It reminds me of the 1992-93 Blue Jays run. That did a lot to create a generation of new baseball fans in Canada including many people who did not pay any attention to it at all before then... there were probably a lot of minor league teams in Canada from that era that owed their existence to the Jays World Series frenzy and the run up to it in the early 90s.

It will be interesting to see what the legacy of this Raptors season is... I could see something like this putting some wind in the sails of the minor leagues that have popped up in Canada. As per usual U Sports will totally miss the opportunity to capitalize on basketball-mania, though.

CEBL just partnered with CBC to stream all of their games online:

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball...ship-1.5169195

These sorts of things take a decade or so to show up in sport development. Kids that are watching this Raptors run that want to play basketball or are encouraged to play it more now that the Raptors are gaining so much more visibility are the main outcome. Hockey in California went through this with Gretzky and there were kids coming out of the NCAA that started watching hockey in 93, 94, 95 directly because of Gretzky.

Yes, it reminds me of that too.

I am not in the middle of Raptors-mania right now like I was for Jays-mania. For one of the World Series wins I was actually fairly close to "ground zero".

I'm still annoyed that the Expos are not the premier Canadian Baseball team.

Its odd to me that the CBC jumped on the opportunity to pump up a couple of semi-pro leagues while at the same time totally ignoring USports. Now is this USports fault or the publically funded CBC HQ? My feeling is that its a bit of both.

It seems like most U Sport people wouldn't know a microphone or a camera if it hit them in the face. The exception to the rule are the RSEQ people.

Does SN not hold the rights to USports? I'm sure CBC would get on it if costs were low enough.

CPL is not semi-pro, if that's what you're referring to. AFAIK it's fully pro. CBC doesn't exactly have the funding to pursue more valuable assets and if CEBL/CPL are providing the video it's easy enough for CBC to just transmit the video onto their streaming platform. USports, AFAIK, does not have that capability.

Canada West would really like to up their broadcast game nationally but they seem to be stymied by OUA at every turn.

FB live is turning into an easy platform to broadcast from. I just watched the RCN change of command on FB live and former Roughrider PbP voice Rod Pedersen has launched a 2 hour sports talk show on FB live to pretty good reviews. It all looks pretty slick and a decent University broadcast crew could do some real creative work on that platform.

I'm sure the NBL Canada will miss the opportunity to capitalize on Raptors Fever as well.

You can't tell which franchise would have highest attendance based on how far over capacity it is. I'm assuming over capacity is club boxes being filled up rather than people standing in the aisles/concourses. Heading into the NBA Finals, Scotiabank Arena stood at 233 straight sell outs for the Raptors. If the arena held 25,000 I wouldn't be surprised if it still sold out. Raptors ticket prices for the Finals set a league record by a long shot and Jurassic Park is bigger than anything the NBA has seen before. The Raptors receive massive support. Highest in the NBA? Quite possibly.

I didn’t watch it, but CPO1 Michel Vigneault’s wife is a friend of mine.

It certainly speaks to demand. The Raptors intentionally designed the arena to spur demand, which is something that might have been different had the Leafs been involved a year earlier. I think any team in the heat of the playoffs would draw significantly higher than their capacities (I'm writing this while game 7 of the Stanley Cup is on and they are showing the hockey arena in St Louis full of people watching the game on the screens, and thousands more sitting in the baseball stadium in a downpour watching it on that screen). I remember back in the Blue Jays World Series years, they said they could sell 150,000 seats a game if they had them.

HUGE tv ratings from game 6 of the NBA finals... cool to see it was something that wasn’t hockey too... happy it was on TSN broadcast too instead of SN

I agree. I usually prefer SN for most things, but I love Jack Armstrong as the analyst on Raptors broadcasts more than Leo Rautins. Also incredible to see the cross Canada support in the various Jurassic Park viewing parties. I can't imagine another Canadian team in any sport having that happen.

7.7M average for Game 6 is massive. Spread across TSN/CTV/RDS. I think the ABC affiliate in Canada had 300K outside of that number. Toronto & Hamilton were at 82% share on TSN during the game.

Most watched sporting event in Canada in three years, presumably since the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The phrase "Canada's team" gets thrown around too often, but in this case - if it looks like a duck...

It'll be biggest sports story in Canada in 2019 by far, and probably the biggest in the last 5 years at least.

It has been a historic year in sports in general... New England Patriots/Tom Brady being the winningest most Quarterback in history, Tiger Woods winning the Masters, St. Louis Blues first Stanley Cup Championship, TO Raptors first ever title... Pretty crazy really.

According to this Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...asts_in_Canada there have only been 10 broadcasts in Canada to have more viewers than Game 6 Thursday. 6 were 2010 Winter Oympics (opening and closing, and 4 Canada Mens's hockey games), 2 more were the 2002 and 2014 Olympics gold men's hockey games, Game 7 of the Vancouver-Boston Stanley Cup final in 2011, and the 2015 Super Bowl.

This was a fantastic number no doubt about it. It also shows what happens when the huge GTA block gets on the bandwagon. but a little perspective here for the under 35 set.

For someone who has lived through every one of the events noted above, nothing has come close (in any form you want to measure it) to the events below.

"Henderson has scored for Canada"
Bill Brioux TV Feeds My Family September 30, 2012

I’ve been up at the unplugged cottage, sanding and painting, so was not in front of my laptop Sept. 28 to do the 40th annual salute to St. Paul. A few catch up musings:

Henderson’s goal was, without a doubt, the most electrifying thing I ever saw on TV. It is hard to put in context how galvanized Canada was by that ’72 summit series, but we were, coast to coast. As a 15-year-old high school student, it seemed like the Olympics and the Stanley Cup all rolled into one, times eleven.

Just the whole exotic, behind-the-iron-curtain part of it ramped things up. Those last four games in Moscow were seen in Canada in the afternoon.

Johnny Esaw (or Seesaw, as some called him), our Olympic guy before Brian Williams, added an international TV edge. That last Canadian game in Vancouver, so disappointing, found Esaw on the other end of one of the most real and riveting Canadian TV moments up to that point, Phil Esposito’s raw rant at us sucky fans. That was the turning point, the Rocky moment, the wake up call for everybody to find some balls and get behind this team.

There hadn’t been many TV moments like that in Canada before. I remember Judy LaMarsh being caught on camera at the 1968 Liberal leadership convention telling a gaggle of fellow candidates, “Let’s get this bastard”—meaning Trudeau. That was a moment.

Other than that, most of those live, candid TV moments had been American. The ‘60s brought so many—Johnson’s dramatic decision not to run in ’68, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that same year, the assassination, war and race riot reports, and of course, the moon landing.

In Canada, up to that point, the big TV hot button had been the flag debate. Canada was all Hinterland Who’s Who. Gordon Sinclair asking Elaine Tanner on Front Page Challenge if her period got in the way of her Olympic swims was the biggest WTF moment.

The ’72 series gripped the nation because it was hockey, because it was our best vs. their best, because it was a Cold War sub story, East vs. West, their training and system vs. our drinking and taking the summer off system.

The shock to Canada’s pride after that first game was withering. I’d never seen my dad look so ill. Here was our chance to show those upstart Ruskie’s who the hockey boss is and we got our jock straps handed to us.

For many Canadians, colour TV was still fairly new. To see live broadcasts from the Soviet Union added to the mystique.

And then there was Henderson. The straight arrow Toronto Maple Leaf. The helmet wearer. The unlikeliest of heroes.

His three straight game winning goals in Moscow is all he needs to get into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Wake up, HofF dummies.

If you were a high school student, the Moscow games shoved everything else aside. Kids hid tiny transistor radios up their arms with headphones in their ears and passed along scores and penalties row by row. Teachers who caught them would demand they turn their damn radios up.

By the eighth and final game, my high school was one of many which basically gave up. They did the unprecedented--gave us a day off to watch a hockey game. And who could blame them? All of Canada came to a dead stop (even if no one in most of the rest of the world gave a crap.)

There were six or seven of us at my parent’s house on Dundas Street. The Clairtone was new and we were all glued to the game. When Canada was behind 5-3 heading into the third and final period (there would be no overtime), we all felt sick.

It was like being in a tiny life boat in the middle of the churning ocean. The grand old man of hockey, Foster Hewitt, had come back to make this last call and he stretched those Russian names the same way he re-invented Corn-why-eh, but that didn’t matter. Him calling the games also made it epic.

With those seconds ticking down, we were all standing, leading, praying. “Henderson makes a wild stab for it and fell.” You could see those guys were on the ropes with Canada storming back to tie the score. When Hewitt said, “Henderson scores for Canada!” that house on Dundas shook. We all leapt for the ceiling. We ran outside and screamed. It didn’t seem real.

A few years ago when the Canadian men’s team won the Olympic gold medal CTV put out a release stating that was the most-watched TV moment ever in Canada. This is horseshit. There is no comparison.

First of all the new ratings system introduced just prior to the Vancouver Games was still counting goldfish in the next room. Second, there were fewer entertainment distractions in 1972. There was no HBO or TSN or even CNN, just what you could pull in between channels two and 13 on the dial. City-TV was days old and you still needed a coat hanger and some tin foil to pull in their iffy UHF signal. There was no XBox or even a Betamax VHS machine attached to your parent's French Provincial set.

The reality is there was no way to estimate how many Canadians tuned in in ’72. There were no overnights as ratings results came in weeks later. Up until the ‘90s, Global was still taking their Ontario estimate and doubling it to get the national score.

The number, basically, was everybody. You weren’t going to miss this, and you would never forget it. Paul Henderson was our Neil Armstrong, and we were all over the moon.

Not sure the '72 Canada Cup is a fair comparison, since there so much less viewing options for Canadians (everyone really) back then. There were only so many channels, and a lot less entertainment options (sports or otherwise). It was easier to draw the masses in for big events because there was very little to compete against.

It's like when comparisons are made for movie boxoffice and Gone with the Wind is touted as having the largest domestic boxoffice draw (inflation adjusted). It's probably pretty accurate, but it's also easier to accomplish when you're pretty much the only game in town in 1939. Sure, 1972 isn't 1939 - but there's still a big difference between 1972 and 2019.

Now those Raptor ratings - are they including (via some sort of estimation/formula) the large amounts of people watching at Jurassic Parks and arenas/stadiums? And of course, there's internet streaming - which probably accounts for a respectable chunk since the NBA has one of the younger fanbases compared to other sports.

I admittedly watched the ABC feed as I find TSN/SN biased as hell. I did switch to SN when the Raptors won. Would that go down as a view for ABC if I'm watching in Canada?

I don't know if they try to estimate that, or how they even come up with the actual ratings they do now either. I remember participating in the mail in TV and radio diary things years ago, but maybe with digital now, they can tell what people are watching. I would think that the numbers for Super Bowls would be a lot higher if they could count or estimate the number of people at parties and bars watching the game. Same as the 3 hockey golds (even the 2014 when it was in the morning), I bet there as many as people out watching somewhere, rather than at home.

140K was the number of video starts on TSN's official streaming service for Game 6. I'd imagine illegal streaming would be a fair multiple of that. 140K is only about 2% of the total audience which is lower than usual American percentage for sport streaming (5%-10%). Could be that a lot of younger people were physically going out to the J-Parks or to bars to watch the games as opposed to staying in.

Either way, biggest sports event in Canada since likely the 2010 Olympics or, to put it another way: of the last decade.

Breakdown for Raptors Finals game 6:
TSN: 4.9M
CTV: 2.3M
RDS: 500K

English-Canada total for Game 7 of the SCF was 2.6M.

https://brioux.tv/blog/2019/06/15/ct...ratings-glory/

By championships. By win-loss record its Bo Levi Mitchell (0.841); although he lost last night to Ottawa.

If the Raptors manage to get back to the Finals in 2020 it will be interesting to see if those numbers spike higher. This run has tuned in millions of people to basketball that never followed basketball before. Some may not tune in again but the newbies that did might lure in even more newbies. 7.7 million is a huge number for Canada but the biggest was for the 2010 Olympic hockey gold win with an average television audience of 16,674,000.

Game 7 was likely about that range or maybe slightly higher. Either way all of the previous ratings records for basketball have been totally smashed in Quebec.

As a point of comparison, regular season Habs games generally draw between 750,000-1 million viewers in Quebec. Playoff games are between 2.5 and 3.5 million.

It's not impossible that in spite of Raptors fever reaching Quebec that the Bruins-Blues final had higher ratings. I can't find any but in previous years Game 7 of the Stanley Cup on RDS or TVA Sports usually topped 1 million.

Regular season Alouettes games are in the 200-250,000 range. Impact games are a bit lower, in the 150-200,00 range.

When the Alouettes are in the Grey Cup they'll top 1 million. The Grey Cup without the Alouettes is around 150,000.

When the Impact made their Champions League run against Mexican clubs they were in the 500,000 range.

The Super Bowl easily tops 1 million in Quebec.

Grand Prix auto racing generally tops 500,000 even with crappy time slots (Sunday mornings) for most of the races. Races with better time slots can be in the 1 million range.

This may be one where Quebec out-watches RoC. The 2019 Canadian GP on TSN had 531K, and the Azerbaijan GP had 355K on TSN. I haven't been able to find any numbers for RDS to confirm this for sure, though.

We're in the last year of F1 on TSN under the current agreement. Can't imagine it stays there after 2019.

Not sure how much TSN pays for F1 but those are pretty good ratings for the time slots the races are typically aired in.

They are all things considered. F1 has a new streaming service that they've rolled out in countries where their broadcast deals are a bit flexible and allow for it, whereas others like Canada have been prevented access. We'll likely get access to F1TV in 2020. There's a good article on this subject here: https://sportsbusinesscanada.com/f1-tv-pro-canada/

So far TSN & SN haven't shown much interest in outbidding DAZN for properties so we'll see what happens. I would imagine RDS wants it more than TSN given that RDS actually has a studio and commentary team for F1, unlike TSN which piggybacks everything off of SkySports.

They also have a guy who travels the world who covers every Grand Prix on-site, and jumps in on their live race coverage like a rinkside or sideline reporter.

On the other hand. What else are they going to show at those times?

Re-runs of Sportscentre?

Chris Dunne @Chris_Dunne 11 hours ago
Canadian Ratings
Raps Regular Season Average Viewership - Approx 500k (est)
Raps Round 1 - Approx 800K
Raps Round 2 - Approx 1.1 million
Raps Round 3 - Approx 2.1 million
NBA Finals - Approx 4 million (est)
NBA Finals Game 6 - 7.7 million
#WeTheNorh #NBAFinal2019 #Raptors

https://business.financialpost.com/n...e-french-fries

McDonald’s reveals the damage of Raptors’ historic run: more than 2.5 million free french fries

Response to the Ontario promotion nearly quadrupled McDonald's forecast, totalling more than half a million in the playoffs alone

...

McDonald’s chose to partner with the Raptors, and not the Toronto Maple Leafs, because they thought Raptors fans were more inclined to use the app.

“The Raptors demographic and fan base is much more digital native than say a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs,” Chuck Coolen, head of marketing for Eastern Canada, told the Financial Post earlier this month.

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseba...-historic-lows


Yes, as Canada Day weekend approaches, the Blue Jays are midway through one of the worst attended seasons in franchise history, with their struggles at the gate mirroring those on the field.

Through the 38 home dates thus far, a disheartening run of baseball in which they’ve struggled to a 13-25 mark on their own turf, the Jays are averaging a mere 20,420 per game.

That’s already the third worst in Rogers Centre history, but well within range of eclipsing the low-water mark of 19,173 set in 2010.

Perhaps more stark, the current average is less than half the 41,878 that filled the aging dome as recently as 2015, the first of back-to-back seasons in which the Jays led the American League in attendance.

---------

Not overly surprising given MLB's cyclical nature.

Attendance Averages so far:

College Wood Bat Summer Baseball

Wheat City Whiskey Jacks (Brandon, Manitoba) - Expedition League : 347
Thunder Bay Border Cats - Northwoods League : 826
Victoria Harbourcats - West Coast League : 2,381

Western Canadian Baseball League attendance link:
http://baseball.pointstreak.com/atte...seasonid=32263

Independent Baseball

Winnipeg Goldeyes - American Association: 3,625 (5,705 in 2012)
Ottawa Champions - CanAm League: 1,586
Quebec Capitales - CanAm League: 1,460
Trois Rivieres Aigles - CanAm League: 1,326

Canadian Elite Basketball League is averaging roughly 1,658 people per game according to user ThatOtherGuy on CEBL's reddit page. It's going to be tough to sustain a cross country league with those kind of numbers.

Wow it’s hard to believe interest in baseball has declined so much in TO, especially in such short time, since its highs in 2015, its trended down every year since... will baseball survive in TO? especially with TFC and MLS soccer becoming so huge, it seems fans are taking advantage of so many more options in TO.

with the continuing increase in immigration to canada's major urban centres it really feels like the old traditional sports in canada are in decline or dying ie: hockey, baseball, and football while basketball, soccer and even cricket and rugby are growing in popularity.

The Jays have done zippo to capitalize on that 2 year run in 2015-16. They brought in the Cleveland crew as President and GM, who have also done nothing to endear themselves to the fans. Alex put together a winning team for the first time in decades and then he's gone. People were pissed. The new guys had no personality, certainly not like Beeston and Alex.

Rogers is also way over extended on that ridiculous NHL rights deal that they can't afford to do anything with the Jays. What happened to the big renovation at the dome, which was one of the main reasons Shapiro was brought in (due to his experience re-imagining the Indians ballpark)? They are cutting salary wherever they can (hell, they even fired their premier media personality in Bob McCown). Fortunately they are only just above a third of MLSE or that parade last week would never have happened either. Blue Jays attendance history has shown that they draw well when they are competitive, and they don't draw well when they aren't (outside of the obvious novelty of the early seasons, in that crappy stadium). But this is the problem when a public corporation runs a sports team. An owner can tell his baseball people to ratchet up the spending and make a run and it's his or her money, not affecting shareholders.

If the Jays are above .500 crowds are fine. MLB is cyclical in nature and that goes for gates, too. It's a baseball-wide issue and less a Jays issue regarding getting people out to games. I don't see it as baseball declining in interest in Toronto - it's mostly just the team being actually dreadful.

Other teams will get squeezed out of the market before the Jays are. Junior hockey has already been squeezed out of Toronto.

Weird how that same logic doesn’t apply to CFL. Argos are dreadful and the crowds reflect that. MTL is dreadful and their crowds reflect that. BC has been dreadful and their crowds reflect that. But people say it’s because interest is in decline in those cities, that people are interested in other sports, namely the massive interest TFC and MTL have had in TO. Those 3 cities have had mediocre to poor performance on the field for the last number of years, and their attendance is simply a reflection of that.

Expect the jays attendance to dwindle in the coming years too due too poor performance, but people will always reason it is simply due to poor product on the field. That logic simply does not suffice for the CFL tho, apparently.

The Argos won the Grey Cup in 2017 but sure, they've been dreadful. :haha:

If your baseball team is bad you have 80+ dates to fill, back-to-back and half through the week. There's going to be holes. On the flip side, if your football team is bad, you have eight/nine dates to fill, mostly on weekends.

It's almost certainly a factor of:

• The teams being bad (relatively speaking);
• Lack of interest in the sport either as a whole or vis-a-vis NFL;
• General CFL demographics;
• Crammed entertainment markets.

Hamilton failed to sell out their Friday night, Canada Day long weekend game and they're undefeated and absolutely smacking teams. I don't think this has much to do with whether the team is good or not. It's mostly about providing an entertaining product. :shrug:

Jays attendance has already dwindled down likely to its floor. The team can't get any worse than it is right now.

The difference between the Jays and the CFL is that the Jays don't rely on gate receipts as heavily as CFL teams do - their revenues are more weighted on both corporate and broadcast, meaning that smaller crowds don't necessarily hurt the team as much as they would hurt a CFL team.

This is only strictly looking at physical crowds, though. There are obviously other ways to gauge revenue generation beyond simply butts in seats. Baseball's in this weird spot right now where they are going to have to come up with ideas on getting people out to games, changing the schedule, or altering the sport to continue garnering interest. It's quickly losing ground on others.

That's the thing with the Jays... as bad as their attendance is, they still get roughly 5k more attendance per game than the Argos - and do it across 81 games. It's much easier for the Argos to have higher attendance since they have a much higher chance at making the playoffs - especially with how bad the East division normally is. The Jays could essentially be out of playoff contention with half a season left - so that's about 40 home games of trying to fill seats to watch a team that has no hope.

And as mentioned, the Argos won the Grey Cup twice in the last 7 years, and won just 2 years ago. Losing isn't the problem - it's the product.

From that article:

“From a business perspective, we try to understand the fans. We don’t get focused on (team performance.) It’s more on (finding a way of) impacting fans in a positive manner and looking for ways for the fan base to be excited about the environment.”


lol what?! If the team is not competitive and they are playing in the 2nd worst facility in all of MLB, it is pretty hard to impact fans in a positive manner. Oh, and having ticket prices that actually reflect the demand in the market would help to. Miller and Shapiro have failed badly at this. $120 for seats by the foul poles, $70 bleacher seats (probably the worst bleacher seats in all of baseball) for a Canada Day game that may have its worst attendance since the days of Exhibition Stadium. It's reveals how badly they gauged the market or perhaps they are completely out of touch.

Many of their games are outrageously priced despite having one of the worst lineups in MLB. It will be interesting to see if they will drop prices for most games next season or if they will continue to live in denial about the lack of demand. It will also be interesting if Rogers will put pressure on them to sign some free agents (unfortunately with Shapiro in charge that likely means signing some over-the-hill player or a player who had those one or two good seasons a few years back with the hope of him rediscovering that magic on a "value contract) to bring the team back to the realm of "competitiveness."

If they just continue to rely on value signings and draft and develop strategy, it is likely the attendance will decline to 15,000 next season.

TFC attendance has declined the past 2 seasons. Not one sellout yet this year. When the team isn't very good attendance suffers. It is quite apparent MLSE made a mistake in expanding BMO Field to 30,000. The demand for the product does not warrant it.

Sorry but that is poseur BS, the "product" is a lot closer to the NFL than TFC is to the EPL, and I honestly don't intend to demean TFC with that, just the poseurs. The Argos have had some crazy disconnect with Toronto in the past decade, they did outdraw TFC for the first ten years of their existence.

Berkie, you posted that I get upset when people don't like what I like, that's not true, I get upset when non sports fans use the bullshit "not the best" argument. That screams to me, not a fan but a water cooler talk wannabe who doesn't have enough scope to enjoy sport at all levels. You sure as hell wouldn't see an American football fan doing that.

I don't think interest in MLS soccer is that high in Montreal. Average crowds have declined by nearly 3,000 this season and their average currently sits at 15,000 - among the worst in MLS. This is with a winning team in second place and fairly cheap tickets too. Summer crowds will help a bit, but not that much...maybe boost the average by 1,000. The owner has lost tens of millions on the team (he lost 11 million last year alone) and if he doesn't get the needed improvements to Saputo Stadium in a few years, the team is likely off to the US. There are many markets there with concrete plans for state-of-the-art soccer specific stadiums.

That's what gets me, there are tons of people who could care less if the Argos failed, the oldest pro franchise in North America (or something to that effect) and even worse some campaign for it to fail. I can't understand that. I would never want the Impact to fail and I don't have much interest in following MLS regularly.

I don't understand the 'competition' (for lack of a better word) between the various sports leagues as if they're interchangeable.

I can like leagues X, Y and Z. Liking X doesn't preclude me from liking Y or Z. Nor will league X failing cause its fans to immediately jump ship to Y and Z.

I can like both the sushi place and the steakhouse in my town. They compete in the sense that they're restaurants, but I imagine they each have a clientele that may (or may not) have taste overlap.

^Yup