Quoting this for truth. Late 20s and the girls and guys my age lovvvvve country music. Hamilton has seen its fair share of big acts over the past 5 years.

This is true though anyone who listens to that in Quebec will also listen to anglo country.

In the 80's we had bubble gum pop music. Country fills that niche now.

I could see Hamilton being a popular place for those types of acts given proximity and ease of access for people living in small towns and rural areas in that corner of Ontario.

Final MLS attendance numbers

https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2019-mls-attendance/

18 of 24 teams saw there attendance decrease although one team(Minnesota) moved into a smaller capacity stadium so I guess we can say 17 teams saw a decline.

Attendance was down by an average of over 500 per game...the second consecutive year there has been a decline. Not what you want to see from a relatively new league.

Toronto's attendance declined significantly from 26,628 to 25,048. This despite having a winning record and earning a playoff spot in contrast to last year's disastrous season.

Vancouver saw a massive decline in attendance as well from 21,946 to 19,514.

Montreal had their worst attendance yet declining from 18,569 to 16,171.

So we are looking at declines of 2500 per game for two of the lowest revenue teams in MLS. This is a huge cause for concern.

Forbes just released their numbers for MLS Franchise Valuations.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissm.../#6308d8d151b5

Put simply, Major League Soccer’s surging expansion fees and sales prices are not being driven by financial performance. In fact, although revenues are broadly on the rise, the league and most of its teams continue to operate at a significant loss. But MLS investors are still spending big to secure a share of the U.S. soccer market because their eyes are set on potential goldmines down the road: a new national TV deal in 2023, a stateside World Cup in 2026 and, if everything goes just right, a future American sports landscape wherein domestic soccer can hold its own against the likes of the NFL and the NBA.

And those deals have transpired alongside the rocketing expansion fees being asked from—and readily paid by—prospective new owners. League investors in Cincinnati and Nashville agreed to pay $150 million to join up while planned teams in St. Louis and Sacramento will come on at an expansion fee of $200 million. The next round, for MLS team No. 30, is expected to sell for more than $300 million. That’s triple what NYCFC and Orlando paid less than five years ago, and it’s a staggering 650% increase over the $40 million that the Montreal Impact’s owners paid to join the league in 2012.

Those aren’t the sorts of prices a sports banker would arrive at given the financial performance of a typical MLS team. In fact, we estimate that, of the 23 teams that played in 2018, just six turned a profit (and half of those were just barely in the black). Altogether, the league’s teams lost more than $100 million last year. And MLS is losing even more money at the league level—as a single-entity operation, player salaries are paid through the league office—which means team owners are on the hook for a sizable capital call in addition to the red ink in their local markets.

Toronto's revenue actually decline from the previous year and their losses for 2018 were $19 million!!:help:

Montreal and Vancouver pulled up the rear of the league in revenues, 18 and 20 million respectively.

Montreal suffered a massive $12 million in losses while Vancouver had a more manageable $5 million in losses. Keep in mind these losses are for the 2018 season. Given both teams saw a significant decline in attendance in 2019 and there has been no new significant revenue sources (although selling off Davies will provide a short-term respite for the WHitecaps) this year, it is likely losses will be worse when next year's report is released.

The situations in Montreal and Vancouver and untenable in the long-term. If Saputo cannot come to an agreement for improvements to his stadium and Vancouver is not able to build a new venue for which it controls all the revenues then it is likely both teams will not be long for this country.

One thing that you failed to copy/paste over was MLS' investments in SUM:

There’s more in play than the future of MLS, though. That’s because, in addition to their franchise operating rights, the league’s investors also own stakes in Soccer United Marketing (SUM), the black-box subsidiary that has a hand in managing the commercial rights for almost every major soccer property in North America. In addition to negotiating sponsorship and television deals for MLS, SUM handles commercial rights for the U.S. Soccer Federation, Concacaf and the Mexican national team’s U.S. tours, among other properties.

Forbes has estimated that SUM generates annual revenues of some $350 million, and it’s profitable, too; last year the property distributed $125 million to league owners. In 2017, SUM was valued at $2 billion after MLS bought out the stake owned by Providence Equity Partners (SUM is now wholly owned by the league’s investors). Although SUM dividends aren’t included in the teams’ operating revenues, they go a long way toward explaining why MLS franchises cost so much; in fact, the league’s least-valuable teams derive nearly half their total value from their stake in SUM.

So it makes some sense that MLS owners would invest big in a money-losing enterprise, given that they’re also securing a long-term interest in the continued success of soccer in the North America. That may start looking like a very smart bet in 2026, when the World Cup returns to the United States for the first time since the 1994 edition that fueled the launch of MLS. And although most teams may struggle to break even, there is a glimmer of hope offered by the league’s elite franchises, which are already showing that an uber-successful MLS team can be a license to print money.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissm.../#7310a10251b5

Emphasis added mine.

So the teams are operating on a loss due to investments in sport infrastructure and personnel but the owners are effectively breaking even thanks to marketng and corporate deals which are not included in team revenue reporting.

^ Very interesting re: SUM. I always kind of wondered how MLS franchises were valued at such high numbers when most teams have revenues roughly on the same scale as CFL teams according to the Forbes chart. But that makes it clear that the teams themselves are only a part of the overall business picture.

Been to a few weddings in recent years across the county that really exposed some regional differences in music.

Apparently St Johns and Sherbrook don't do Cadillac Ranch. Their loss. Had enough Albertans at each wedding t pull it off and I certainly enjoyed the confused look of everybody watching.

That is not a good business model if the whole league is depending on a new magic tv deal to survive. I guess they are hoping to pull a WWE who got a giant rich tv deal this year with Fox that is propping up their failing business enterprise with ratings and interest in their product at an all time low but revenue is the best it has ever been with their new fox tv deal.

I hope Whitecaps can get a outdoor stadium and team up with the Lions and get out of BC Place. The BC govt can then make billions from the sale of BC place and the land it sits on.

Boo to that. The province spent half a billion renovating BC Place not even a decade ago... you want them to dump a first class facility like that for an outdoor field which will inevitably be something like BMO?

I do the facility is far too big for both the Lions and Whitecaps needs, downtown Vancouver transit is so bad many fans complain of how hard it is to get into the downtown these days and the reno was not necessary The real estate value of the land it sits on is so prime it would pay for the reno and demolition costs several times over.

What's the break even number for attendance in MLS? Has that ever been firmly established?

When BC place was renovated, everyone was impressed and thought it was a great venue for sporting events. 8 years later and now it's not good enough? What's changed?

Its in great shape and very nice still but at 54,000 seats that's more than double what the Whitecaps and Lions average in attendance right now. The upper deck is always closed off and never used the atmosphere is like a giant tomb. The Lions and Whitecaps really only need a 25,000 seat facility. To me the renovation was pointless waste of $600 million when a fraction of that could have built a very nice stadium for cfl, mls and the national rugby team.

They got bored with their shiny new thing and want another shiny thing?

This time they'll use the argument that the new shiny thing is "right-sized".

It's the same reason they build new stadiums in Atlanta every 15 years - this one will finally be the right-size/right-place/whatever criteria justifies the 'investment' of public dollars.

I am very doubtful a new stadium will be built in Vancouver unless the Whitecaps owners really are serious about building a new stadium which from their frugality owning the team is very doubtful.

interesting stats on how similar MLS team revenue is to CFL teams as CFL teams are between 18 and 42 million as are most mls clubs

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/forb...se-values-2019

https://d3ham790trbkqy.cloudfront.ne...ual-Report.pdf

https://d3ham790trbkqy.cloudfront.ne...port-FINAL.pdf

There was $125 million distributed to owners, so no, many owners are not breaking even. Toronto still lost piles of money and so did a few others.

If ratings don't show a significant increase by 2022, then it is unlikely the league will see a huge tv deal...say $20 million per team. Somewhere around a 150% increase might be more realistic...around $8 - $10 million per team.

It's dependent on how much teams spend on player salaries - that is the biggest variable. Montreal and Vancouver had similar revenues but one team lost $12 million while another lost $5 million.

Of course amenities and control of revenue sources plays a role...and the Canadian dollar. As an example Washington's new stadium seats 18,000 and they averaged nearly that last year and had some of the highest revenues in the league thanks to control to all stadium revenue streams and a large number of luxery seating options. Montreal's stadium lacks high-end stadium seating and revenue streams while Vancouver does not receive any of the concessions. I'm not sure they even receive all suite revenue. No parking revenue around the stadium either.

Thank you as people are missing the forest for the trees with MLS. If you're are a betting person there is more upside to betting on MLS success in 50 years versus the NFL and CFL (if one wants to compare large stadium outdoor sports head to head). Class action lawsuits surrounding CTE could bury both leagues. NFL has hundreds of millions in cash stashed away as a war reserve to fight this future battle, the CFL not so much. CTE soccer wise is oddly only an issue with the woman's game as for some medical reason woman get concussions at much higher rates versus men in soccer.

Also, with MLS salaries the league is set up to central control salary spending so that it isn't the crux that kills teams. If your team makes the choice to load up in high ticket exception players then go for it, but outside of that each time has a balanced salary level that the league covers centrally among all teams. TFC for example has made the choice to blow up salary and has been very candid about it. Fluctuations in attendance could be attributed more to missing the mark on pricing increases more than anything. I think nationwide the economics are not as sound as many think and many families and individuals have been scaling back entertain spending. Every other league has seen weaker attendance here in Canada just like MLS. This problem isn't solely to MLS.

Where teams vary is local revenue potential which is why Columbus for example has been missing a move to Austin as they perceive the ability to make money in that City as limited.

MLS can be viewed as a long term play or a ponzi scheme depending how you look at it. Until rich men are swayed to not want to pay the entry and expansion fee the league will continue to grow. IMO MLS is going to thrive in non conventional markets that are not viewed typically as cash cows, examples of Atlanta a future Austin, Minneapolis and a potential future Boise as these are youthful growth metropolitan areas that don't have the same demographic makeups as traditional metropolitan areas.

Lastly, many teams are dumping money on capital costs such as building elite acadamcy facilities and other legacy facilities to go towards that above mentioned future growth strategy. I view MLS the same as MLB as both have suspect ratings and demographic mapping but if you feel back the layers the business interests of both league are sound with highly lucrative investment and assets. MLB BAM Media makes a boatload of money, and local teams make a tonne of cash of local TV, nationally it's a dumpster fire, but many teams are doing well. MLS will evolve to be the same IMO.

Soccer is still a growth sport domestically here in North America; Baseball, Football, and hockey all have seen declines or stagnant growth in the youth level. Does that equate to ticket buyers and such, it isn't an exact science but if you're looking to dump millions into a sport would you pick baseball, football or soccer if you had the level of resources to make that choice ?

Canadian dollar doesn't mean anything for operations, people need to kill this myth. This isn't the 90s with low ForEx IQ operations being run by many Canadian teams.
These days any Canadian sports operation has sophisticated ForEX that is hedging nonstop to remain equal or ahead of currency fluctuations. There is also the fact that shared revenues are all also paid out in $USD to Canadian sports teams which gives them a slight competitive advantage as this revenue provides an extended top end that funds and pays discounted operation costs that are $CAD. Your staff, cleaners, marketers, etc all are getting paid in $CAD which isn't the case with USA teams.

Where the $CAD impacts Canadian sports is with entry into these leagues where franchise and expansion fees are $USD so the rock bottom deal of $40 million with a near par dollar is much more palatable to Montreal back then versus the $200 million $USD needed now. This is the biggest reason that further Canadian expansion died (thus creating a window of opportunity for the Canadian Soccer League to startup).

The stadium has its own skytrain station it's the car drivers that complain about getting into downtown.

Anyone notice Toronto FC pulled off a worst to first in one season ((without Joey)?

Indeed. SUM is why expansion prices are so high and why teams losing millions a year is fine in the short-to-medium term. As long as marketing and corporate revenues continue increasing yoy the teams can continue operating at a loss.

MLS revenues are posted in USD, so add another 25% onto any revenue you typically see posted. The $18M in revenue for Montreal/Vancouver turns into roughly $23-24M in CAD. Toronto's $43M becomes $56.5M.

Teams will be receiving an additional $1-3M sponsorship revenue in 2020 with sleeve sponsors.

I don't think it exists, mostly because their revenues from corporate and sponsorships are increasing at such a rate that attendances can be flexible, and the new media deal in 2022 will change revenue breakdowns in the medium-term. Teams are building 20K-30K stadiums, so somewhere in that ballpark would make some sense, but I don't think it's a hard requirement.

MLS teams don't live or die on TV ratings (if they did their franchise values certainly wouldn't increase 30% yoy). If we're basing a new TV deal for MLS similar to what MLB received or what the NHL will get then they'll be getting a larger increase than what you're expecting.

This is a point i've tried to highlight a number of times on this forum. MLS is still in the infrastructure development phase and have yet to see the returns on their youth development setups (Whitecaps saw some with Davies, as an example).

I agree with you for that very reason.

Been thinking though... while soccer will certainly grow, and appetites for field sport are likely to remain if the CFL ever dies, would rugby end up partly filling the void in Canada?

I'm not saying it's impossible, but rugby would have a hell of a mountain to climb. Soccer has long been a very widely played game at the amateur level so there is a lot of familiarity with the sport. Football is already fairly popular in Canada, and I'm sure it's wild popularity south of the border probably exposes a lot of Canadians to it with the relentless media coverage it gets.

There is nothing like those things for rugby...it's a bit of a niche sport here in terms of amateur play and at the pro level.

Quite right.

But it's a closer substitute (and ancestor) for gridiron football which makes me wonder if CFL die-hards would embrace it.

As with any emerging sport, I think its best hopes are with younger generations, the kids who are in their K-12 years who are playing the game now or might be in a few years time. They are the ones who could be buying season tickets in 20 years time.

Currently there is on the part of many Canadians an eagerness and curiosity about sports that are "not Canadian", so in light of this fact I would expect rugby to be ascendant for the next little while.

But as esquire says it's got a long way to go before it even reaches the mainstream level that a sport like soccer has attained.

And gridiron football (Canadian or American, take your pick) is on another level beyond that.

You think so? I look at what sports are popular now vs. the ones that were popular when I was a kid in school say 30 years ago, and not much has changed. The relative popularity of some sports may have changed (for instance, basketball and soccer are more popular, hockey at the amateur level a bit less so perhaps due to the cost and relative inaccessibility), but by and large I'm hard pressed to think of "new to Canada" sports that have made huge inroads here over my lifetime.

Rugby is still now, as it then was, a bit of a niche sport popular in certain circles, and others like cricket are still mainly played/followed by ethnic minorities. Others like netball haven't caught on at all.

It's not a collapse, but I am sensing a slow but steady erosion.

I agree.

But if the traditional North American prolate spheroid football leagues face a steep legal cliff sooner rather than later, the disposable income of the "older" generations of fans will be up for grabs.

I think rugby has room for growth in the same way that a penny stock might go up from 10 cents a share to 25 on some rumours. I mean, it could eventually become a heavy hitter in North American sports, but that might be 50 or 100 years from now.

Also, I am not so sure that older generations can be convinced to get into something like rugby. I'm 40 and when it comes to sports I'm set in my ways. Hockey and football are really the only sports that I see myself ever being a big fan of. And even hockey is really only on the list because I have son who plays and is nuts about it... a decade ago I couldn't tell you anything about what was going on in the NHL. I got back into it after many years as a lapsed fan, but I doubt I'd be taking up fandom in any new sports.

I wouldn't say the demise of the NFL and CFL due to class action lawsuits is never going to happen, but I doubt it will be anytime soon. 20 years from now I expect that the NFL and CFL will still be more or less doing their thing as they are today.

It's hard for me to imagine those leagues dying anytime soon, but I think they're coming to a reckoning in terms of how they approach player safety and injury (and are not dealing with them very well yet). CFL is my main focus, NFL is something I'll put on TV and pay a passing interest, hockey is similar to that, and baseball I will watch with other interested people but can't be bothered when alone.

Yet CPL gained my interest fairly easily and quickly... it was a championship game so that's different, but I'm quite curious now. How many more are like me? How might rugby do the same?

I think that its more likely that we would see some signifigant changes to how the game is played rather than anything dying off. That's exactly what drove a lot of the changes to football over 100 years ago. Too many people were getting hurt or dying so they changed rules, added pads, etc. Ironically it may be back towards a rugby style of play. Not that it doesn't have it's own concussion problems but it seems to be a a level less than that of football.

We're right at the first step of that coming to be (if it does) with Major League Rugby entering it's third season and up to 12 teams. I don't think they'd ever catch up to MLS but I could see them finding sustainability at a level similar to pro lacrosse. Another Canadian team to join the Arrows would go a long way to boosting the profile in Canada.

Not to mention the Wolfpack, who just signed Sonny Bill Williams, one of the most famous players of either type of rugby. I'm obviously a rugby fan so I know all about him, but does he have much name recognition to the more casual sports fans here? Most people have at least heard of the All Blacks but probably not specific players? :shrug:

It's tricky because of the split (and associated animosity) between the codes of rugby. Toronto has become a fairly unique city in the world when it comes to that. Canada's amateur rugby culture is like 98% Rugby Union, but it's Rugby League that got to market first, has the way richer ownership, and joined the "foreign big league" that Torontonians love.

So it's already fractured in our largest city. Who knows how it all plays out? :shrug: How either one expands will play a big part. The CPL owner in Halifax mentioned interest in MLR but no idea how serious that is, and Vancouver seems obvious but in-fighting seems to have kept it from happening. Ottawa and NYC are supposed to join the English RL system like the Wolfpack did but don't appear to have billionaire owners.

Football will likely soon have to go the rugby route and get rid of helmets and shoulder pads for player safety and tackling will need to change from collisions to the rugby style of more lassoing a player to the ground in a slower controlled fashion.

TSN NBA Studio crew suddenly back in grade 2 lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ4u9V5bSzI

Don't think i've ever seen Canadian wrestling numbers before, so it's interesting to find these:

https://ewrestling.com/article/aew-w...mackdown-shows

In ratings news in Canada, WWE SmackDown on 10/11 dropped to 201,300 while WWE RAW on 10/14 was up to 294,000 viewers.

AEW Dynamite on 10/16 fell to 108,000 - a 29% drop week-over-week going head-to-head against a NHL Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game.

WWE SmackDown on 10/18 fell considerably to 125,800 viewers, WWE RAW on 10/21 did 169,800 viewers against the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game again, while AEW Dynamite was up to 150,700 against a MLB World Series game.

MLS tv numbers were quite poor this year in the US. It certainly does not bode well for a significant increase in the tv contract in 2022.

https://worldsoccertalk.com/2019/10/...take-nosedive/

TV viewing numbers for the 2019 MLS regular season saw a dramatic decline compared to last year, so much so that the MLS TV ratings slumped 19% while the opening weekend of the MLS playoffs dropped 54%.

For the 2019 regular MLS season, viewership over the 62 televised broadcasts averaged 268,081 viewers according to research from World Soccer Talk. That compares to an average of 332,435 last year for the same number of games, marking a 19.35% decline in viewership across all MLS broadcasters combined — FS1, FOX, ESPN, ESPN2, Univision, UniMas and TUDN.

MLS fans may attribute the dramatic decline to the impact MLS games have with the World Cup as lead-in on the over-the-air FOX network. But when MLS broadcasts from over-the-air FOX are removed from the 2018 and 2019 data, the overall viewing average still dropped 9.4% from 2019 to 2018 (237,517 in 2019 compared to 262,161 in 2018).

While MLS TV ratings continue to decline year over year, the 2019 regular MLS season saw a greater average viewing audience on Spanish-language television than the English-language TV networks. Univision networks averaged 238,000 viewers for MLS games compared to 203,000 viewers on FOX Sports and ESPN combined. Having said that, MLS viewership on Univision networks dropped 17% in 2019 compared to 2018.

The downward trend of MLS TV ratings continues on FOX Sports where viewing numbers averaged 223,294 in 2019 compared to 235,581 in 2016, which is a 5.2% decline.

Any hopes of a TV ratings boost during the opening round of the MLS playoffs failed to materialize last weekend. Out of the six games featured on US television, the MLS playoffs averaged 177,500 viewers at a time when you would expect viewing numbers to skyrocket given the league’s fixation on using a format from traditional American sports. Average viewership for the 2018 MLS Playoffs Knockout Round was 390,750. The decline from 2019 to 2018? The average viewing audience plummeted 54.5 per cent.



HOW DOES MLS FIX THEIR TV RATINGS PROBLEM?
Analysis by Christopher Harris, Soccer media analyst

Unfortunately for MLS, there isn’t a quick fix to their declining TV ratings. The problems the league faces are systemic and would require seismic changes to alter the perception of the league’s lesser quality of play and inconsistent production value.

With the league focusing most of its efforts on generating expansion fees, signing new sponsors and increasing attendance numbers, Major League Soccer has taken “their foot off the pedal” and neglected the league’s TV partners. Instead of, just as one example, focusing on shifting the league’s calendar so the most important time of the season doesn’t conflict with NFL and college football, MLS carries on with a “business as usual” approach.

At the same time, MLS continues to increase the number of teams in the league which has the double impact of diluting the quality of American players across Major League Soccer while making the relatively meaningless regular season even less relevant. After all, when 58% of the teams make the playoffs, what’s the incentive to watch the league’s first five months when teams can go on a winning run in the late summer to qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs.

Nothing seems to change in MLS, and the issues with the league go unaddressed.

SEE MORE: Access our archive of soccer TV ratings from 2007 to present

Another worrying concern is that MLS doesn’t have a solid foundation of hardcore fans who are interested in watching the league on national TV. MLS supporters are more likely to be casual fans, easily switching allegiances to NFL or college football teams when their MLS team isn’t playing. Even when it isn’t NFL or college football season, most MLS fans are disinterested in watching games from the rest of the league. Given that there’s so much of a focus on selling tickets to local games and the relatively poor quality of the league, it’s not surprising that fans of local MLS teams don’t have much interest in watching the rest of the league on television.

While the likelihood of promotion/relegation ever happening in MLS is a pipe dream given the league’s business model, the league needs to address how diluted the product is when you have 29 teams and growing. Ideally, the league needs to consider MLS1 and MLS2 leagues where the top 14 teams compete in the top flight league, and the remainder of the MLS2 teams play in the secondary league with chances to advance to the top tier. But knowing MLS executives, I don’t foresee the league changing anything anytime soon.

It’s more likely that the league will continue to expand until they have 20 teams in the Western Conference and 20 more in the Eastern Conference. Given that generating expansion fees is the number one goal for the league, it’s no wonder that TV ratings are unimportant to them. After all, when MLS TV rights are combined with the U.S. national teams as they have been for years, it means that MLS TV rights are subsidized by the US Soccer Federation. If the MLS rights were uncoupled from the U.S. national team contracts, MLS would then have to sink or swim, and to make serious changes.

To fix MLS TV ratings, fans will have a laundry list of ideas that they believe will help the league (setting up a more consistent TV schedule, TV networks need to advertise more, MLS needs better players, etcetera). However, none of these factors will help because the core structure of Major League Soccer is broken for two main reasons: (1) MLS games are not as competitive as other leagues because the champion is determined in a cup competition after five months of largely irrelevant league games. (2) The quality of soccer in the bottom half of MLS is poor because there’s no penalty or relegation and very little accountability for a team that plays badly in the league.

Meanwhile, soccer fans in the United States have access to better soccer from around the world that’s more accessible than MLS games. As a result, viewers are tuning out Major League Soccer and tuning into other leagues, clubs and competitions from around the world.

Great article that outlines the numerous problems with MLS soccer as it's currently structured. It really appears the bright minds in the league are more concerned with the short term gains of expansion fees and attendance and less concerned with long-term goals like increasing tv ratings, overall competitiveness of the league and scheduling.

Just to add to that, I sensed much less interest in Toronto FC's road to the MLS Cup this year. There was an indication of that on CTV National News last night. I suspect ratings for the FC playoffs and finals will have declined from 2016 and 2017. We should find out in the coming days when the ratings are released.

As a comparison, MLB TV figures are more or less flat and their TV deal extension is a 50% value increase over their previous deal. Next.

Man those are pathetic viewership numbers for MLS for friggin PLAYOFF GAMES! CFL does much better numbers than that on ESPN2.

With Don Cherry fired will be interesting to see if Sportsnet sees a significant drop in subscribers or not as most hockey fans are still mostly old stock WASP white Canadians and might be pissed off from this. Rogers sure has not seen any sort of payoff from their $5.2 billion investment in NHL rights they have basically lost their shirts on this deal and TSN must be laughing at them. Sportsnet is the white old man sports network with Baseball and Hockey and not much else.

Will be interesting to see what they replace Coach's Corner with. I figured last year that they brought Brian Burke in to get him ready to take over that slot when Cherry finally left, but this is probably sooner than they hoped.

Saw some shots from the game in Calgary. Holy empty seats, Batman.

Surprised it took this long to get rid of Cherry. I can't see it making that big a difference in viewership numbers. If you're going to watch the game - you'll watch it with or without Cherry.

Has it never occurred to you that having a pig like Don Cherry on payroll has been damaging to the NHL/hockey and turned people away to other leagues/sports? I tuned out a very long time ago. Firing Don Cherry is too little too late. I'm never coming back and I doubt I'm alone. It's disgusting that it was tolerated in the first place.

I am not a fan of Cherry but I do think he has a large audience in this country. Cherry is a cave man of hockey and has lived off being able to coach Bobby Orr for a few years into a 40 year broadcasting career. I am a much bigger football fan than hockey as hockey parents and the culture of the sport really turned me off the game as a kid it is a elitist sport similar to tennis or golf these days. I occasionally watch the Jets but that's not very often and only because in the winter months it is the only big league sport Winnipeg has going.

I don't know about the last few years, especially with the Leafs resurgence as a competitive team, but it's long been said that HNIC ratings went up as Don Cherry came on. I'm pretty sure that he wasn't in Sportsnet's plans when they got the national TV deal and public pressure caused them to bring him back