Ashton Kutcher… A REDBLACKS fan?
CFL.ca Staff

For those of you of familiar with the Netflix Original series “The Ranch,” you may know that Colt Bennett (Ashton Kutcher’s character) was a football star.

But, what fans of the show didn’t know was that Bennett appeared to have either played for or is a fan of the Ottawa REDBLACKS.

Spotted:

https://i.imgur.com/KgFsu9I.jpg

Wonder if they sent him a Grey Cup ring?

I doubt there are people unaware of these things. If it were that easy to pull off it would have happened already.

The CFL's only mistake was to exist in a country of only 37 million people. There's certainly nothing lacking about the sport of Canadian football. Any one who has watched a game in Regina or Ottawa realizes this.

I just hope the league can hold on long enough to get to 16-18 teams. That's where it needs to be but I suspect support might plummet a lot further before the league can get there.

CFL ratings report: tight Labour Day games deliver a viewership boost
Drew Edwards 3downnation September 7, 2018

The CFL’s recent run of ratings success continued over the Labour Day weekend.

The overall average audience on English-language TSN for the four games played – all of which were competitive – were up by just over five per cent from Labour Day in 2017.

And while the Saskatchewan Roughrider game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers posted the biggest number – it was the second-highest rated game of the CFL season – the ratings for the Montreal-Ottawa, Hamilton-Toronto and Calgary-Edmonton contests were up across the board.

That said, the numbers for the Ticat-Argo and Stamps-Esks games are still down from where they were in 2016 when the East Division clash posted 902,000 and the West did 781,000. Of course, the digital landscape has changed significantly since then.

Overall, the league and TSN has seen its ratings climb by almost four per cent so far this season – a number that has the potential to grow the longer multiple teams stay competitive in the playoff race.

Week 12 ratings

Friday
Montreal at Ottawa: 333,100 (+11.7 per cent over 2017) (not including RDS)

Saturday
Winnipeg at Saskatchewan: 838,300 (+2.5 per cent)

Monday
Edmonton at Calgary: 683,300 (+1.7 per cent)
Toronto at Hamilton: 744,100 (+9.1 per cent)

Labour Day 2018 vs Labour Day 2017: + 5.2 per cent

Year-to-date (46 games) vs 2017 (45 games) : +3.9 per cent

Live mic, weekly concerts helping to boost CFL’s TV ratings
Kirk Penton The Athletic Sep 5, 2018

New features, new panel members and different broadcast combinations have resulted in solid CFL ratings for TSN this season.

“As everybody knows the business is ever changing and constantly moving and constantly challenging, so in today’s world networks that hold their audience consider that a big victory and obviously if you bring in higher ratings it’s a massive victory,” TSN vice-president and executive producer Paul Graham said. “In our case, with CFL, it’s been a hold and a plus. We’re happy with the ratings, how it’s worked out … the fact that we’ve been able to maintain our average and in some cases be a little bit higher.”

A happy broadcast partner is good news for the league, because the “transformative” deal the two sides signed five years ago provided financial stability for the three-down loop and was extended through the end of the 2021 season.

Graham and the TSN team have been busy this season implementing several new

...

Tiger-Cats take over the CCMA Awards in Hamilton
Kristina Costabile CFL.ca September 10 2018

If you caught the Canadian Country Music Association Awards last night, you may have spotted a couple of familiar faces, and I’m not just talking about The Reklaws (congrats, on the win, by the way!!)

The Reklaws, of course, sing the TSN CFL Thursday Night Football Theme.

https://i.imgur.com/06diLE4.png

Ticats Luke Tasker and Simoni Lawrence were in attendance in Hamilton on Sunday night as award presenters! And check out how swaggy the guys looked in their country-inspired looks.

https://i.imgur.com/Soj8WFK.png

Oh, and Gord Bamford was spotted rocking a No. 17 jersey!

https://i.imgur.com/JpBSzO1.png

Ratings in the 18-34 demo have actually been improving year over year. They are moving in the right direction. Same thing happened last season as well.

Building a CFL stadium or any stadium close to downtown is a mistake as it is largely a deadzone 99% of the time. 24 games and a couple of other events does not make for a vibrant area. Besides, having a stadium near downtown was never a serious option in Hamilton- there was no land available.

It would have been built on a former industrial lot northwest of downtown, just a few hundred metres away from the "border" or about 1km from the epicentre (the site its on now is about 3km away). An area with big redevelopment plans tied to the waterfront and close to the new GO train station.

Bob Young balked at the last minute, in part I think due to some bad advice from his minions.

I personally think local neighbourhood opposition would have stalled it long enough to cause the Pan Am folks and city to look at other sites, but it could have been a great location had it worked out.

I don't mean right downtown. As ScreamingViking states, the desired location was outside of downtown - but close enough to make a big difference and be rewarded by the redevelopments that are happening in the area.

Under the category of, you learn something new everyday, I had never heard this one.


https://i.imgur.com/tS0Lsf8.png

^ That's as random as the time that I read in the Globe and Mail that Jimmy Swaggart was a Shreveport Pirates season ticket holder and big fan of the team.

The 18-49 growth this season doesn't exactly make up for the losses in previous seasons.

The National Post had sourcing from TSN showing that 18-49 had declined on TSN and RDS between 2014 and 2016. (I think 18-49 is useless as a demographic, IMO, since its such a large swath of ages and people.)

https://nationalpost.com/sports/foot...cfl-be-worried

TSN 18-49
2014: 209k/game
2015: 157k/game
2016: 170k/game

RDS 18-49
2014: 58k/game
2015: 63k/game
2016: 41k/game

If the league is gaining 2-3% overall per year that's good but it doesn't make up for the 15% losses of previous seasons.

From the National Post:

These sorts of figures, combined with the Angus Reid findings, should provide some pause for thought.

In saying all this there's more moving pieces than simply looking at TV numbers.

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In other CFL news, New Era will be taking over the league's apparel supply, including jerseys, starting next season. Four year deal.

http://3downnation.com/2018/09/12/ne...-same-in-2019/

They'll be using the same manufacturer as Adidas but effectively with a New Era patch instead.

I wonder what the viewership numbers both overall and in the 18-49 demographic relative to th other sports leagues in NA... outside of NFL and NHL, I’d guess that the 18-49 CFL viewership demographic is greater than the total viewership numbers of the MLB, NBA, and MLS.

So relative to the the CFL overall numbers, the 18-48 viewership demographic may be somewhat concerning, but relative to other major sports leagues total viewership numbers, the CFL 18-49 numbers I’d consider are actually quite impressive, even in the CFL low years.

Isn't pro sports viewership/interest slowly declining for most leagues at the moment?

CFL's 18-49 would be greater than the MLS regular season and MLB as a whole in Canada.

The CFL's 18-49 floats around 150K-200K, while the Jays overall is usually north of 500K with MLS overall numbers usually around 100K. In good years the Jays overall outdraw the CFL overall, but i'm not sure how much other MLB games in Canada would weigh down that overall MLB number, if that's what you're asking.

The CFL still lags considerably when looking at median ages and % that 18-49 comprises of TV audience.

From the same NP article above:

For the most part yes, although some services are beginning to combine streaming figures to give us a better idea of a more full picture.

In terms of the US the NHL has been more or less static, as has the NFL. NBA and MLS are on the rise and the MLB is steadily decreasing. Then you have sports like NASCAR which are having their floors fall out entirely. We don't really have that wide breadth of ratings reporting in Canada in 2018 so it's tough to say what current trends are in their entirety.

As I mentioned there's a lot more going on than just TV for most of these leagues, so it's just one piece of a larger puzzle overall.

NHL fervour in general seems to be down in Canada, in my observation.

Well you live in an area where the two most dominant teams are at their lowest point in decades.

This is true to a point, but my sense is that it's not the only part of the country where interest is either stagnant or waning.

Yes, the Leafs are resurgent on the ice but I don't sense the same mania there would have been a decade, or two or three ago. Hockey in the GTA while still arguably the top dog is increasingly challenged by other sports seen as "sexier" like basketball and soccer.

I am far away of course but to me interest seems stable in the western cities that have teams in the NHL, and slowly declining in parts of the country that are great distances away from NHL clubs.

As I have mentioned before, if you go to Anchorage Alaska the bars are packed with *attentive* people for Monday Night Football and other NFL games (especially the playoffs) even if the closest team is a half a continent away.

You used to have that for the NHL pretty much all across Canada (thinking of places like Halifax, Regina) for big Saturday night games during the season, and for the playoffs. But no so much anymore.

CFL ratings report: Labour Day rematches just as good as the original
Drew Edwards 3downnation September 14, 2018

While the Labour Day games have always been a ratings juggernaut for the CFL and broadcast partner TSN, the second-half of those matchups are proving to be just as popular – and in some cases, even more so.

The Banjo Bowl between Winnipeg and Saskatchewan featured an average of 836,200 viewers on English-language TSN, just a couple of thousand less than the Labour Day game the week before (838,300.) More impressively, the Banjo Bowl ratings were up a whopping 45 per cent over last season’s contest.

It was much the same story in the Alberta re-match, which outperformed Labour Day by a substantial margin for the second straight year (though it was down slightly from last year’s game.) Only the Argo-Ticat tilt failed to deliver big numbers, with an average audience of just 413,000.

Overall, however, ratings for the week were up 2.6 per cent and year-over-year numbers have improved by any measurement.

Week 13 ratings

Friday
Ottawa at B.C.: 461,000

Saturday
Saskatchewan at Winnipeg: 836,000 (+44.9 per cent over last year)
Calgary at Edmonton: 744,100 (-0.9 per cent over last year)
Hamilton at Toronto: 413,000

Week 13 (2018) vs. Week 12 (2017): +2.6 per cent
Year-to-date (50 games) vs 2017 (49 games): +3.7 per cent
Through 13 weeks 2018 vs 2018: +5.5 per cent

Some interesting kidfluence marketing at work here.

Family Channel celebrities making appearances at CFL Family Day games, and the websites were promoting ticket sales as well. Further evidence that Commish Ambrosie, Christina Litz and the CFL are looking well down the road beyond the millennials to the upcoming generations of potential fans.

https://i.imgur.com/3qr0Diz.png