These discussions are strange in that they are almost always "anchored" by attendance figures for similar sports or teams, plus of course we have the cheerleader component of people talking about how amazing attendance is in their city. If a team is near the top it's considered a success and if it's near the bottom of attendance it's considered a failure.

You could approach this from the other angle and ask: What are the economics? What maximizes enjoyment for spectators? What maximizes profits? Maybe a team that gets 2,000 spectators on average is fine, and makes sense from a league perspective. Or maybe it's a financial disaster, but you can't tell just from attendance numbers.

In the QMJHL the top team attracts more than 5x more spectators than the bottom 3 teams. It is mostly a small town league with a couple of larger cities that just happen to fall below the high NHL cutoff. Would the QMJHL be better without the small town teams like Acadie-Bathurst? In terms of fan enjoyment I doubt it. There's a huge supply of wannabe pro athletes willing to work for peanuts.

There are travel and venue costs that put a floor on the scale of teams that places can support and today probably mean that you won't see a Val D'Or team flying across the continent for regular matches but this floor is well below 15,000 people paying 20 bucks a game. And the floor for being able to afford a bus and driving 4 hours to get to the average game is even lower.

If you look at the English Premier League, typically you have roughly the top half of the clubs that have NFL-style attendance numbers: 50-60-70,000.

Then you have another rough half that has attendance numbers similar to the CFL: 20,000-35,000.

And then a few bottom feeders that have attendance that's about half or worse of CFL attendance, in the 10,000 range.

Again, going off topic because this isn't really an example of Canadian, but the Premier League operates differently as it's an open-ended structure. There's bonus payments for European play at the top, TV payments for all, and parachute payments for when they're relegated from the league itself.

A team like Bournemouth, who have the small 10K stadium you're referencing, rely overwhelmingly on domestic TV. Over 91% of their revenue comes from the EPL's TV deal. Their total matchday revenue for a year is roughly $10MUSD. [Source]



So, yeah, attendance only gets you so far at the surface of things.

I get that.

Bournemouth aren't doing too badly in the standings. I take it they'd get more than 10,000 out to their games if they had a bigger stadium?

Yeah, and they've been talking about moving into a bigger stadium in the future (their current stadium is not owned by them and is leased). They've wanted to build a new stand to bring the total up to 15K but haven't been able to get approval from local council to do so. I can't imagine anything over 20K would be feasible, IMO.

The thing with the open system is that having a big stadium is great at the top but absolutely awful lower down. There are plenty of teams with giant 20K/30K stadiums that only get 10K or 15K out because they're playing in lower divisions. Always better to have too few seats than too many.

Anyway, back to Canada.

A lot of these teams are basically fringe sports for Halifax. I get the comment that recent immigrants tend to go toward soccer over other sports, but with Halifax's population around 400,000, are there really that many immigrant or new Canadians to support a professional soccer team over the long-term? To last, they have to draw from the majority of the population which is more typical Canadian - hockey and baseball fans.

The Mooseheads do great for 3 reasons: 1) It's hockey in a Canadian city; 2) They have good "rivalries" with Cape Breton, Moncton, and Saint John and 3) at various times have had really high end NHL prospects and teams which were competitive and championship calibre.

Basketball - The Rainmen already went under. The Hurricanes play to small crowds. If the CFL comes to Halifax, I can't see how the Hurricanes would survive. It looks like they're only hanging on now and anything that would cause attendance to drop could be fatal.

CFL - I don't think being Canadian and not playing American teams would ever put the CFL below the NLL lacrosse team. A large part of Halifax wants to be considered in the same breath as other large Canadian cities and being in a league with Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and Calgary, etc... would be plenty of draw for fans.

NLL - I know nothing of lacrosse culture or prevalence in Halifax. But I haven't heard much about lacrosse during my time living in Sydney or Fredericton. So if they require continental travel and professional salaries, I'm not sure what the business case is for the team to survive, but they have to expect to be and remain 2nd fiddle to the Mooseheads since the season runs head to head with the 2nd half of the hockey season and playoffs.

It should be noted that the Rainmen only folded because the league they were in folded. Basketball has long been a popular sport in Nova Scotia and before it gained traction in Toronto, I might add. Support has historically been at the university level but support at all levels seems to have dropped off considerably since the 1970s/1980s.

Like previous pro basketball teams I don't see the Hurricanes folding unless the league folds. The season doesn't compete with the CFL season and I don't see interest in basketball declining further. If anything, it should increase over time but support might go to university ball instead of the Hurricanes.

Agree 100%. The CFL will likely generate the same kind of hype that Ottawa received when the RedBlacks launched. I don't see support waning after the initial excitement either. Even staunch NFL supporters in Halifax will likely be drawn in (unlike in Toronto). The culture of Toronto is shaped by outside influences due to the massive immigrant/first generation Canadian population. In smaller cities this demographic reality doesn't exist so the dominant culture is far less vulnerable.

US 4 down football has largely filled the void due to the absence of the CFL. The arrival of the Schooners should shift support to regular football.

Anecdotally, I was in Halifax for the World Cup and the bars I went to were absolutely packed with standard white Canadians. There were a few recent immigrants here and there but the breakdown seemed standard for Halifax. Wildly different from my World Cup viewing experiences in Toronto. I don't think the Wanderers need to rely on immigrants to be successful (and everything on their social media seems to line up with that).

What makes the sport a fringe sport? Not having any previous representation at any level? Ottawa had a basketball team in the NBL and it absolutely failed - but Ottawa is home to two of the best CIS basketball programs in the country. The Ottawa Champions are basically failing but I wouldn't say baseball is a fringe sport. So much, IMO, depends on where the team is playing and when. I would have considered rugby a fringe sport in Toronto but there's going to be two professional teams there next year. If a team can carve out its niche it can be successful.

OHL teams can't really make a go of it in Toronto proper and nobody really says Toronto isn't a hockey city. The same can be said for Montreal Island.

Canada Soccer announces that Nike will be its official footwear, apparel, and equipment supplier starting in January. Umbro previously held these rights.

https://www.canadasoccer.com/canada-...-nike--p161979

As it relates to the Blue Jays:

Major League Baseball Strikes Out With Fan Attendance, Again
Teams lost nearly $94 million in ticket revenue in 2018. And that’s not even counting unsold hot dogs and beer.

By Eben Novy-Williams
October 5, 2018, 6:00 AM ADT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...tendance-again

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/.../v1/800x-1.png

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/.../v1/800x-1.png

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/.../v1/800x-1.png

--

The Blue Jays' attendance dropped from 3,203,886 (39,554) in 2017 to 2,325,281 (29,066) in 2018. According to Team Marketing the Blue Jays increased their ticket prices by 10% between 2017 and 2018. The average cost of a general ticket is $26.07USD, below the league average of $32.44

So this is what happens when the team stops performing well, people jump off the bandwagon.

Rogers made hay while the sun was shining. And the ticket price increases and probably increased sponsorships from that run will probably offset the drop in real numbers quite nicely.

More or less. It's good to have a general gate/gameday financial figure to attach to a 10K/game decrease in attendance (between $30M-$40M).

Indeed. According to Forbes the Jays were $23M in the black for 2017 (EBITDA), and were only $-1.3M in 2018 with very high player salaries. $274M revenue with $180M in player salaries is pretty sharp, IMO. IIRC the Forbes numbers are for the year previous (so 2018 numbers are for the 2017 season).

Basically total revenue flatlined between 2017 and 2018. Ticket prices are already going to be higher for when the bandwagon comes back.

https://www.forbes.com/teams/toronto-blue-jays/

Halifax CFL proponents now selling swag for proposed Atlantic Schooners
The Canadian Press January 2 2019

HALIFAX — It doesn't exist yet, but the Atlantic Schooners Football Club — Halifax's proposed CFL team — is already selling swag.

Alyse Hand, a spokeswoman for the group, says merchandise including T-shirts, hoodies, socks and tuques with the club logo are now available from an online store.

Hand says the site was launched just before Christmas "as a way to get Schooners fans excited about a future team."

She says sales have been steady since the launch, and some sizes have sold out.

The clothing is made in Atlantic Canada by the Truro, N.S.-based Stanfield's Ltd.

Last month, Atlantic Schooners founding partner Anthony LeBlanc said more than 6,000 season-ticket applications had been sold, and that plans for a stadium would soon be unveiled.

Hand says the group is in the process of submitting a business analysis to the Halifax Regional Municipality.

"There is no firm date for a release of stadium plans, but Schooners Sports and Entertainment, along with key stakeholders, will be engaging the community this month (mid-January) as it pertains to the proposed stadium and next steps," she said in an email.

Hand says information about a public town hall will be released in the "coming days."

The Canadian Football League announced last month that a regular-season game will be played somewhere in Atlantic Canada in 2019, as part of the Schooners franchise drive.

LeBlanc has said the Toronto Argonauts will face the Montreal Alouettes on Aug. 25, possibly at a temporarily expanded stadium in Halifax, in Moncton, N.B., or at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.


https://i.imgur.com/OgSzHu7.jpg

WOW that's a phenomenal drop in attendance year over year, will be interesting to see if/when & how drastically it bottoms out in the years/decades to come. My guess is that Canadian's patience has been wearing thin with Roger's Communication that owns the Blue Jay's, so called "Canada's Team".

Maybe the Blue Jays could drum up more revenue if they can get another Pro tenant to pay for the bills at Rogers Centre Skydome.:shrug:
The Toronto Argonauts may be willing if Roger's Communication were to cut the football team a sweet deal :tup:

Err.... sure

MLB teams have big swings up and down depending on how competitive the team is. Playing 80+ home games ensures that the swing is more noticeable than most major leagues. The next time the Jays are competitive tickets will be more expensive than during their last Championship series run so they'll be maximizing revenues more than previously.

Couple numbers from Bill Brioux:

Canada/Russia - WJC - TSN - Dec 31, Thur - 2.4M
Canada/Finland - WJC - TSN - Jan 2, Wed - 4.0M+
Bears/Eagles - NFL - CTV - Jan 6, Sun - 1.5M

They've been fantastic this year. Fraser, Wilson and Brooks in particular have been super fun to watch!

(not a bournemouth fan but a general EPL fan)

Keep in mind, Bournemouth's franchise value alone is very likely is more than the entire revenue from all 9 CFL teams

(Bournemouth was stated to be worth about 172 million pounds, about 291 million Canadian dollars or similar to the franchise value of the Florida Panthers last fiscal year)

CFL set to extend media rights deal with ESPN

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/.../CFL-ESPN.aspx

"The new deal calls for at least 20 games per season on one of ESPN’s linear television networks, usually ESPN or ESPN2. That includes at least one division final and the Grey Cup championship game. It will place at least 65 CFL games on the direct-to-consumer service, ESPN+. The CFL says every game will be available."

Not sure I would classify the CFL as a pro tenant.

You are objectively wrong, but good try :tup:

If they earn money playing a sport full-time, they're professional.

The more confusing statement is that the Rogers Centre's operating costs are what's causing the Jays financial hardship.

Not by unknowledgeable poseurs for sure.

ESPN2 coverage of CFL games averaged 163,000 viewers last season, a 19 percent increase from the previous year.

I find the above interesting, it makes you wonder what propelled the increase. Johnny "Canadian" Football would likely have played a part.

This random guy says hello

https://d3ham790trbkqy.cloudfront.ne...11-280x300.png

Indeed. Manziel's debut was the highest-rated CFL game ever on an ESPN platform (406K, I think?).

Possibly there were fewer games on ESPN2 after the NFL season started?

Manziel still has a pretty strong following from his days as debatably the most exciting college quarterback of all time. If he can string together a consistent season as Montreal's starter you could see even stronger ESPN numbers next year.

CTV Communications
@CTV_PR
Yesterday’s NFL Conference Championships were up 17% on @CTV, averaging 2 million viewers each, as the @Patriots and @RamsNFL both won overtime thrillers to advance to #SBLIII

https://twitter.com/CTV_PR/status/1087472361283174400

^ Nice.

Both amazing games really made up for a crappy weekend of extreme cold and a crap-load of shoveling.

Amazing games? What was that sham of a no call that changed the whole game?

Rams-Saints ends with ugly pass interference no-call

What a joke!

Toronto Wolfpack Confirm 2019 Broadcast Arrangement

https://www.torontowolfpack.com/2019...t-arrangement/

"Toronto Wolfpack will produce all of the team’s Betfred Championship games in both the UK and Canada in 2019 after announcing a broadcast agreement at today’s Rugby Football League (RFL) season launch in York, UK.

After discussions ongoing since the end of last season involving the RFL and Sky Sports agreement has been reached for all matches to be available for live publication on Sky Sports platforms in the UK. Distribution in Canada and around the world are included as part of the deal and will be confirmed over the next few weeks.

Brian Noble MBE, Toronto Wolfpack Director of Rugby, commented:

“We have invested significantly in our broadcast for the last two seasons, culminating in our 2018 postseason games reaching 140 million homes in 19 countries worldwide. We are extremely grateful to both Sky Sports and the RFL for sharing our vision to grow our game globally in 2019, and thank both for their efforts building this opportunity.”

Toronto Wolfpack’s growing army of fans in Canada, the UK and across the world will be able to enjoy every minute of action from an exciting new-look 14 team Betfred Championship in 2019. The Pack’s diverse range of sponsors and partners will also benefit from an amplified reach and opportunity to access new markets while opposing teams in the Betfred Championship will gain exposure from a minimum of two televised games against the Wolfpack.
...
The first round of matches in the Betfred Championship sees the Wolfpack take on newly-promoted York City Knights at Bootham Crescent on Sunday February 3rd (10am EDT / 3pm GMT). The game will be shown live on the Sky Sports platform as well as through the Wolfpack’s Canadian and global broadcast partners."

The games were dramatic in the sense that the scores were close and that they were decided in overtime, but it's unfortunate that the officiating is perceived to have played such a big role in the outcomes. Sometimes there is no choice and it's all for the ''fairest'', but in this case it wasn't that clear.

Yes, bad calls happen in every sport... they were still AMAZING games.

And NFL ratings continue to climb in Canada.

Oh, I know you love that, you didn't need to make one of your rare appearances to tell us that. It was expected. :)

I've said before that the NFL from a marketing and packaging perspective is like crack for sports fans who have any kind of interest in gridiron football.

As such, it's no more surprising to see their ratings trending healthily than it is to see sales of opioids going up... :haha:

My issue is the stupidity of a Canadian network that would rather spend money on a foreign product and grow it as a property than grow a domestic product.

The worst case is the showing of NCAA hockey games with, not the big programs like UMass, Denver, UMD etc, but schools that most USports programs could beat. Why would you do that and create a self fulfilling prophecy of growing that over a homegrown product.

And a certain type of person in this country is so ignorant of the calibre of these programs that they lap it up like gruel in Oliver Twist's workhouse just because it emanates from the once great USA. I just don't get it.

The Canadian media sucks. This is especially true of the Canadian sports media.

If Canadian private television networks had their way, they'd be rebroadcasters of US stations only. (exception: Quebec)

Most English Can-con outside of the CBC is simply done to appease the feds, aside from things like hockey and the Olympics.

This is partly due to laziness (hey, it's easier/cheaper to rebroadcast shit someone else has put work into!) and the fact that the minimal cultural divide between the United States and Canada fades with every passing day.

I'm not sure if it is the media leading this, or this is happening at a societal level and the media is following. Probably both.

I whole heartedly agree with the bolded above. Outside the NHL/AHL, USports hockey is the next best hockey in the country, except perhaps during Memorial Cup. A majority of the USports hockey players are former CHLers. There is certainly no disrespect to the CHL in any way, it does produce a majority of the World's top talent, but as I say USports are CHL graduates who are bigger/stronger/faster and more experienced... Saying that, it doesn't necessarily just sit with the media for not covering USports, I'd lay blame on the schools themselves. I cannot understand why the schools don't market their product at all. Especially to students of the schools. It is an entertaining product, and with a shorter season, there are lots of rivalries.

Just like I was expecting you to find something about the game to knock because of your insecurities. :haha:

USports hockey is dead space because it's the end of the line for a lot of the players' developmental progress. People would, presumably, want to watch NCAA hockey over USports hockey because NCAA players are more likely to go on to play in the NHL (and are younger on the whole). Unless you're selling some sort of developmental path for these players to major sports it's a tough sell. CHL is an easy sell for Sportsnet because a lot of them are going to be future NHLers in 3-5 years. There's also plenty of Canadians in NCAA hockey...

theScore years ago poured a ton of money and effort into USports football with very limited success. Carleton and uOttawa have tremendous basketball programs but get essentially zero coverage in-and-around Ottawa for the casual sports fan. etc. etc.

You can go to most USports events and sit amongst a handful of people. Just not appealing for most people for whatever reason. :shrug:

NCAA programs are better than CIS programs. Some scores from this year's preseason:


In the 15-16 season in 45 games the NCAA teams went 34-10-1. [Source]

No insecurities, I just find it sad and pathetic that you and your buddy have to denigrate things in our own country to raise the profile of foreign sports. You did your usual come out of the woodwork troll and I had my usual reaction, same old same old.

No broadcaster has put any sort of long term money or development into USports, probably since CBC used to show basketball in the 70s. I'll be interested to see what you can Google for that especially if you think the Score was any type of money.

NCAA hockey would be out of sight and out of mind if Canadian sports networks weren't publicizing them over USports, why? No production costs, and a beholding to shareholders and profit. But these companies also have to listen to stakeholders. If a sizeable women's contingent went to Rogers and said you don't employ enough women sportscasters you can be damn sure there'd be a stampede of hiring.

How is it when something has a little TLC and some bucks thrown at it that good things often result. ie Laval football

I'm naive, I just can't see how some can support another country's culture over there own or worse work to help kill their own.

Do you think there's been no money put into it because it has no eyeballs to begin with? It comes down to the Universities packing arenas and stadiums first - nobody is going to show a product with venues that are 90% empty. There needs to be demand in the local area before a national broadcaster even considers picking it up.

TheScore attempted to make a focus of USports football and it went nowhere. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario. It takes interest to develop a sport but it takes development in a sport to generate interest.

It's not an either/or situation like you're painting. Just because someone watches the NFL doesn't automatically make them a CFL-hater, and just because someone watches NCAA doesn't automatically making them a USports-hater. You're attributing feelings to people and making assumptions about other users, IMO. For the likes of TSN/SN it's easier for them to pick up broadcasts from the US than it is to send production teams to places in Canada. If people were clamouring for USports on TV I assume they'd be applying pressure on them to show them on TV.

If USports had any broad appeal you can bet that TSN/SN would be all over it, and you would bet they would be filling stands. Neither is happening.

Canadians were clamouring for NCAA hockey? Neither USports or NCAA had any broad appeal, neither did the NFL until the full CTV network started showing games and year by year increased promotion.

I agree with your first few sentences but if you think a high profile and large attendances have to be the prerequisite for televised success, I suggest you Google a little thing called Pot Black and the impact it had on its sport.

I've never understood the disinterest in USports (with the exception of a few tiny pockets) by Canadians. I've been attending for 20+ years and it's no further along than it was when I first started watching. I doubt university hockey will ever take off because the CHL (and NCAA) is the stepping stone to professional hockey.

The continued disinterest in university football is bizarre considering football owes its existence to these schools. Interest was decent right up to the 1950s and then it fell off a cliff. Laval has shown that it can become more than it was. I suppose we just don't have the population base to support it elsewhere. We have no jurisdictions (Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nebraska, etc.) with millions of people devoid of pro football.

University basketball probably has the best chance of gaining traction. Basketball is booming and the talent level at Canadian schools is far higher than it used to be. It doesn't hurt that schools like Duke are venturing north each year to play our schools. Canadians who have never thought of watching Canadian university basketball attended that Duke series in large numbers. Ryerson, Toronto, and McGill all lost by double digits but they didn't embarrass themselves either. I think it surprised a lot of people who watched those games.

Canada used to have no AAU basketball at all. Now we have many of them and more are sprouting up every year. It shows that it can be done from Canada. These programs are very competitive with their US counterparts. Going up against US AAU basketball programs is one thing but going up against NCAA D1 basketball is another. Can programs like Carleton and Ryerson get there?

Yes, it's been proven.

The Carleton Ravens consistently hold their own against the Syracuse Orange, for example. I believe they've even beaten them on occasion.

This is not to say that Carleton would make the NCAA Final Four, but they're not at the level of a couple of teenagers from the hood playing 21 on an asphalt court, which is how Canadian USport teams are often portrayed and treated.