Along with fan support, Edmonton traditionally has been much more equipped to hold the big soccer games as compared to Toronto it seems. Keep it up Edmonton!:tup:

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4360/...084b130f_b.jpg

Ok so.. with the Rider win over the Bombers in Labour day Classic in Regina yesterday & half way through the season, there seems to be a really huge disparity between the West and the Eastern divisions.

Can anything be done for rest of the season to make it a little less embarrassing for the Eastern teams & help increase the sparse attendance in the East, could some trades help or raising the player salary ceiling to entice more imports into the East?

I think you're getting a little off topic so I'll attempt to reel it back in.

As a fan of the CMNT for the past 40 some years where I have had a problem was with Toronto being gifted NT games and them not being spread out (like the women) to build a cross country base.

And the only reason for that lately was because only Toronto and Montreal have turf fields. But since BC Place has held WCQ on artificial turf the argument to play in Toronto exclusively really doesn't hold water anymore.

Also, with the largest potential audience to draw from (by far) I am wondering where the drop off is from a good TFC average crowd this year (27k) to 21k with an opponent whose fans normally show up in droves in Toronto. Who didn't show up might be a good question to ask and place to start?

As for CFL small crowds in the east I would hardly call Ottawa and Hamilton having attendance either sold out or near capacity, sparse. Montreal is at the break even point but should be doing better and Toronto, who knows? I see good diversity in Toronto crowds which is a good sign, just not enough of them.

I don't know if heavy targeting to the millennials there is a good strategy or not. I'm hearing they are having some success with affordable family ticket pricing.

The men won't play on turf. Simple. These exhibition friendly games are a money exchange as much as practice game. You won't get the Mexico and USA of your soccer federation, nor will you get the Brazil or England teams to ever come here and play in turf. For CMNT it isn't worth the cost to blow $200k to lay down some sod to go play in Vancouver apparently so they just stay in Toronto and Montreal.

The women should of held their ground to not play on the turf surface but they caved. CSA didn't want sod as they were cheap, it all came down to cost and nothing else. Women should of held firm and told the CSA to stick it. The courts said there words but the men simply would not play on turf under no circumstances for such a high level of soccer competition.

The men , won't budge on the turf issue. Lots of top international players who are based in the bigger leagues in Europe with insurance fine print which blocks them from playing on artificial surfaces.

I dont view this as some Toronto focused thing - not many options for grass soccer facilities that would have the amenities to host international teams in Canada.

It's funny that Vancouver is the only major city in the country that you could grow grass year round.

Toronto has the premiere soccer specific facility in the country.
Toronto hosts the majority of friendlies.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Friendlies, like competitive matches, are moved around the country when the desire is there from CSA. CMNT did play Mexico at BC Place not too long ago, and their last few friendlies have alternated host cities between Toronto and elsewhere. It's not as if matches are exclusively played in Toronto by any means.

What was the attendance at that BC Place match? I'm guessing way more than 21600. And how was it that the Mexico men were able to play on indoor turf without perishing?

FIFA allows for artificial turf. We put in the only bid for the WWC (another competitor dropped out) and everyone knew long in advance that we would use artificial turf. The USA team were very disingenuous about their protest and used it to make monetary gains. They knew the lay of the land long before they began their shenanigans.

Why would we replace all those surfaces and replace them back again for the small amount of money to be gained from a WWC, that is ludicrous.

They can afford to do it for the men because of the vast amounts of money involved.

You never seem to hear much squawking about AT when a team wins and conversely we didn't hear any at all about the Vancouver WCQ games. There might have been one very small comment IIRC. Most of the players prefer to play in Toronto because it is turf and many of the players are from there and Toronto is a travel hub. Otherwise, concerning the CMNT, there hasn't been much bitching.

54,798 was the official attendance. It was a World Cup Qualifying match (not a friendly) against one of the most popular teams in the Western Hemisphere, and Vancouver's a great town for footy.

See:
For CSA & Mexico the choice was either play at near freezing temperatures elsewhere in Canada or play indoors on a surface you may or may not like. IIRC CONCACAF/FIFA is willing to let Canada play on artificial surfaces in the event that outdoor temperatures are low (see: winter). I believe it's a judgment call by CSA. This is why Canada strictly schedules home Friendly matches for June/July & September.

The CMNT has rarely ever played in the month of March in Canada, and when the CWNT had an Olympic qualifying tournament set for January 2012 those matches were played at BC Place, as well. The only other CWNT friendly matches played out of summer months were in March 2006, played in Victoria and Vancouver.

Past non-Summer CWNT Friendlies:
February 2017 - BC Place
October 2014 - BC Place
October 2014 - Commonwealth
November 2013 - BC Place
November 2013 - Commonwealth

Lately the CWNT have been playing more outside of the West Coast, but their fall/winter/spring matches are almost exclusively in Vancouver. The CMNT typically follows this as well.

Hamilton and Ottawa effectively play at capacity every game. Even if Montreal were playing at capacity they would still be below the figures the Western teams put up (save for BC). Toronto is....Toronto.

There's no "FIFA is willing"; qualifiers can be played on artificial turf, anytime, anywhere, end of story. We had a very interesting game against CR at Saprissa on AT many years ago, although Saprissa has a turf surface now, I'm pretty sure.

Years ago I had posted articles from FIFA encouraging the use and betterment of artificial turf to grow the game in places where maintaining turf surfaces would be cost prohibitive and difficult.

Edmonton at Calgary
Attendance 33,731
Capacity 95%

And I heard that the tailgating in the parking lot was spectacular - a new stadium surrounded by parkades will kill tailgating. What to do, what to do.

I always heard the tailgating in Calgary was the best in the league but unless you know something about a new stadium that I don't, there won't be any decision to make for a while.

I wish you knew something about a new stadium that I don't :)

1. Demolish Burns Stadium 2. Build McMahon Stadium replacement on Burns Stadium footprint and adjacent parking area. 3. Demolish McMahon Stadium.

But it won't happen as long as U of C owns the property.

Tor at Ham
Attendance: 23,926 (until the rain came)
98% Capacity

Crowd (or what was left) eventually went home happy (and wet)

Aug 28-Sept 4, 2017
TORONTO/BOSTON..........AUG 28-AUG 30...MLB.......ROGERS...........TORONTO.......35,999 (107,997 Total)
CALGARY/EDMONTON.........SEPT 4.............CFL........MCMAHON........CALGARY........33,731
SASKATCHEWAN/WINNIPEG...SEPT 3..........CFL........MOSAIC............REGINA..........33,350
HAMILTON/TORONTO.......SEPT 4...............CFL........TIM HORTONS...HAMILTON.......23,926
CANADA/JAMAICA...........SEPT 2................FRND......BMO................TORONTO........21,724

MONTREAL/CHICAGO......SEPT 2................MLS........SAPUTO...........MONTREAL.......19,619
MONTREAL/OTTAWA.......AUG 31................CFL........MOLSON..........MONTREAL.......18,325
TORONTO/WHITEHAVEN..SEPT 2................RFL........LAMPORT..........TORONTO.........6,134
OTTAWA/SAINT LOUIS....SEPT 3................USL........TD PLACE...........OTTAWA..........4,059

Notes:

• Jays continue steady attendance bleed
• CFL sellout in Regina with near sellouts in Hamilton & Calgary; Montreal sets season-low on consecutive weeks
• Second-highest attendance for a CMNT match in Toronto and second-highest for an international friendly in Canada since a 1994 pre-FIFA World Cup friendly with Brazil
• Ottawa Fury continue Fall decline tradition

Continuing to fall for the obvious BS attendance figures of Ti-Cats games. :haha:

Tickets distributed =/= attendance.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DI66wCrXcAE2wQ5.jpg

https://twitter.com/MikeCupido/statu...65911647203328

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/spo...ticle36163189/

But sure, believe that there were only 374 empty seats... and that the Ti-Cats aren't using tickets distributed to hide their lower-than-advertised attendance for the last couple seasons.

This guy has done more to market the league in two months than his predecessor did during his entire tenure. Seriously thinking this guy could become more popular than Cohon. The CFL, the only league where the commissioner gets cheered.

Here, Commish Ambrosie delivers pizza to the media hacks during the Hamilton rain delay.

https://i.imgur.com/tVqrZGD.jpg

Per usual, Berkie the CFL troll is at it again. The Argos are using scanned tickets as their attendance so their attendance reflects how many people are there. Neither you nor I know how Hamilton reflects their attendance.

Berkie the anti CFL/Canada troll wants us to believe by his using the term distributed tickets that they are comps and giveaways. Except he doesn't clue into the fact that the lesser capacity doesn't allow them to do that like in the past at IW where they had less scarcity and a lot more seats to fill. With ticket scarcity they don't have to give comps and giveaways like in the past and they certainly won't make much money at that capacity by doing so.

Do I think those were tickets sold and not scanned attendance, of course. People didn't want to get rained on and stayed away but are you really trying to make us believe they've had attendance problems the last few seasons instead of a few blips on the radar the last few games of a winless season, c'mon Berkie you can troll better than that.

I am pretty sure it was raining at kickoff time already and the forecast was nasty too.

Where did I say "attendance problems"? I said "lower-than-advertised attendance"... as in often they're hovering at around 20k.... last night was certainly less than that... but still much better than the Argos.

It wasn't.

My point is that we can now say with absolute certainty that the Ti-Cats aren't using tickets scanned to report attendance because the numbers barely differ game to game even though it's painfully obvious there are big chunks of empty seats from game to game. I saw the same thing last year as well.

The novelty of the new stadium has definitely started to wear off.

Just awaiting confirmation of LDC TV ratings. Apparently SSK/WPG were great, TOR/HAM were surprisingly good despite the delay and again surprisingly EDM/CAL ok but not great.

So what, you used to get the same with TFC. If they were tickets sold who cares, they got the revenue.

It's not the novelty of the new stadium it's the novelty of an 0 and 7 team who tried a few seemingly desperate measures to break out of that slump that failed.

Proof?

As per "empty seats" and I am certainly not claiming this about last night in Hamilton we now have the phenomena of the party plaza where people will leave their seats and congregate in open areas. So a snapshot at any particular time may not be an accurate depiction.

Other strange seating phenomena. The Argos sell fairly well on the side behind the camera and some sections of the upper deck, the side opposite the camera that everybody sees is relatively empty. Strangely Argos games I've watched have had a fair amount of people in the end zones.

The upper deck of the CMNT game was empty but the soccer crowd loves to congregate behind the net.

Nobody is saying other teams in other sports don't do the same, but it's fairly obvious that Hamilton is doing it based on physical bodies in the stadium.

I'm guessing the Ti-Cats and THField as they lose potential revenue from concessions/mechandising from people not showing up.

Hey Jhikka. Not to give you more work to do but the Vancouver Canadians baseball team have averaged a 98% attendance record of over 6000 people this year. Something like 240000 in 38 games? And their home Nat Bailey stadium was voted best baseball park in North America. There must be thousands of ballparks in NA.
Cheers!

Very true, I sit corrected.

I'll look into it. I was tracking the Can-Am league earlier this season but I found the attendance numbers were either rounded (a bad sign) or missing altogether. I'll look into Vancouver's numbers to see if they're reliable.

Berklon has made it sound as if this is an ongoing problem over the years rather than a recent issue more to do with an 0 and 7 team. Highly suspect that they've been fiddling attendance the last few seasons, let's get real.

This is the first season that it's obvious they're counting tickets despite not scanning them at the gate. Again, this isn't really an issue as a lot of sports teams do this.

Probably not but there's really no way to know for sure, and for most sports teams we'll never know true numbers. Hamilton has had 23 straight games of attendance floating between 23,500 and 24,300 - that's a 3% deviation in all gate figures over two and a half years. I find it unlikely that they've phyically had 23k+ at 23 straight games but I don't doubt the tickets were sold. This season has seen a slight decrease in reported attendance:

Hamilton average attendance, regular season:
2015: 24,231
2016: 24,001
2017: 23,727

There's a combination of things going on here:

• Obviously, the team was 0-7. That's going to make things difficult to get fans out.
• Recent moves by the team, including a prospective coach and quarterback, which may have not sat well with a few.
• Stadiums do have a great new car smell when they first open. It's been three years since THF opened and that's usually when new stadiums start settling in to the norm. Whether or not this is actually having an affect is, again, difficult to tell. I don't really buy into it but I can see how some would.

We can discuss this forever and ever but at the end of the day Hamilton isn't one of the markets the CFL should be losing sleep over right now. Quite the opposite.

I must preface this post. This is from cfl.ca and the person who made the post is a controversial character. This could be a pile of bull but if certain people rumoured to buy the BC Lions are the Aquilinis (Canucks) or the community business leaders The Waterboys this might be the kind of thing they would do to emulate the success of the REDBLACKS.

Good News - Great News

According to a report from a Vancouver agency they have leaked information regarding a possible sale of the BC Lions and the deal likely will be done prior to Grey Cup. But if not then, definitely during the off-season.

Part of the leaked information, the BC Lions new owners would develop a new athletic park which would be the new home of the BC Lions that would also house other sport facilities, retail/shops, with possible future housing complex. The new owners have gathered possible advertising partners to pay part of the project. Though this is very exciting news, I was told the BC Lions new owners would also be seeking public funding which likely means if the project goes forward, it wouldn't be until 2018-19.

To whom the new owner is. I do know, but for privacy reasons, I will keep it private.

^Seems to have disappeared, the plot thickens...

Well I started watching fairly early in the first quarter, and it was definitely raining then. Though the thunderstorm had not started.

So typical of you to cherry pick things. It's one game from 23 years ago against the number one Team.

May 18, 2013..Commonwealth...v. Costa Rica.....8,102

Even with our last place team the Jays have held onto a top spot for attendance in a 30 team league. Well done!

Through the gates so far this season.

1 LA Dodgers 3,215,925 45,941
2 St. Louis 2,896,054 42,589
3 San Francisco 2,869,953 40,999
4 NY Yankees 2,653,774 40,827
5 Toronto 2,759,779 39,996

I'll be a lot more impressed if they maintain their top 5 position this next season. They made it to the ALCS two years in row and they were always a ten game winning streak from being in playoff position once again.

I'll be impressed if they're top 10 next season. Their monthly average has been dropping by the month this season. Middle of summer was roughly high 40Ks with August being high 30Ks. I can't imagine September looks much better. A slow start to next season's numbers would almost certainly rule out top 5 from the get-go.

Ya they broke another attendance record this year and are the only MLB affiliated baseball team in Canada (Blue Jays).

Now we are out of the running what else would you expect? :shrug: That being said they still have higher numbers then teams that are in the running. Last weekends game in Baltimore the stands were empty and the Oriels are in a playoff race. As for them not filling the seats next year as much that is just laughable. It will take more then one bad season to kill the momentum and the popularity of the sport in Toronto now. People that think that way are probably typical bandwagon fans who need a winning team to enjoy a sport.

For Jays attendance to decrease, as it has been through the course of this summer.

Teams like the Cubs (6th in overall attendance this season) and the Red Sox (9th) play in slightly smaller ballparks than Toronto. Rogers Centre (~49K) is larger than both Wrigley (41K) and Fenway (37K). Despite these capacity differences the Cubs still had a higher August attendance than Toronto:

August home game attendances:
Toronto: 39,543
Chi. Cubs: 39,637

So yes, their season numbers are higher, but only for now. The Cubs will likely pass the Jays for 5th by year-end.

Indeed. These issues are recent. Here's a quote from the Baltimore Sun:

Blue Jays yearly attendance, by season:
2007: 29,144
2008: 29,627
2009: 23,162
2010: 19,173
2011: 22,446
2012: 25,922
2013: 31,316
2014: 29,327
2015: 34,505
2016: 41,878
2017: 39,997 (As of September 6th)

Blue Jays monthly home attendance, 2017:
April: 37,990
May: 37,253
June: 41,852
July: 43,678
August: 39,543

It tooks the Jays roughly five years to halve their attendance after winning their last World Series in 1993, and this time around they only have two ALCS appearances to hang their hats on as opposed to two WS. I'm with you in thinking that the Jays have enough traction to keep crowds up higher than they were in the dark days of the early 2000s, but I think it's overly optimistic to believe the Jays will be pulling 40K+/game next year, which is what would be required to remain top five in the MLB. It takes about ~32K average to be top ten in the MLB and I think the Jays will float somewhere around there if the team continues trending the way it has been. 35K might be a good goal if the team continues the downward trend it may have started this season.

But who knows? Maybe they come out strong next year and lead the AL into the All-Star Break. It's all speculative at this point.

Marketing or dirty pool :)

Riders put up billboard on main street to Bombers stadium
3Down Staff http://3downnation.com September 7, 2017

The Roughriders have put up a billboard that reads “Celebrate Saskatchewan Day Sep 9” along Pembina Highway in Winnipeg.

https://i.imgur.com/vfml8Yf.png

It’s the main thoroughfare that gets fans to Investor’s Group Field, the Bombers’ home stadium in the Manitoba capital.

Saskatchewan won the Labour Day classic decisively in front of a sold-out crowd at new Mosaic Stadium. The Banjo Bowl has sold-out – it should be a great atmosphere on Saturday

Now if only TSN in Toronto would televise it instead of car racing and tennis.

???

TSN is not carrying the game at all?

Just spent some time at a bar in North Toronto.

TVs:
US Open Tennis, Women's Final
Jays v Tigers
College Football: PITT/Penn State
NFL Football: Kansas City/New England (from Thursday)

This isn't overy indicative of Toronto, but yeah. :haha: I did catch some curling last night that was on late next to Lions/Als

TSN is carrying all three CFL games today. The first two have been on 3 of TSN's feeds and the third game is scheduled to be.

^^ Those are TSN's secondary channels. One has to pay more to get those. CFL should take precedence over practically any other sporting event; especially ones from another country. I follow tennis, but it belonged on the secondary channel not TSN's primary channel. They often have it ass backwards.

Even Raptors playoff games get booted to those secondary channels in favour of things like NASCAR or US beach volleyball. Am I still living in Canada?

Nope. They televised the US Open women's final. It's a big event but I bet more Canadians would have tuned into the Banjo Bowl. It's one of the biggest games of the year. I can watch lots of NFL and NCAA football on my tv but not a single football game from Canada. This is the rule rather than the exception. Right now my only choice is Notre Dame vs Georgia, Oklahoma vs Ohio State, or Stanford vs USC. It's ridiculous.

I shouldn't have to pay extra to get domestic programming. I should have to pay extra to get foreign programming.

That's odd. Here if you have TSN all four channels are automatically included. This is true of Videotron and Bell Fibe.