If anything I think it shows that the CPL crowd is more motivated and galvanized at this stage. The MLS games are mostly pointless aside from a Canadian Championship qualifying with the MLS season jumping between different formats and places. CPL has a set tournament style that's pretty easy to follow.

It also should be noted that CBC is more accessible than TSN when comparing the two.

TFC games versus MTL/VAN aren't really competitive. I don't blame people for not tuning in. The CPL winner versus (probably) TFC will be fun, though.

This.
I've been saying for years that one of the reasons why CFL viewership has dropped is due to the exclusive TSN control and its limited reach.

Wouldn't it be nice if CPL was more popular in Canada than MLS and its Van/Mtl/Tor crying to be let in?
Dare to dream.

What do you mean by "not really competitive"?

TFC is the best Canadian team by quite a fair margin. They shouldn't have much issue with either Impact or Whitecaps. TFC likely playing the CPL winner will make for the best viewing this season.

This isn't conceivable since MLS teams are single entity and owned through MLS. The teams would sooner be re-sold and moved to the US - AFAIK they cannot be transferred to a different league.

Either way, MLS teams would not benefit from moving from MLS to CPL as things currently stand. CPL would have to become wildly popular and MLS would need a significant decline for this scenario to make any sense whatsoever.

I don't know what is meant by this. Any given team can beat any other team at any time. MLS is not that unbalanced a league.

Yes, I realize that TFC are having a decent run right now.

AFAIK the three teams are sanctioned by the CSA yearly, it would be interesting if they ever didn't sanction the teams, not likely, but IIRC Montagliani did proffer a mild threat concerning the ratio (or lack thereof) of Canadian players.

Even at the best of times cable TV had a 20% lesser reach than OTA. Factor in cord cutting and cord nevers and the discrepancy is only growing.

It could conceivably happen that the CPL could become more popular than MLS (we have to distinguish between popularity and financial value).

Aside from each team's own area, what cross Canada support/appeal does MLS have? They are in a conundrum where there are at the same time too few and too many teams. While you can arguably make the case that both the NHL and CFL have a "Canada's team" and by default so are the Jays and Raps, MLS lacks this dynamic. TFC at best could capture the huge GTA market but they've already grabbed the brass ring and attendance started to decrease right after they won. IMO the honeymoon is over for MLS in Canada, you might see a surge if either Montreal or Vancouver are close to the prize but I really don't see where the growth will come from in Canada.

Agree. There was a good 10-12 year stretch where I had no access to CFL at all but could watch all the US football I wanted. I had no interest in any of the other programming which came with those cable packages so I would have, essentially, been paying $40/month or $480 annually just to get CFL games.

I eventually moved into a condo building which came with cable. I started watching CFL again but lots of people likely moved over to the NFL/NCAA when it moved to TSN. I know 'football' people in Toronto who've never watched a CFL game and would have trouble naming all the teams.

I'd curious as to which teams you think are Canada's teams in the CFL and NHL.

Coming from a resident of Calgary.... Stamps and Flames

The more I look at the men (there're all men) who make the decisions in the CFL the more I'm convinced they are obtuse idiots when comes to making smart decisions on marketing and broadcasting the best game of gridiron football on the planet.

That was a slight strong-arm move from Montagliani using the CONCACAF logo in his signature to bully MLS to update their player ratios and classification which was 100% justified given how Canadians were treated by MLS franchises. I don't think any of the MLS teams in Canada were at any threat of removal or relocation over this.

All i'm saying is that TFC games against VAN/MTL aren't all that compelling because they're more-or-less expected to win. CPL games are pretty parity-driven aside from Calgary or Hamilton matches. There's obviously still parity in MLS matches but just looking on paper TFC shouldn't be having any issues with the other two Canadian teams as things currently stand.

Slightly OT for this thread, but:

https://mediaprocanada.tv/en/news/ca...orts_in_the_us

Canadian Premier League's Island Games To Air on Fox Sports in the US

A total of 23 first-stage games will be broadcast across FS2 and Fox Soccer Plus, with live coverage beginning last week. The first game, the fixture between Pacific FC and York9 FC, was the highest-rated program of the day on FS2.

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Granted, FS2's schedule is filled with a lot of re-runs of borderline niche sports, but still good to see Canadian content broadcasting abroad. The big thing in this agreement is the Caribbean gaining access to CPL matches which is a pretty big market for players and fans. This is in addition to broadcast agreements currently in place for India and parts of Africa for the Island Games.

via @SportsnetPR: Raptors/Celtics games six averaged 1.6M viewers.

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Raptors second round game 7 last year against Philly had a 2.2M average so we're mostly right in line with last season.

Bit lower than I thought they'd be. Friday game tomorrow should get good numbers, but I don't know why the times are switched with the West coast teams playing at 6:30 before Raps/Celts.

My first thought was because they were trying to avoid an NFL game Friday night, but Kickoff game is Thursday. Perhaps they're doing it so Jokic fans in Serbia can watch the game at 0:30 instead of 3:00 :)

Are you ready for some footbaaaallll !!!

It's good to have football back - especially with fall-like weather kicking in much earlier than normal.

Last night’s NFL season kickoff game between Kansas City and Houston has set a new record for most-watched Thursday Night Football season opener, attracting an average audience of 904,000 viewers to @CTV and @TSN_Sports, an increase of +15% over last year. https://t.co/3Py7NiWpvg

Via @TSN_PR

Also, "4.5 million unique Canadian viewers tuned in to watch some part of the Chiefs’ 34-20 victory."

Nice, and Thursday nights games aren't generally as liked by NFL fans to begin with for some reason.

I wonder how many were like me and were watching for free with an antenna.

I wonder how many watched the first few minutes to see if there would be an anthem protest or how an Argos crowd looked in that stadium before moving on to something else.