Hamilton TigerCats

[Berklon]

Once the novelty of a new stadium wears off, revenues will drop.

Bob Young will realize in the not-too-distant future that the franchise will be left behind instead of growing with the city. Then we'll hear more crying.

[bigguy1231]

How many Grey Cups have they won since he took over, zero. Thats the only measure of success that counts.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Berklon

Once the novelty of a new stadium wears off, revenues will drop.

Bob Young will realize in the not-too-distant future that the franchise will be left behind instead of growing with the city. Then we'll hear more crying.

It's a business, like any other.

The stadium - a big bonus that public funding provided - presents them with new opportunities, regardless of what was said and flip-flopped on before. But it comes down to the product and their ability to market it.

That was the failing of many previous Ti-Cat owners (and the league in general).

[king10]

Originally Posted by Berklon

Once the novelty of a new stadium wears off, revenues will drop.

Bob Young will realize in the not-too-distant future that the franchise will be left behind instead of growing with the city. Then we'll hear more crying.

couldn't disagree more

[king10]

Originally Posted by bigguy1231

How many Grey Cups have they won since he took over, zero. Thats the only measure of success that counts.

unless you're a businessman. making a profit is another thing that matters. and the cats will be making a profit in the new stadium for the first time since the 70's. big accomplishment for bob. The owner can give the football ops staff the funds to do what they do. after that its up to them. its not like hes out there scouting and coaching players. he has his own multi billion dollar tech company to run. and the cats have been playing well of late and this after making it to the grey cup last year.

the future is bright

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by king10

the cats will be making a profit in the new stadium for the first time since the 70's.

Technically, the Cats only just started making a profit in the new stadium. And The Cats will be making a profit for the first time since 1972 because of the new stadium. The quality product that franchise executives are monetizing is not the team. It is the stadium. Young's accomplishment is essentially that of owning the team at a time when the stadium was being replaced. The rest is textbook pro-sports civics.

FWIW, the Cats' performance has had little to do with turnstile numbers. They were Eastern Division champs in 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1989, yet were averaging just over 16,000 fans a game across the 1984-1989 seasons. A newer, smaller venue may allow them to suck with greater impunity, at least for a time, but improving the team isn't likely to mean much to the club's bottom line attendance. The team's average gate from 2004-2012 was 24,736 a game — even with all of IWS' negatives and even with an underwhelming team. The average crowd at IWS in the Bob Young era would be a capacity crowd at Tim Hortons Field. The financial incentives are not on the field, they're at the snack bar.

[king10]

Originally Posted by thistleclub

Technically, the Cats only just started making a profit in the new stadium. And The Cats will be making a profit for the first time since 1972 because of the new stadium. The quality product that franchise executives are monetizing is not the team. It is the stadium. Young's accomplishment is essentially that of owning the team at a time when the stadium was being replaced. The rest is textbook pro-sports civics.

FWIW, the Cats' performance has had little to do with turnstile numbers. They were Eastern Division champs in 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1989, yet were averaging just over 16,000 fans a game across the 1984-1989 seasons. A newer, smaller venue may allow them to suck with greater impunity, at least for a time, but improving the team isn't likely to mean much to the club's bottom line attendance. The team's average gate from 2004-2012 was 24,736 a game — even with all of IWS' negatives and even with an underwhelming team. The average crowd at IWS in the Bob Young era would be a capacity crowd at Tim Hortons Field. The financial incentives are not on the field, they're at the snack bar.

well put. to compete with the wide range of entertainment options in the city the football game must be seen as an "event"

[thistleclub]

The Guardian previews Sunday's Grey Cup Game:

It’s Canada’s biggest party and the nation’s most watched sporting event of the year – the Grey Cup, or as it’s known in Quebec and parts of New Brunswick, Coupe Grey.

The game that decides who becomes champions of the Canadian Football League has been played out for more than a century and is high stakes sport. If you’ve never followed the CFL, well, the Grey Cup is a great place to start. And luckily, this coming Sunday, the Guardian will have live minute-by-minute coverage of all the action between the Western champions Calgary Stampeders and the Eastern champs, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats starting at 5.30pm eastern time or 10.30pm over in the UK (or at 7pm in St John’s, Newfoundland).

We realize that this could be a new endeavour for some of you and that there may be some questions. So we’ve put together this handy guide to help bring some context to the event before it all kicks off in Vancouver....

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

The team was born out of a 1950 merger between the Hamilton Tigers and the Wildcats, who went on to form a CFL dynasty across the 1950s and 60s, playing in 10 Grey Cups and winning five.

Like those old Hamilton teams who enjoyed a reputation for physically punishing football, the 2014 version are also a bruising bunch who have the best run defense in the CFL.

Hamilton are also the youngest club in the league, and like Calgary, have an inexperienced quarterback running the show. Zach Collaros didn’t put up the sort of sparkling numbers that Mitchell did in the regional final, but managed the game well and played mistake free football. The team seems to getting better every game under head coach Kent Austin, who took Hamilton to the Grey Cup last season and, like Calgary, went 8-3 down the stretch.

Return artist Brandon Banks is certainly worth watching - the former Washington special teams man had two touchdowns last week, including this ridiculous play that broke the back of Montréal.


Read it in full here.

[king10]

pretty cool that the Guardian in the UK is covering the game

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by king10

pretty cool that the Guardian in the UK is covering the game

Here's the link.

[DHLawrence]

Kind of a shame that it's under "US Sports". They have US and Australian editions, why not a Canadian edition?

[mattgrande]

So I'm a big rugby fan, and people on another forum were recently talking about World Rugby-approved turf, and I'm wondering if THF has it. Does anyone have any idea of the pile height of the field?

I'm also having a hard time finding with width of the playing area, but I doubt it'd be wide enough.

[king10]

Originally Posted by mattgrande

So I'm a big rugby fan, and people on another forum were recently talking about World Rugby-approved turf, and I'm wondering if THF has it. Does anyone have any idea of the pile height of the field?

I'm also having a hard time finding with width of the playing area, but I doubt it'd be wide enough.

Bmo field hosts canadas rugby team. If its wide enough so is THF. Thing is like The national soccer team, canada rugby calls bmo home. They wouldnt trade natural grass at bmo for turf at thf.

[mattgrande]

It was a question out of curiosity more than anything. I expect Rugby Canada will will keep playing at BMO, but maybe Hamilton can snag a team in one of the half-dozen or so pro leagues that keep saying they'll setup shop...

Are you sure BMO isn't wider than THF?

[king10]

Originally Posted by mattgrande

It was a question out of curiosity more than anything. I expect Rugby Canada will will keep playing at BMO, but maybe Hamilton can snag a team in one of the half-dozen or so pro leagues that keep saying they'll setup shop...

Are you sure BMO isn't wider than THF?

Positive. Both are fifa approved 75 yrd widths with extra room on the sidelines for players benches and game ops.

A rugby field is 69 metres wide which is 75 yards. Both soccer and rugby use fields of the same width.

[LikeHamilton]

Andy McNamara new voice of Ticats

Hamilton Spectator By Ken Peters

The new voice of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' is former Toronto Argonauts' sideline reporter Andy McNamara.

McNamara, a nine-year sports broadcast veteran who has also covered National Lacrosse League contests for TSN telecasts and served as a radio host, will team with veteran Ticat color commentator John Salavantis, 73, beginning June 19 in Winnipeg for the club's second pre-season contest.

McNamara replaces veteran CHML sportscaster Rick Zamperin, who provided the play- by-play for the past seven seasons but won't continue as part of the switch of Cat broadcasts to 1150 CKOC. Zamperin remains as assistant program director at CHML.

TSN veterans Rod Black and Chris Schultz will team up to broadcast Monday's Tiger-Cat preseason game against the Ottawa Redblacks.

After that contest McNamara and Salavantis will take over for the remainder of the season working with pre and post-game host Matt Cauz and former McMaster Marauder quarterback Marshall Ferguson, who will handle the sideline reporting.

The changes were confirmed Thursday by TSN radio national programming director Robert Gray as part of the re-branding of CKOC this fall into TSN 1150 all-sports radio in Hamilton.

So far Ferguson, 23, is the station's only hire. He is under contract to provide podcasts and blog reports from the Tiger-Cat training camp to CKOC Radio 1150.

Gray said TSN and Bell Media are looking to hire about 15 employees eventually when the re-launch rolls out this fall.

"When we get things up and going later this fall with the full launch of the sports format we'll be hiring for a number of positions. We'll have news on that coming out in the next couple of months," Gray said.

Gray confirmed the station will look predominately at Hamilton media reps for those jobs.

"Right now it is still the Classic Hits CKOC format for the summer and with the Ticat games, with additional coverage on the CKOC website. The full launch with the full TSN branding will come in the fall." And we'll start then with local shows as well.

"I think it's going to be great. I think Hamilton is totally deserving of an all sports station. You have a great sporting community there, lots of great sporting history. It's going to be a lot of fun and I know we're getting a lot of interest about it," Gray said.

CKOC will be one of six TSN stations across the country which will be carrying live coverage of the FIFA Women's World Cup which begins Saturday.


[email protected]

905-526-3388

[drpgq]

So will they have their own fifth quarter type show?

[interr0bangr]

I'm supposed to be going to my first ever ti-cats game tonight. Got free tickets and really wanna check out the stadium. Hope it's not too wet.

[Jon Dalton]

I'm going to the game tonight so I'll get to see this stadium shit show first hand. Based on the bad publicity I expect most people will fill up before going so as not to get stuck in line for snacks. That's definitely what we're doing.

[mattgrande]

I was also at the game last night. I left at half because I didn't dress for the weather.

I like our new QB (Matthews?). Seems like he's got a good arm on him.