Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
I can't recall where I read it, but there was an article recently that said of the 3 community owned teams (Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Edmonton) that publicly disclose their books, broadcasting revenue makes up between something like 10-20% of their total revenue. I'm sure that figure is higher for most if not all the other teams, but even still... that represents a pretty big hit for a league that operates on a fairly thin margin to begin with.
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Indeed. For the teams that disclose their finances, who are also likely the strongest teams financially, they usually rely on the following percentage of team revenue from the CFL distribution (TV broadcasting finances)
2018:
Edmonton: 17%
Winnipeg: 13%
Saskatchewan: 11%
If I had to guess I would say that TV distributions account for between 20%-25% of total revenues for other teams in the league.
Below is the percentage that gate receipts revenues represent for each of the teams:
2018:
Saskatchewan: 42%
Winnipeg: 41%*
Edmonton: 38%
* "Game revenue"
It's pretty safe to say that if CFL teams played with no fans in the stands that they would be losing a substantial amount of money. What we don't really know is whether or not playing no games at all would be a larger money loser, or whether convening the entire league at select locations and playing that out would be an equivalent losing scenario.
Either way, I agree with esquire's belief that it's looking less and less likely that we'll be seeing any sports with fans in the stands in 2020. At this point i'd be worried about any sports league that isn't a major league moving forward.