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Originally Posted by esquire
One, and in my view the biggest, is the return of the NHL to Winnipeg. It's asking a lot of a small city like Winnipeg to support the NHL... that sops up a lot of discretionary spending. The stadium was planned, and construction began before the Jets returned. I suspect that if the NHL had returned in, say, 2006, the stadium would have been planned with a smaller permanent capacity.
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This is a pretty fair point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
There is still a lot of support for the Bombers in Winnipeg. Personally, I think if the Bombers can string together a few successful seasons including a Grey Cup win or two, it will do a lot to get people back into the habit of going to games. Or then again, maybe it won't... I remember in the early 90s when the Bombers were still a dominant team they played to crowds similar to what we see today and I remember the sportswriters wondering what it would take to fill the stands. Either way, I don't think it's remotely approaching a crisis. When it comes to levels of fan support, the Bombers are pretty solid... the challenge for them is to get to a point where there's more than just one sellout crowd a year.
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It's certainly not a crisis in a market like Winnipeg but it's indicative of the trend as a whole, and it's looking more and more likely that the only team that's bulletproof from all of this is Saskatchewan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by osmo
The league has a long way to fall to get back to the dark ages of the 90s but CFL fans and the folks at the league office should be attentive to these shifts that currently look to be trend league wide. Is this all to say that CFL appetite has peaked? Folks can say this is a temporary thing it larger indicators long term show that it will be more challenging in the future of anything.
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Judging from most numbers it feels like the peak for the CFL in both physical and broadcast crowd was somewhere between 2013 and 2015. Since then it's been steadily down on both counts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by osmo
How can the CFL make a leap to transition away from being so reliant on gate revenues? Are there potential ways to shift away from this (I am asking for the sake of discussion).
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It's a good question and one i've tried to rattle around in my brain for a while. Other sports typically lean more on corporate partnerships, but those are generally a chicken-and-egg situation with general fan interest. The league's fan demographics aren't great which is probably scaring away a lot of potential investment in the product, so the league's been trying to go younger and getting more people involved (party decks, etc.) with some limited success. Ambrosie's plan is to make the league more international as a way to generate interest both internationally and in Canada amongst visible minority groups.
I think it's clear that the league tried to get Halifax playing before the renegotiation of its TV deal with TSN. Getting Halifax playing prior to 2021/2022 gets the league more games to broadcast and an extra game each week which would inherently raise its broadcast deal. Without the additional team i'm not sure where the deal goes in terms of value moving forward. I don't think there's any pressure on TSN to raise the amount they're currently paying the league for rights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by osmo
This is interesting because down south the NFL is grappling with this as well but from a different position as they are seeking avenues to explore growth of thier overall pie. Is this all a general larger culture shift away from gridiron football?
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I'd say yes to this question. Gridiron is having a tough go on both sides of the border in regards to sustaining growth and carving out more of a market for itself both domestically and internationally. Local youth participating rates aren't going in the right direction. All of its major competitors (NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS) have pretty strong international presence in either its players or in general interest of the sport. Gridiron doesn't have this to the same degree and relies heavily on domestic interest to drive revenues. I don't think it's a coincidence that both the CFL and NFL are heading in roughly the same directions re: crowds. NFL just hasn't seen the broadcast decline as yet and has massive corporate backing. I think we've already seen peak NFL in North America.
Quote:
Originally Posted by osmo
Back to the CFL...There isn't much competition for the CFL right now as the Blue Jays are in the tank and MLS is just a factor in the larger weaker markers anyhow. If the traditional strong markers are showing some weaknesses then it should be looked at much more closely versus dismissing it and continue to wine there everyone is just a "CFL hater".
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It feels like the general attitude amongst a lot of people is to simply pretend the problem doesn't exist rather than actually addressing it. Things like saying they've been hearing the league's been dying for 30 years, etc. The commissioner is
actively addressing this problem on a near daily basis. Just a few days ago he mentioned potentially having a game in Mexico in the hopes of creating more interest for the league in that country, which is obviously an attempt at diversifying the league's broadcast and corporate presence so that teams can rely less on gates and raw crowds. The commissioner, and by default the league as well, are attempting to address the league's revenue generating issues with CFL2.0. Buuuuut nah, i'm just a troll who's making all this up.
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