What I find interesting is that in spite of what the late 20th century did to the demographics of the Miami area (lots of Cubans and also people from other parts of Latin America), pro soccer and baseball (the latter being very popular in Cuba) have always been a tough sell there as well.

It doesn't help that the Marlins are the closest equivalent the MLB has to something like the Cleveland Browns or even the Leafs before 2015, that being a continually mismanaged/cursed team. Every time it looks like they're putting something together, management has a fire sale in anticipation of actually having to pay the players they developed. Not too dissimilar to what's happened with Melnyk and the Senators to be honest. Add in the untimely death of a superstar pitcher a few years ago and it's not hard to see why fan support is low.

That being said they might be the only team to ever win a World Series while coming last place in attendance in the NL (2003), so no guarantees that success would actually fix all their problems.

I tend to agree with this...Florida's a bizarre place for a lot of sports teams but leagues can't simply ignore a state of 20 million people, either. Orlando seems to be a particularly weird market with both the basketball and soccer teams being very inconsistent. I guess we'll see how Miami fares in MLS this year...

It would be great if the Panthers were actually located in Miami but alas they're stuck in the middle of nowhere, similar to another team in their division.

[QUOTE=wave46;8805667]Florida is just a weird market in general. I'm not sure about basketball or football (the Dolphins seem to be OK?), but baseball's struggles in Florida have been notable.

The Marlins thought that a new modern stadium would help, but they still don't draw very well. The Rays also struggle despite being a competitive team, hence the overtures for a new stadium (which IMO won't fix the problem).

I'm not surprised that the NHL has struggled in Florida, the current Tampa Bay Lightning excepted. It almost seems like the culture of the place is unfriendly to sports in general.

But hey, there's a reason I'm not part of the NHL/NFL/MLB/NBA braintrust.[/Q

Every SINGLE team there has dirt cheap tix.....Bucs and Dolphins - still get tickets under $50 - maybe that's why they continue to suck every year. Compared to the S' Hawks - $190US for Row TT - 7 rows from the top of Century Link this past season. 10 years ago the Lightening had - 4 tix + 4 beers + 4 Dogs for $40. 2 years ago....it was only slightly more expensive....

https://www.cebl.ca/mediapro-canada-...he-cbc-in-2020

MEDIAPRO Canada selected as exclusive supplier for all CEBL games airing live on the CBC in 2020

January 30th, 2020: MEDIAPRO Canada has been selected by the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) as exclusive supplier for all games that will be aired live on the CBC in 2020, including the season-ending CEBL Championship in August.

MEDIAPRO, Canada’s fastest-growing broadcast facility provider, will be supplying all the technical facilities, production crew and transmission services to bring exciting live basketball coverage from venues across Canada.

...

MEDIAPRO will produce seven regular-season games from May through July as well as the season-ending Championship Game in August, according to the following schedule:

CEBL on the CBC

Saturday, May 30, 2020 (4 p.m. Eastern) - Ottawa at Hamilton
Saturday, June 6, 2020 (2 p.m. Eastern) - Edmonton at Guelph
Saturday, June 13, 2020 (4 p.m. Eastern) - Fraser Valley at Edmonton
Saturday, June 20, 2020 (4 p.m. Eastern) - Saskatchewan at Fraser Valley
Saturday, June 27, 2020 (4 p.m. Eastern) - Hamilton at Guelph
Saturday, July 4, 2020 (2 p.m. Eastern) - Hamilton at Niagara
Saturday, July 18, 2020 (4 p.m. Eastern) - Niagara at Saskatchewan
Sunday, August 16, 2020 (3 p.m. Eastern) - CEBL Championship Game

Considering how nearly all of the less-prominent leagues with a presence in Canada now have at least some level of video production intended for streaming audiences (CHL, AHL, NLL, CPL, USports, etc.) , it would be nice to see a new sports channel emerge that actually broadcasts these events on television. The way it is right now, only hardcore fans subscribe to streaming packages... it would be nice to get a taste of a game on TV without having to throw down a hundred dollars for a season pass or whatever.

It's nice that CBC is at least doing some CEBL and, I'm assuming here, CPL coverage on broadcast television, but it could be so much more...

I don't know if it's worth the cost and effort. Traditional TV subscribers are falling annually 3-4% and traditional TV ad revenues are also declining. Ad revenues on online/streaming/internet services are increasing at an incredible rate, so it makes sense to focus on those efforts rather than trying to work with Bell/Rogers directly, or creating an entirely new channel for what is a declining space. Still, last I read OneSoccer was looking at adding a broadcast TV channel in conjunction with its current streaming platform.

You can if you have a smart TV - OneSoccer and DAZN are available on the likes of AppleTV, Roku, etc. For CPL at least, Season ticket holders receive a free subscription to OneSoccer, and some streaming packages offer free month packages or deals if you're looking for a sample.

SN/TSN have shown no interest in showing Canadian sports, so it is what it is.

Laurent Duvernay-Tardif sent Super Bowl ratings through the roof in Quebec.

RDS got a record 1.6 million viewers, which is up from 900,000 last year.

And about 700,000 people in Quebec watched CTV's simulcast of the American broadcast.

Also, did the media in Anglo-Canada play up the fact that there is another Canadian on the Chiefs? Ryan Hunter from North Bay, Ontario.

I never knew about him until I saw him joking around with LDT in this video on RDS:

https://www.rds.ca/videos/football/n...rdif-3.1359432

Was a great game ... comeback kids... Lets see if the NHL or NBA can top it later this year during their finals - just need a Canadian team in it!

SUPER BOWL LIV Breaks All-Time Record with 9.5 Million Canadian Viewers on CTV, TSN, and RDS

https://www.bellmedia.ca/the-lede/al...v-tsn-and-rds/

Not surprising in the least. Chiefs are an exciting team and the Niners have a good solid fanbase in Canada... and it was destined to be a great game. Amazing numbers without a Canadian team even playing.

Anecdotal... every Super Bowl I order a pizza and delivery takes longer than normal. But yesterday I ordered it at 2:00pm, long before the game started, and the usual 25 minutes on normal days took 75 instead. The driver said the SB is the busiest time of the year for them, but yesterday was extra nuts.

The NFL just keeps growing in Canada.

How will this play into the narrative that Toronto loves America the most? :hmmm:

Pretty interesting to see the SB peaking in Canada whilst it continues a steady decline south of the border, relatively-speaking. I imagine most of this increase is due to Quebec doubling its viewership this year.

I think this puts to a rest the narrative that interest in football is on the decline as both Grey Cup and Super Bowl see large ratings increases this year in Canada. Football just needs to tackle player safety to increase participation rates in the sport be it getting rid of helmets which are actually more harmful than protective and switching to rugby style tackling instead of collision hits that cause brain damage.

Unless the Chiefs and LDT repeat as AFC champs and play in the Super Bowl again next year, ratings in Quebec in 2021 will drop down to where they usually are.

I'm sure another reason for the increased viewership was due to the Patriots not being in it. Having them play in the SB 3 years in a row, and 9 times in the last 18 years (50% rate!) gets tiring unless you're a Patriots fan.

Were the commercials blocked in Canada again? I didn't watch the game, but I know the SCC overturned the CRTC's decision to prevent Bell from simulcasting the game.

Ratings on RDS were increasing anyway prior to LDT's appearance. They increased from 755K to 900K IIRC previously, and were trending towards 1M+ for this year. LDT simply raised viewership very quickly.

The GC only saw an increase in 2019 because its 2018 decrease was so rough on its viewership numbers. 2019 was still well below previous iterations of the broadcast on TSN. If anything, the SB in the US is mirroring the GC in Canada: Hit a peak around 2012/2013 with a steady decline since then. The SB in Canada seems to be bucking that trend for the time being.

Commercials were blocked. I'm sure sent a lot of people to their US-station-reaching antennas and their illegal streaming options.

This is a huge part of what drives Super Bowl viewership... it is a bit of a pop culture event beyond any other sports matchup. I mean, my wife was technically a viewer because she watched the halftime show, as I'm sure many women did even though they had little or no interest in the game itself.

The Super Bowl stands alone in that regard... it is probably the only sports event apart from the Olympics to attract viewers who normally don't give a crap about that sport.

But not really in Canada - since we aren't able to see those commercials through the regular sources. And people tune in at the game's kickoff and continue to tune in after the half-time show - so I'm not sure it makes that big a difference regardless of how much they advertise it. Hell, The Who was the halftime performer a few years back - not exactly a big draw for youngsters and women.

I don't think watching the Super Bowl means you're interested in football. Most people watch just for the sake of it, it's like a cultural tradition and an excuse to get drunk with friends and watch a bit of football.

But an increase in both the Grey Cup and Super Bowl could be indicative of there being some interest in football.

That's significantly more than the Raptor's Canadian audience last year.

I read somewhere that more than 80% of people in GTA and Hamilton watched the Raptor's Champ win last year. Even if it were to increase and 90% of people in Toronto and Hamilton were to watch the next NBA Final, I doubt it would beat this last weekend's Superbowl Canadian Audience.

Of course the Canadian audience blip up with Quebec audience watching Superbowl with that province's first NFL player ever to win from Quebec helped.

It makes sense, In 2013, the American audience reached it's highest ratings in history up to that point, plus I wouldn't doubt if the ratings in Saskatchewan were at a historic highs for that Superbowl as well, with Regina's Jon Ryan securing his Superbowl Championship ring that year,

plus making first-time in NFL league history plays the next year...

• Video Link

Israel Idonijie from Winnipeg played in the 2007 Super Bowl and I remember watching snippets of the game to see him, but I don't remember there being any big buzz in town about that. I'd be pretty surprised if the ratings needle moved much in Winnipeg because of him.

Personally I'd be a lot more excited if the Arizona Cardinals made it to the Super Bowl with Chris Streveler on the team... :)

Surely the World Cup has to be number one for that? The media coverage, ancillary events, pop cultural stuff and commercial activity dwarf the Super Bowl.

You can ignore the Super Bowl pretty easily, but not the World Cup (unless you're in North America). Whole countries shut down for matches. I mean, people create stop-motion Lego recreations of goals.

One billion people watched the France-Croatia final in 2018 as compared to 114 million TV viewers of the most watched Super Bowl in 2015, according to this link:
https://the18.com/soccer-news/world-...nue-tv-ratings

^ Well yeah, I meant here in North America. I guess in some ways the Super Bowl is North America's World Cup.

For some reason a year or two ago the Quebec media decided to make Laurent Duvernay-Tardif a big superstar.

In 2006 Jean-Philippe Darche (brother of NHLer Mathieu Darche) played in the Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle did not win but even before the game there wasn't nearly as much hype as there was for LDT this year.

(Interestingly enough, like LDT Darche is now a doctor and was part of the Chiefs' staff this year.)

But LDT gets more attention I guess because he's a larger than life character: he went to med school and got his MD as an active NFL player (the first player ever to become a doctor), plus he does all sorts of endearing things like working part-time serving customers in his parents' bakery in Mont-St-Hilaire (south shore Montreal) during the off-season.

In Quebec at least the World Cup final pulls in about 1 million viewers, which about the same as the Super Bowl does without Laurent Duvernay-Tardif playing in it.

As a comparison, the game where the Raptors clinched the title drew 330,000 viewers in Quebec. (An all-time record audience for basketball in Quebec.)

Bianca Andreescu's win over Serena Williams at the US Open drew 750,000.

I think ratings for these kind of events are hard to actually pin down because of the number of large gatherings and viewing parties. Not to mention, the NBA Finals were 6 games, the last one being on a Thursday night.

Sounds like Toronto. Maybe not shutting down, but during the World Cup (when games are played during the day) productivity is at an all-low - with people streaming games at their desk and heading down to one of the many viewing areas in food courts and other places around the city. Country flags are everywhere and horns are honking every time a European team wins a match.

The Toronto Arrows rugby team will be on TSN (TSN2 and TSN Direct) this year, after being on Game TV last year. Should be a big improvement in visibility for them.

http://www.americasrugbynews.com/202...adcast-on-tsn/

First game is this Sunday 8pm against Austin.

Ding ding ding.

Raptors had consistently large TV audiences for a number of games over a number of weeks - Super Bowl gets eyeballs for a few hours in February. And the Raptors had viewing parties in multiple cities.

Yep - you always know when Portugal/Italy/Brazil win a match because all people will ever do is drive around with flags honking horns at every intersection. :haha: Toronto would only get crazier if India/China had any sway in world football whatsoever. I imagine Canada would experience the same World Cup shutdown if we ever qualified (which we should, soon).

That's really great for the Arrows. Interesting to see TSN pick them up over the Wolfpack...wonder if there's access to Super League rights.

TSN also picked up XFL for this spring as well.

Would we though? I mean we come close to a World Cup-style shutdown for the men's hockey gold medal final at the Olympics, but for having been in certain countries during FIFA WC games, it's still not on the same level.

And hockey is far more culturally iconic in Canada than soccer. There is no public fandom to speak of associated with the MNT in soccer at this point, though I guess it's not impossible that media and marketing hype could potentially whip people up into a frenzy given the right conditions and moment.

It would take a contender of a team for that to happen, which probably will not happen in my lifetime. Part of hockey's appeal is that we are one of the dominant countries, while in soccer we're struggling just to make it into the World Cup.

That's not to say the World Cup won't be a big deal in Canada for a long time to come, but as in the past it will be driven more by fans cheering for their favourite powerhouse countries than because of anything that Canada manages to accomplish at that level.

Yes, that's what the World Cup is for me and most Canadians - something we basically partake in "by proxy". It's still fun though - and one of my favourite sporting competitions.

If ever we do qualify - and actually my guess is that we'll be there regardless in 2026 as a "host" country - we won't make it out of the first round. Winless and even goal-less are definite possibilities.

We consistently lose to Honduras like 7-1, goal-less would almost be a certainty today.

That's why these MLS development camps are so important and seeing these guys make a splash in the international transfer market gives me some hope for the future.

Depends on where in Canada you are, I suppose. I imagine larger cities would be pretty shut down for Canada at the World Cup...we'll have to wait and see. :)

Yep. All Canada's MNT needs to do is to be somewhat respectable on the world stage and the hype will come. Beating the US last year helped a bit with that.

The last time we played Honduras we tied 0-0 and before that lost 1-2. And we beat them in 2015. One poor result nearly a decade ago is what you're referencing. :shrug:

I agree that we need to do better against Central American teams but we're not losing every game by five goals.

I'd be pretty surprised if that happened. Many hardcore soccer fans have loyalties that lie with other countries, and Canada isn't good enough at soccer to really capture the imagination of the average Canadian sports fan. It would be a big deal, but I'm not sure that it would really reach that next level of event as you are suggesting.

Now if Canada went on some crazy winning streak then yes, it could take off as the team kept rolling along... or if maybe there was a big game on a Sunday afternoon the way the 2010 Olympic men's hockey gold medal game was scheduled, then maybe. But I'd be pretty surprised if cities shut down to watch Canada vs. Ghana at noon on a Tuesday or whatever.

I was thinking this exact same thing. A lot of people I know have a deeply entrenched fandom thing going on with often powerful national soccer teams of other countries - more often than not it's due to ethnic origin (even after 4-5 generations in Canada, often not speaking much of the old language) but in some cases it's not ethnic but due to another affiliation. It would probably be pretty hard for Team Canada (Soccer) to break into that tradition and achieve the same level of fandom across the population in general, across all groups. (Which it does for hockey BTW.)

In other countries that have a shallow soccer culture like Canada but who have been more successful than us at the WC (USA, Australia), fans like these haven't generally jumped en masse on the bandwagon for the national team of the country they're living in, and the old country's team generally remains first in their hearts and minds.

And the WC has enough teams in it (and the USA and Oz haven't gotten that far in the tourney) that they haven't generally had to make a tough choice between cheering for their country of residence/citizenship against the old country if they play each other.

Sportsnet has had a mutli-year deal to broadcast Super League dating back to before the Wolfpack existed. So they haven't been available yet.Renewal happens in 2021, I'm not sure if it's before or after the season.

Not likely.

What's not likely, shutting down or qualifying? We are just at the beginning of bearing real talented fruit (to mangle a metaphor) Phonsie is not a one off, he's just the start, he was the guy who turned the tide the Whore had started. We're on our way.

They actually do much more than we might think promoting Canadian sport. I have a CBC Sports addon in Kodi which I look at every weekend, for me it is more visible and accessible than remembering to go to the CBC website.

This weekend they had Canadian women's basketball Olympic qualifying, Carleton vs Ottawa men's and women's basketball, skiing, speed skating. Last weekend was my favourite, women's Rugby 7s, I love Bianca Farella :)

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

Maybe they are the Canadian Sports Network we are looking for, we just haven't noticed it.

I think we were talking about more or less shutting down the major cities like what happens in other countries when the national team plays in the WC.

As for qualifying, well for 2026 we're in automatically as a host country (especially with the field expanded to 48 countries), as far as I know.

Ya they don't have an obvious bias to broadcasting nothing but Toronto teams first like the Toronto Sports Network and even worse Sportsnet. CBC seems to be a National channel unlike the other two.

I was referring to the claim that the whole country would shut down if Canada qualified for the World Cup.

XFL drew pretty good ratings for it's debut with 3.3 million watching the opening game on ABC. All games drew around 17,000 fans per game so similar to Argos or BC lions type of crowd

https://www.foxbusiness.com/sports/x...dance-week-one

The Argos would love to have crowds of 17k.

I still don't see the XFL making it. I just don't think there's enough of a market for football in the US after the NFL and NCAA seasons have ended.

Incredible that the Texas Rangers leave their pretty damn good baseball stadium this year to move into their new one with a retractable roof. The Dallas XFL team is sharing the old stadium with a USL soccer team who averages only about 1,300 in attendance. Such a waste of a great 48k baseball stadium.

The difference is that the XFL plays in cities where people like going to football games.

Agreed. The XFL made a pretty big splash in week one last time, but it fizzled pretty fast. I don't see how the US football fan's plate isn't full with so much NFL and NCAA.

Maybe if the XFL sticks around for 10-15 years they can build up a fanbase and score a really lucrative TV deal, but can the league absorb all the losses until they reach that point?

XFL ticket pricing seems more affordable than CFL pricing of what the Blue Bombers are asking even for season tickets on a per game basis are a fair bit more expensive.

https://www.bluebombers.com/2020-sea...ckets/#pricing

https://www.xfl.com/teams/seattle/ti...single-tickets