in part, for any purpose other than evaluation of this proposal
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Dec
14
Toronto FC Becoming the Benchmark
Abstract
For supporters of Toronto FC (TFC) these are difficult days. That there have been no playoff appearances in the club’s eight-year history tells its own damning story, and added disappointment no doubt accompanied the club’s latest failure when TFC failed to make the playoffs in 2014, despite carrying the league’s biggest payroll. This high-level strategic plan summarizes the future approach to rebuild TFC and reposition the club at the top of North American professional football over the course of three seasons, and to inculcate a culture of football excellence to make it competitive thereafter.
ABOUT RETHINK Rethink Management Group, LLC (Rethink) is a boutique, football-centric, sports and culture consultancy based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Our clients include professional football clubs, leagues, national federations and investment groups from across the Americas and the United Kingdom. We have a diverse portfolio of consulting experiences and believe strongly in the importance of building lasting, sustainable relationships. Our approach is highly collaborative, designed to build organizational capabilities, increase coherence and improve performance, from visioning through to execution. Rethink is well connected within the football industry and can draw upon a global network of contacts and partners to develop bespoke solutions that deliver real and lasting value.
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Contact: James Easton MA, MBA Managing Director info@rethinkmanagementgroup.com
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Overview
TFC In Numbers SWOT Vision
Mission
Strategic Priorities Last Word
Toronto FC stands at a defining moment in its history: one that offers significant challenges and opportunities. Since joining Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2006, TFC has been held up in almost every way as a model franchise, except that is, where it counts most: on the field of play. In eight tumultuous seasons, during which the one constant has been change — in style, philosophy and personnel — TFC has yet to make it into the post-season and boasts an all-time winning percentage of just 24%. Although fans are understandably vexed by the team’s lack of footballing success, support for the club has remained strong and is perhaps TFC’s most notable storyline. 2014 was supposed to be the year TFC finally turned things around on the field. Three high-profile player signings and a bold pronouncement by management before the season kicked-off that the club would make the playoffs helped to re-energize the TFC brand and served to raise the expectations of the club’s longsuffering supporters. But again, despite some early going success, TFC’s season was marked by chaos and instability, and instead of 2014 being the year the club ushered in a new gilded age, TFC once more found itself out of the playoffs for a record eighth straight time.
Overview
Across MLS, from the Commissioner down to supporters, there is a broad consensus that TFC is underachieving and that the club’s ‘whirling dervish’ approach to building football teams, frantically spinning from one ill-defined idea to another, is not fit for purpose and needs to change, otherwise more testing years lie ahead. The viewpoint that TFC is underperforming and needs to change to tap the club’s huge latent potential is thrown into higher relief by the fact every team in MLS, except TFC, has qualified for the post season at least once in their history, even those, like Vancouver and Montreal, who joined the league at a much later date.
TFC in Numbers: MLS All Time
05.11.06
VALUE
9
MILLION
2006
SEASONS
WINS 62 LOSSES 120 DRAWS 74
COACHES
MILLION
$10
E S TA BLISHED
8
$121
24%
WINNING PERCENTAGE
AVERAGE COACHING TENURE 38.4 GAMES
2013
20,026
AVER AGE AT TENDANCE BEST WORST
FINISH
MOST APPEARANCES
JIM BRENNAN 84 STEFAN FREI 82 DWAYNE DE ROSARIO 76
11TH (2010) 19TH (2012)
MOST GOALS
DWAYNE DE ROSARIO 28 DANNY KOEVERMANS 17 CHAD BARRETT 16
156 TOTAL NUMBER OF
MLS da Can a
P L A Y E R S
7 DP SIGNINGS
BRADLEY
DEFOE
6
FRINGS
22
DE GUZMAN
18 GILBERTO
9
6
KOEVERMANS
14
MISTA
10
60 % DP UTILIZATION RATE
7
39 REPRESENTING
HOME GROWN
SIGNINGS
NUMBER OF HOME GROWN SIGNINGS THAT HAVE FEATURED IN FIRST TEAM
2
6
COUNTRIES
CAPTAINS
BRENNAN, DE ROSARIO, O’DEA, FRINGS, SANTOS, CALDWELL
NIL P O S T- S E A S O N APPE AR ANCES
TFC in Numbers: MLS 2014 Season
41
POINTS WWLWLLLW DWWDDLWD DLLWWLDLLL DWWLLLDL
SUPPORTERS SHIELD
1 2 3 13
SEATTLE 64 LA GALAXY 61 DC UNITED 59 TORONTO FC 41
GOALS FOR
GOALS AGAINST
44
54
GOAL DIFFERENTIAL –10 OPEN PLAY 29
SET PIECES 11
PENALTIES 3
DISCIPLINARY RECORD YELLOW 56
RED 1
OWN GOALS 1
CLEAN SHEETS
6
WINS 11
LOSSES 15 DRAWS 8
POINTS PER 6 3 7 4 6 7 7 1 MONTH AVERAGE PERFORMANCE PER GAME
1.21 POINTS / 1.29 GOALS
48.9% POSSESSION / 78% PASS COMPLETION BIGGEST WIN
BIGGEST LOSS
V. CHIVAS USA
V. LA GALAXY
3-0
0-3
30
IN
TOTAL NUMBER
OUT
3 24
OF PLAYERS USED
DURING SEASON
REPRESENTING
8 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
USA 12 / CANADA 8 / BRAZIL, ENGLAND 3 / GHANA, NIGERIA, SCOTLAND, SPAIN 1
17
%
PERCENTAGE OF PLAYING TIME GIVEN TO CANADIANS
MOST GOALS: 11 JERMAINE DEFOE GILBERTO (7) / LUKE MOORE (6) / JACKSON (4) / JONATHAN OSORIO (3) / DOMINIC ODURO, MICHAEL BRADLEY, NICK HAGGLUND, ISSEY NAKAJIMA-FARRAN (2) / BRADLEY ORR, DWAYNE DE ROSARIO, WARREN CREAVALLE, DONEIL HENRY, JUSTIN MORROW (1)
MOST ASSISTS: 5 DOMINIC ODURO, GILBERTO
JONATHAN OSORIO, LUKE MOORE, MICHAEL BRADLEY (4) / JUSTIN MORROW, NICK HAGGLUND (3) / COLLEN WARNER, DAVID LOVITZ, JERMAINE DEFOE (2) / BRADLEY ORR, JACKSON, JOSEPH BENDIK, MARK BLOOM (1)
$
17
MILLION IN MLS PAYROLL HIGHEST
3DPs
8
BRADLEY DEFOE GILBERTO
TH STRAIGHT YEAR FINISHING OUT OF THE PLAYOFFS
S
W
• TFC’s parent company, MLSE, is one of the largest sports and entertainment companies in North America, and has vast resources the club can draw upon to build technical and positive teams that play entertaining football and that consistently challenge for trophies.
• Failure to qualify for the postseason and constant missteps by management has seen much of the early excitement and goodwill generated by TFC slowly dissipate, replaced by a growing frustration that left unchecked could metastasize into indifference.
• TFC has some of the most loyal, passionate and knowledgeable fans in all of North America who were at the forefront of growing the loud and raucous supporter culture that has made MLS arguably the best live experience in all of major league sports.
• TFC has cycled through nine coaches, four general managers, and three presidents in its relatively short history resulting in a lack of direction; no clearly defined club identity or philosophy of play; low morale; and a poor reputation, both within and outside of MLS, as a club to play for.
• Besides TFC, MLSE operates teams, the Maple Leafs and Raptors, in two other major leagues, as well as the minor league Marlies and an unnamed team to be launched in USL PRO, which presents unrivalled opportunities for cross-learning and knowledge sharing of best practices in the areas of sports medicine and science, performance analytics, on-boarding and off boarding of players, scouting and the like.
• TFC’s current technical staff is inexperienced and unproven at the professional level and possesses little knowledge of the local, regional or national football sportscape.
• In Downsview Park, TFC lays claim to one of the best football training and youth academy facilities in all of MLS.
• TFC prominently employs Canadian symbols — the shadow print maple leaf embossed on the front of the playing jersey and the club’s red and white playing kit — to differentiate itself from MLS’s other mostly American teams and to market itself as having a strong Canadian identity that, as evidenced by the fact only 17% of playing time in 2014 went to Canadian players and that the club employs no Canadian in any senior leadership role, is little more than stylized artifice.
• Toronto is a dynamic, cosmopolitan city that consistently ranks as one of the world’s best: increasingly, a community’s livability is becoming an important factor in being able to attract and retain top talent.
STRENGTHS
• That the seven DPs that TFC has signed to date collectively have a utilization rate of just 60% equates to a poor ROI and points to a systemic failure in how the club identifies and scouts elite players.
WEAKNESSES
O
T
• None of Canada’s three MLS clubs have a particularly strong relationship with the CSA, which presents an opening for a firstmover to work closely with the country’s football federation (and the MLS front office) to recruit Canadian players of a ‘certain threshold’ who are plying their trade abroad to join their squad, similar to the way MLS and the USSF orchestrated the return of Clint Dempsey and Jermaine Jones to Seattle and New England, respectively.
• After missing out on the postseason in each of its first eight years in MLS, TFC will likely face a more difficult task of advancing to the playoffs in 2015 with the addition of two high-profile expansion clubs to the Eastern Conference, Orlando City and New York City, who have invested heavily on players ahead of their MLS debut.
• Due to MLS’s unique salary and roster rules it is possible for teams to quickly go from the bottom of the standings to the top in a relative short period, like DC United did in 2014. • TFC competes in MLS’s eastern conference, which in recent years has been a much weaker, much shallower conference than the west. • TFC plays in arguably the football hotbed of Canada, yet is failing to attract the best local talent in part because of the lack of staff at the club with deep knowledge of the Toronto and Ontario football landscape, but also because of a seeming lack of commitment by the club (and perhaps a degree of hubris) to involve itself in and form close associations with the football community where it is embedded.
OPPORTUNITIES
• The general public is growing increasingly sophisticated and knowledgeable about football and Torontonians now have an unprecedented array of viewing and consuming choices — on television, new media and the like — to follow other top-flight football clubs and leagues besides TFC and MLS. • The CSA and a consortium of investors, a number of who already operate significant professional sports properties, are reported to be planning a new professional football league in Canada that is expected to have a strong Canadian identity and prioritize the development of promising Canadian players. • Outside of the Toronto Argonauts winning the Grey Cup in 2012, it has been more than 20 years since a team from Toronto last won a major championship, and the fear is that if one of the city’s other major sports teams won a championship that it could push TFC off the sports pages and out of the consciousness of Toronto sports fans.
THREATS
Vision
To be the best football club in Major League Soccer, both on and off the field, and set the benchmark standard that other clubs in MLS measure the performance of their football operations against.
Mission
To win matches playing technical and entertaining, high-tempo football and be in the vanguard of growing a deeper, wider and more professional football culture in Toronto and across Canada. Â
The following priorities have been identified to rebuild TFC and reposition the club at the top of North American professional football within three seasons, and to ingrain a culture of football excellence to make it competitive thereafter:
Strategic Priorities
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Put football at the core Establish a football identity Build a club, not just a team Invest in a scouting network Meaningfully focus on youth Aim to play like the academy Build partnerships: one for all
Put football at the core
1
Professional football is a game before it is anything else and improving a team’s quality — tactically, technically and physically — must always be the first and most important element that a club takes into consideration when making decisions. Everything starts and finishes with the football: playing winning and positive football generates high levels of fan and media interest that help drive sponsor and television revenues, which in-turn can be invested back into the club to improve the caliber of play, creating an upward cycle of improvement. The effect is a kind of virtuous circle. TFC must always remember that football is the club’s core activity and underpins everything that it does — from growing its season ticket base, to landing a shirt sponsor, to being able to attract top talent — it all turns on the quality and pure spectacle of the football product. Perforce, TFC must constantly be looking to upgrade the performance of its first-team squad within the limits and constraints of MLS with players who posses not only technical ability and marketability but who also have the adaptability to adjust to the league’s unique features (the wide variation in playing surfaces, the rigorous travel schedule and the like) and the suitability to do well within the club’s system of play.
Establish a football identity
2
All great teams have a clear and consistent football identity that sets them apart from everyone else. Establishing a football identity is set by the club, not the coach, and springs from the club having a well-defined idea about not only how it wants to play, but also be seen to play. This philosophy then gets imbedded into the ‘DNA’ of the club and guides decisions into the future on coaching hires, who must subscribe to the club’s philosophy of play and player recruitment strategy, and whose approach to the game must fit with that of the clubs; as well as gets reflected in the training methods and playing style at the academy level. Since joining MLS, TFC has had a somewhat schizophrenic football identity. Each new season has brought with it a new coaching staff and new ideas about how the club should play and this inconsistency has resulted in a poor track record both on the field of play and in the number of young players who have graduated from the TFC academy to become regulars in the first team.
Build a club, not just a team
3
Traditionally, the coach has been the most important person in the structure of a club’s football operations, responsible for recruiting players, hiring scouts, developing a playing philosophy and the like. However, in the current hire and fire approach that categorizes modern football, where coaches come and go at short notice, often bringing (and taking) with them their backroom staff, such a setup provides for no continuity when there is a coaching change and is not conducive for delivering the long-term goals of a football club. To better align TFC’s long-term strategic priorities and to prevent the first-team squad and the club’s football culture being turned-over every time a new coach is appointed, which are both costly and time consuming, the club’s organizational and staffing structure needs to be changed. Central to this change will be the establishment of a director of football, who will be responsible for ensuring a consistent philosophy and approach across all levels of the club — from the academy, to analytics, to sports science, to recruitment — and who picks the first team coach capable of realizing that vision.
Invest in a scouting network
4
Talent identification has become one of the most important functions of any professional football club becoming even more vital as the game has grown more global and commercialized. No matter the league, it is now imperative for football clubs to build professional scouting departments and expand their network of contacts to identify potential recruits for the first-team as well as find the best emerging talent, and to uncover arbitrage opportunities in the player market. Enlisting the help of former players in the network can also be valuable, as they immediately understand the playing culture at the club and the likelihood that a prospective signing will be able to flourish within it. The future of TFC will rely heavily on work the club does scouting players especially around Toronto and within Canada but also across the U.S., and in Central and South America. Given the fragile existence of coaches in professional football it is vitally important that responsibility for scouting be vested with the sporting director and that the detailed dossiers scouts compile on players be centralized in a computerized database to ensure this information is not lost when key personnel leave. Reducing the impact of organizational memory loss on the culture of the club will increase the scouting department’s effectiveness, help to build continuity, and provide a more secure footing for the club’s technical staff of the future.
Meaningfully focus on youth
5
It is commonly understood that a material investment in youth football can help contain spiraling wage and fee costs and assuage some of the vagaries of the player market. Additionally, a club that builds from within has the option to sell on these players at a later date, sometimes for great profit. Operating a youth academy is expensive, however, and there are no guarantees that a club will ever see a return on its investment. A football club that fails to identify the best prospects or fails to integrate them into the first team is no better, and over the long-term, no better off financially, than one that follows a strategy of only buying established players. The four pillars that undergird a successful youth development program are: recruitment, training environment, coaching and opportunity. That is, for a club to successfully and consistently develop players for its first team it must scout and recruit the best talent; foster them within a state-of-the-art player-centric training setting; ensure they are schooled by an exceptionally skilled corps of coaches who have a proven understanding of elite player development practices and principals; and be committed to given the most promising early opportunities in the first team. TFC is falling short in three of these areas and needs to improve if the club’s academy is to become an incubator of football talent for its first team rather than just an expensive marketing exercise.
Aim to play like the academy
6
Fast, technically-gifted teams infused with a mix of menace and Corinthian spirit that play a fluid 4-3-3, with plenty of one and two-touch interplay, and that relentlessly press their opponents all over the field do not fall unbidden from the sky. Rather, they are built piece-by-piece through recruitment, trades and the development of youth, all of which takes time — certainly longer than 362.5 days, which was the average tenure of TFC’s last eight coaches before the club’s most recent appointment. Professional football is a results driven business and after almost a decade of failing to reach the MLS post season, TFC needs to be singularly focused on making the 2015 playoffs, even at the expense of playing positive, entertaining football. But make no mistake, in relatively short order the club must start producing teams that not only regularly challenge for trophies, but that also play attacking and expansive football. In practical terms, this means moving steadily away from an initial pragmatic approach where the tactical focus will be on conceding fewer goals than your opponent, to one that more closely mirrors the style of football that will be taught at the club’s academy, where the emphasis will be on scoring more goals than the opposition.
Build partnerships: one for all
7
Football is often described as having a pyramid structure, where the game’s professional clubs occupy the top level of the pyramid and an exponentially greater number of amateur and youth leagues, teams, players, coaches, referees and volunteers, who often get reduced to the amorphous category of ‘grassroots’, occupy the bottom. That football is characterized in this hierarchical fashion is unfortunate, as it can lead to some at the top of the pyramid developing an inflated sense of their own importance and a belief that they have no relation or responsibility to any other order within the game but that of their own benefit. TFC is just one member — albeit a highly visible one — of a much larger interconnected and interdependent Canadian football community and the club must fulfill its communal responsibility to work with other interests in the game (CSA, OSA, local clubs) to help grow a deeper and wider football culture in the country. While such an effort should be considered valuable for its own sake, that professional football’s long-run future in Canada is so interwoven with the game’s development at the ‘grassroots’ level, such that the two knit into a common fate, means that whatever TFC does (or does not do) to help Canadian football flourish, it ultimately does to itself.
Last Word
The world’s best clubs successfully counterbalance a relentless drive to improve, progress and innovate to meet the demands of the modern game with an enduring yet evolving core ideology that provides a strong sense of identity and a thread of continuity that holds them together through the vicissitudes of top-flight football. For a club to engage in any type of strategizing activity without also considering the fundamental elements that define its system of ideas and ideals is to deny the interconnected and at times recursive relationship that exists between ideology and strategy making. It is important, therefore, that elements such as playing philosophy, recruitment policy, youth development practices and the like be examined through an ideological lens before deciding what needs transforming, what needs updating, and what can safely be left as it is. Any attempt to deny that ideology shapes strategy (and sometimes vice-versa) runs the risk of creating not a top football club with a defined and observable ethos, but rather one that is awash in a jumble of styles and ideas, the result of which is that no one really knows what it stands for.
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