That truly is amazing. Cool to see. I’m hoping TSN pulls in better ratings for the games they show compared to SN. TSN is overall a better sportscaster than SN, in my opinion.

Hands down. SN has been around for a long time now but it still feels like they just started up last month whenever I watch them. I really hope the Jets renew their regional broadcasting deal with TSN so I can continue to avoid SN as much as possible...

The Raptors had the 4th highest attendance in the league this past season. Not bad out of 30 teams.

And only 600 a game less than #1, Philadelphia. Both Toronto and Philly played to better than 100% capacity, so it would be interesting to see who finishes ahead if each team had the seats to sell. Of course, Dallas at number 3 played to 104% so they might have been at the top if they had the seats to sell. Chicago, I think, has the largest arena in the league and played to 96% on average. If the Raps still played in the dome though (and still somehow managed to have this team lol), they would have blown everyone away lol.

Saturday:
Bruins/Blues Game 3: 1,685,000 (CBC & SN)
Jays & Rockies: 226,000 (SN1)
Ti-Cats/RBs: 203,000 (TSN)

Sunday:
Raptors/Warriors Game 2: 3,191,000 (TSN)
Jays & Rockies: 312,000 (SN1)

Monday:
Bruins/Blues Game 4: 1,921,000 (CBC, SN, & SN1)

https://brioux.tv/blog/2019/06/04/nu...anley-v-kawhi/

Tom Mayenknecht is reporting 3.8M average audience for last night's Raptors/Warriors Game 3.

Anecdotally, I thought a 9PM EST start on a Wednesday meant it would be easy to find a bar to watch the game at and...at 8:30 it was pretty tight. Managed to squeak a table, but it was pretty busy.

Game 4 Friday night is going to be insane in the various "Jurassic Parks" springing up in various cities. Especially if the weather is nice. Those, and the bars, are the big difference in the ratings. Huge numbers however they are measured, but I think there are a hell of a lot more people actually watching.

Team values are based on more than just TV ratings. The world doesn't revolve only around TV ratings. They're a fun indicator but they only glean light on one small corner of a team's public presence.

MLS team valuations are based on market value, corporate presence, brand integrity, along with all of the other normal sport indicators. TFC aren't valued highly based on their domestic TV ratings or attendance - they're valued highly because they're getting a slice of the MLS pie, and the MLS' market value is increasing on a yearly basis. The league is signing corporate deals in the hundreds of millions, including sponsorship and apparel deals, and owners are willing to spend hundreds of millions to get a piece of that pie via expansion. Adidas signed a deal worth $700M to be the league's jersey provider. Kit sponsors are valued at $2M-$5M per team per year. Things like that are why TFC are valued highly. If owners are willing to spend $200M just to join MLS then that thereby increases the value of the already existing franchises/products to at least around that neighbourhood.

Bournemouth is a good example of how this works. The team only has an 11K capacity stadium and play in a small town and loses money annually, but because they play in the English Premier League they're the 26th most valuable football team in the world.

https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/club-new...football-brand

...as much as I say there's more to life than TV ratings, the Raptors are setting some pretty incredible records.

Monday's Game 5 had an average audience of 6.4M. Breakdown is 3.8M on SN National, 783K on SN1, and 1.8M on CityTV. Raptors games are now drawing Super Bowl numbers (and there's still potentially two more to go).

Game 5 was the most watched program ever on Rogers media.

21st highest viewed sports broadcast ever in Canada (top 10 if not including Olympics).

In Toronto, Sportsnet Ontario had an audience share of 40%. CityTV had an 18% audience share in Toronto.

http://media.sportsnet.ca/2019/06/ra...rtsnet-citytv/

I can't believe how many people I know who watched their first NBA game EVER on Monday night.

Hype is doin' its job!

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.