Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872449)

You didn't have much to say about this post.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872449)

How about doing us a favour and mensching up about why you want to kill the CFL.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872449)

It's not going to affect MLS attendance in any way shape of form so why fear it?

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872449)

Do you really think people are so stupid they can't recognize your constant insidiously negative CFL posts and shots. Why the fear?

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872451)

This constant belief that i'm a pro-MLS, anti-CFL guy is pretty remarkable.

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872451)

I asked you for bright spots in my previous post.

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872451)

Again, show me some positive CFL attendance numbers

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872451)

So, will your reply attack me again or will we be able to have a constructive conversation on this topic without slinging mud?

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872465)

You better get your prescription checked if you missed the fact that most of my post was proof of good attendance.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872465)

I did, do you need a magnifying glass? Do you want me to repost with a larger font and bold?

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872465)

Just answer a few questions and man up. Do you want the CFL attendance to improve or die?

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872465)

Don't give me any garbage about studying trends and crap.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872465)

If you lie and say you want it to improve then how do your backhanded remarks and poorly disguised shots help with that end?

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872465)

And secondly as an MLS guy, are you still a mod in charge of this section? It's like having a wolf in charge of the henhouse. I'd like to know before I get banned.

Originally Posted by Toronto Sun

But the game also provided evidence of some of the challenges facing a league that has roots dating to about 20 years after Canada was born. After growing steadily in the post-war years until the late 1980s, and a disastrous and failed expansion into the United States in the early 1990s, the CFL bounced back thanks in large part to a national broadcast deal with TSN.

But Montreal’s season-opener, which was more than 3,000 fans short of a sellout, was emblematic of troubling recent trends. While attendance has been excellent in Hamilton’s new stadium, in back-from-the-dead Ottawa and in always-reliable Saskatchewan, the country’s largest markets — Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver — have all seen sharp declines of one sort or another in recent seasons. Even in Calgary, where the Stampeders were historically good in 2016, attendance lagged behind 2015.

Add in the surprise departure of commissioner Jeffrey Orridge this spring, who was only two years into the job and whose split was only ever explained as being over “philosophical differences” with the league’s board, and it’s fair to ask of the one pro-sports league that is unabashedly Canadian: Should the CFL be worried? Or are these just headwinds that the venerable league is figuring out how to overcome?

First, a couple of statements of fact before the discussion. One, the situation in Toronto is so different than anywhere else in the CFL that it merits a separate examination. The Argonauts were thought to be on a short path to an Alouettes-like rebirth with their move to BMO Field last season, but instead attendance was alarmingly poor, the team stunk, and the whole football-operations staff was eventually blown up. But we will leave that for later.

And two, the CFL is in no kind of crisis. The league still has five seasons, including this one, left on a $40-million-per-year broadcast deal with TSN that almost on its own allows clubs to cover their biggest cost: Player salaries. There are dozens of baseball, hockey and basketball teams in the big North American leagues who would love that kind of financial security.

But consider the scene in a Toronto hotel conference room late last year, as Orridge had a state-of-the-league town hall with die-hard fans, the kind wearing vintage CFL jerseys and hardhats with sirens on them and home-made coveralls that said, “Our Balls are Bigger.”

They had questions: What was the league doing about attendance declines? What about attracting younger fans? And the question no one asked: What happens, as the broadcast industry loses cable subscribers, if TSN eventually wants a cheaper deal? What happens, in other words, if the league’s biggest tentpole is chopped down?

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872525)

General trending in sports media right now is that TV deals aren't going to be great sources of future revenue increases as TV numbers and markets are tapped out.

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872525)

Borderline offensive if I was someone who actually had to take prescriptions for any sort of condition.

Originally Posted by Berklon (Post 7872665)

Streaming has been HUGE for movies/TV, but always lagged in offerings for sports... forcing many to use illegal streams instead.

In this particular case Canadians are offered all pre-season, regular season and post-season games... no blackouts at all... all for $20 a month.

I think we'll be seeing increased competition for someone to try to be "the Netflix of sports".

Originally Posted by Denscity (Post 7872733)

21000+ at BC Place last night for the Lions Blue Bombers game. Still small but 2000 larger than the Lions home opener versus the Eskimos. And what a game!

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872610)

So that basically kills what all you MLS guys are hoping for, a big US network contract like the big boy leagues.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872736)

18,000 as financial breakeven point

Originally Posted by Denscity (Post 7872733)

21000+ at BC Place last night for the Lions Blue Bombers game. Still small but 2000 larger than the Lions home opener versus the Eskimos. And what a game!

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872739)

Do you know if they are they opening up the upper deck this year or is it still the lower deck? Everyone is saying it was a great game, I missed it, so I'm heading over to TSN Games on Demand to catch it.

TSN Games on Demand Lions vs Bombers

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872838)

It's almost as if you want to see the MLS die or something.

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872838)

Is there a source on this by any chance

Originally Posted by GernB (Post 7872858)

Still just the lower deck so far.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872890)

Did you read my post?

Originally Posted by Cam Cole

If a team draws 20,000 per game nine times, at an average ticket price of, say, $60, that’s $10.8 million from ticket sales. If the average price is $40, that still $7.2 million at the gate alone, before any other revenue is counted.

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872900)

You posted attendances and capacity utilizations, then claimed that 18K was the breakeven point for CFL franchises. You haven't really provided any sourcing or information on this and i'm genuinely curious if this is a hard figure or one you've pulled out of thin air. I can't find any confirmation of that figure anywhere.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872906)

I never pull anything out of thin air unless I preface it by saying it's my opinion. I've been in the Internet wars too long to post anything I can't backup without third party corroboration.

I'll give you a clue, it's the original post you ignored because it was positive news.

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7872911)

I haven't actually been able to find Madani's statement on the 18K. Could you provide sourcing?

Originally Posted by mistercorporate (Post 7872920)

Elly63,

I don't have a horse in this race, but i really think you're mischaracterizing JHikka here. He is very much a neutral. A fan of the NHL, the CFL and soccer in general (particularly the Ottawa Fury IIRC). JHikka is well known on this forum for providing attendance figures for various leagues. He's even butted heads with me when i was particularly harsh on some CFL fans. Anyway, there's lots of people like that (FrankieFlowerPot is another one), who debate with people on both sides (Frankie is both a TFC and Argos fan).

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872739)

Do you know if they are they opening up the upper deck this year or is it still the lower deck? Everyone is saying it was a great game, I missed it, so I'm heading over to TSN Games on Demand to catch it.

TSN Games on Demand Lions vs Bombers

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7874679)

Argos win on last play of game, people go home happy.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7874707)

Remember when the CFL was the second highest rated sport behind hockey before the Blue Jays had their big run. Well it looks like the Jays are finally coming back down to earth.

Originally Posted by snowmobile (Post 7874767)

If those numbers are true, the jays have lost almost half their viewership in 4 months of ball. It took the CFL 5 years to drop from a mill per game to now around 550,000.

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew (Post 7875183)

LOL at comparing the entire CFL numbers to the Jay's numbers.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7874707)

WEDNESDAY July 19
Blue Jays at Red Sox SN 715k
Alouettes at Redblacks TSN 460k (not including RDS)
Whitecaps at LA TSN 90k
TFC at New York TSN 75k

THURSDAY July 20
Blue Jays at Red Sox SN 650k
Eskimos at Tiger-Cats TSN 520k

FRIDAY July 21
Blue Bombers at Lions TSN 650k
Blue Jays at Indians SN 570k

SATURDAY July 22
Roughriders at Stampeders TSN 690k
Blue Jays at Indians SN 520k
Colorado at TFC TSN 40k

SUNDAY July 23
Blue Jays at Indians SN 570k
Portland at Whitecaps TSN 65k

I am reposting these numbers, can't confirm the source yet.

Originally Posted by esquire (Post 7875201)

:???:

I think you misunderstood something. If you go by elly's numbers, individual CFL games are roughly on par with Blue Jays games in terms of viewership.

Originally Posted by esquire (Post 7875201)

:???:

I think you misunderstood something. If you go by elly's numbers, individual CFL games are roughly on par with Blue Jays games in terms of viewership.

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew (Post 7875183)

LOL at comparing the entire CFL numbers to the Jay's numbers. And what about when Hockey starts up in 2 months, say goodbye to CFL numbers to our NHL teams. The Jays still out perform most MLB teams in numbers even when they are in a slump.

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot (Post 7875229)

Well - there's also the fact that the Jays play 162 times vs 18 times for a CFL team

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew (Post 7875183)

LOL at comparing the entire CFL numbers to the Jay's numbers. And what about when Hockey starts up in 2 months, say goodbye to CFL numbers to our NHL teams. The Jays still out perform most MLB teams in numbers even when they are in a slump.

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot (Post 7875229)

Well - there's also the fact that the Jays play 162 times vs 18 times for a CFL team

Originally Posted by mistercorporate (Post 7874750)

So you're comparing the viewership of one team vs a whole league? The Jays play a gazillion games a season. No CFL team comes close to their totals, you know that. I also thought you wanted to avoid the whole league vs league nonsense? People like myself who are soccer fans have refrained from posting one sided comments about the Argos even when they were going through their worst moments, whether through photos or attendance stats, the only person on this thread continuously beating a dead horse is you. Most of us have moved on from the league vs league crap, maybe it's time for you to move on too.

Originally Posted by snowmobile (Post 7874767)

If those numbers are true, the jays have lost almost half their viewership in 4 months of ball. It took the CFL 5 years to drop from a mill per game to now around 550,000.

Originally Posted by cjones2451 (Post 7875314)

If you look at history, CFL viewership does not go down when the NHL starts up, most people are done with summer and watch more TV.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend (Post 7875159)

The Blue Jays bandwagon is huge. Once the team starts losing, a lot bail out pretty quickly. It turns again from Canada's team to Toronto's team.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7872922)

Google is your friend.

Originally Posted by Calgarian (Post 7875326)

30 000 for a game in Calgary is pretty good, can't really expect much more than that...

Originally Posted by snowmobile (Post 7875621)

Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking. He was referring to the cfl numbers not averaging 1 mill

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7875580)

Tried that. Found zip. I can't be bothered to go through eight years of Twitter feed to find one tweet that may or may not exist.

Originally Posted by elly63 (Post 7875729)

It exists all right, if you don't want to believe it that's your problem.

Originally Posted by Andrew Bucholtz

Let's take a look at what the Argonauts' finances might be. The team is privately owned (split between Bell and Larry Tanenbaum's Kilmer Group), so their financial reports aren't public, but as we've done in previous years, we can get an estimate of what they're making and spending based on CFL finances that are publicly reported. There are two important numbers that we do know; the salary cap ($5.1 million this year) and the league dispersements to clubs (mostly revenue from the TV/radio/internet rights deal with TSN, but some other things are included in this; this was $4,204,850 per club in 2015, as shown by the Eskimos' financials.) Thus, each team will likely get around $4.2 million (maybe more; it was $4,344,817 in 2014) from the league, and they can pay a maximum of $5.1 million in salaries to players (with some caveats: for example, players on the six-game injured list don't count against the cap). So, even if the Argos spend right up to the cap, the biggest loss they could have from player salaries versus TV revenue would be only $900,000.

What are the Argos' other costs and revenues? Again, the Edmonton example may prove instructive, especially considering that Edmonton has generally been the lowest of the three teams that do report their finances. The Eskimos reported operating expenses of $22.8 million in 2015 (and operating revenues of $24.8 million, giving them a $1.6 million profit). For comparison, the Bombers reported operating revenue of $28.3 million and operating expenses of $23.9 million (a $4.4 million profit), and the Roughriders reported operating revenue of $39.3 million and operating expenses of $42.7 million (a loss of $3.4 million, which expanded to a loss of $4.3 million after adding in donations, rent and investment value changes) It seems likely the Argonauts' expenses aren't much beyond Edmonton's, especially considering that the Eskimos have heavily invested in football operations in recent years.

What about their revenues? Well, we don't have enough information to really understand where they stack up in a few areas, but they may not be that different from teams we do know. Toronto's probably below Edmonton in merchandise sales (the Eskimos had $1,683,445 last year, a substantial rise over 2014), but they're not necessarily as far behind in sponsorships ($4,502,647) or concessions and game-day revenues ($3,993,919; yes, the Argos have had less people at their games than Edmonton, but they also may make some money from pre-game tailgating sales). That's all hypothetical, though. One area where the Eskimos certainly were ahead is in postseason revenue; they hosted the West Final and made $1.7 million off that, while Toronto didn't host a postseason game. Another area we can examine in more detail, and the only one that's directly related to attendance, is gate revenue.

The Eskimos brought in $8,620,735 in pre-season and regular-season gate revenue last year (for comparison, Winnipeg brought in $9.8 million and Saskatchewan brought in $15.7 million), and had a regular season home average attendance of 31,517, which would multiply to a total attendance of around 283,653 across nine home games, plus 11,825 from their preseason "home game" in Fort McMurray for a total attendance of 295,378. That means Edmonton brought in average revenue of $29.19 per ticket sold, which seems reasonable: some seats are cheaper than that, some are more expensive, and season ticket savings affect this. The Argos' season-ticket pricing looks a bit more expensive than the Eskimos', and their single-game tickets also seem a little more expensive, so we can probably assume that they're making at least as much per seat sold as Edmonton and perhaps more. That gives us an opportunity to estimate gate revenues for the Argos under a few conditions, as seen in the following sheet:

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/mn...enues-2016.jpg

There are a few key takeaways from that. Even under the most favourable assumptions here (an average attendance that rises to 18,000 and revenue of $35 per seat), the Argonauts' $6.2 million in gate revenue would still be $2.4 million behind Edmonton, and they'd be $3.6 million behind Winnipeg and $9.5 million behind Saskatchewan. So, poor attendance certainly does hurt them. However, even under the least favourable assumptions here (an average attendance that plummets to 14,660, the current average discounting the home opener, and revenue of $29.19 per seat), Toronto still pulls in $4.3 million from the gate, and while that would put them $4.3 million behind the Eskimos, that isn't necessarily disastrous.

Remember, Edmonton made a profit of $1.6 million in 2015 and had $8.6 million in gate revenues; they also made $1.7 million from hosting the West Final, but spent $2.6 million on hosting and playing in the West Final and playing in the Grey Cup. Thus, if all other factors are held even, a CFL team that doesn't compete in the postseason would only need would need about $6.1 million at the regular-season gate to break even. Under the least favourable conditions here (presuming other areas of revenue and expenses are similar), the Argonauts would lose $1.8 million on the season. Under the most favourable conditions here, they'd make $100,000. Of course, this comes with caveats; we're presuming that the attendance figures are accurate, that the numbers of free tickets given out aren't significant enough to really tank the per-seat revenue, and that Toronto's other revenues and costs are in line with Edmonton's. Still, there's a way this team could even be profitable if they manage to boost their average attendance to just 18,000 and their revenue per seat to $35.

That's also before you consider that the Argos are hosting the 2016 Grey Cup, which is a big money-maker. Hosting the Grey Cup gave the Riders $9.3 million in profit in 2013 and the Bombers $7.1 million in profit last year. Thus, the Argos' losses this year should be more than covered by Grey Cup profits. Those profits should also provide enough money to hopefully cover losses for several years. Now, those profits certainly won't cover the team's losses indefinitely, and the league can't just keep handing Grey Cups to Toronto (which will have had two in five years now) to prop up the franchise, so the team does need to improve its attendance in order to become stable.

The Argos have deep-pocketed owners who appear to be in this for the long haul, though, and the attendance really isn't calamitous. It's well below other cities, sure, but it's a big gain over last year's 12,430 (affected by moving home games thanks to the Blue Jays playoff run), it's not far below their 17,791 in 2014, and it's not necessarily far from what the team would need to become at least revenue-neutral. There's reason to believe they may be able to get there some day, especially if they start winning at home. Someone who might help there is...

Originally Posted by Andrew Bucholtz

3. Attendance in Montreal and B.C.? The CFL's other biggest cities have also come under fire for poor attendance, placing second- and third-worst respectively with average attendances of 20,191 and 20,715 respectively so far this year. However, estimating their gate revenue according to the process above (taking the average attendance, multiplying by nine home games, adding the preseason attendance, and multiplying by the average of $29.19 Edmonton made per ticket) gives $5.7 million for Montreal and $6.0 million for B.C. That's below the estimated $6.1 million gate needed to be revenue-neutral (excluding playoff revenue and costs), but it's also not disastrous, and it's much better than the situation in Toronto. The actual situation might be better for them too, as their per-ticket profits could be above $29.19. Those attendances could still be improved, of course, but it's worth pointing out that this is becoming less and less of a gate-driven league thanks to the new TV deal.

Yes, gate revenues are still the biggest source of revenue (and even bad ones are above the estimated $4.2 million the league's handing out to each club annually), but the amount of TV money coming in makes it possible to be close to revenue-neutral even with lower gates. For reference, an average attendance of 20,997 per regular-season game plus 20,000 at a preseason game, at an average of $29.19 per ticket, would produce the $6.1 million needed to hit revenue-neutral under these assumptions. An attendance of less than 21,000 seems like an achievable target. Something to consider here, though, is that this only works because the 2014 CBA gives players only an estimated 18.5 to 22.7 per cent of league revenues, a staggeringly low percentage by professional sports standards. If the reorganized CFLPA puts up more of a fight in the next bargaining war and gains a higher percentage of revenues, the attendance needed for profitability would rise. Speaking of the CFLPA, they made some waves this week with a submission to an Alberta government panel investigating...

Originally Posted by JHikka (Post 7875765)

Why would I believe something I haven't seen or heard for myself?