Sports in Canadian culture

[esquire]

^ Historically, baseball was "the" summer sport on the prairies. Hockey in the winter, baseball in the summer. Very strong grassroots support, for sure. Practically all of my older relatives from Manitoba grew up playing it.

I don't think it's as dominant as it used to be, especially in urban areas where soccer has replaced it as the big summer sport... but it's still a pretty big deal.

Pro baseball wasn't really as big a deal out here. There have been minor league teams over the years but overall fan interest is relatively low. A bit like soccer now in the sense that loads of people play it but there aren't any teams that people come out to watch en masse.

[MonctonRad]

Baseball is popular in the Maritimes, likely because of our proximity to the New England states. There have never been any AA or AAA teams here, but senior baseball is popular in both NS and NB, and there have been a number of major leaguers who have come out of the Maritimes, especially NB, most recently Rheal Cormier, a journeyman pitcher from Cap Pele near Moncton and Matt Stairs from Fredericton who holds the MLB record for home runs as a designated hitter. Both had multiyear careers in the big leagues.

The NB Senior Baseball League is actually quite popular. Kiwanis Field in Moncton seats about 2,500 and has a pretty good atmosphere during evening games in the dog days of summer. There's nothing quite like lounging in the bleachers eating a hot dog and watching a game on a humid August evening.

[FrankieFlowerpot]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Matt Stairs from Fredericton who holds the MLB record for home runs as a designated hitter.

Pinch-hitter not designated hitter

[Riise]

Originally Posted by Welkin

Canadians have a passing interest in soccer. Sure the kids play it, but 20 of our 25 largest cities don't even have a professional team. London, UK has 14 professional teams.

Our interest in the sport is undeveloped. It has roots and is growing but the cultivation methods being used by those 'in charge' is misguided at best. The sport lacks strong leaders with an informed vision and is being captained by volunteer-run organizations with limited knowledge about the sport or sports governance. Essentially, instead of being run by a City Council, it is being run by Community Associations.

In regards to your London-based comparison, how many professional hockey teams are there in the GTA?

Originally Posted by isaidso

A sport can't grow and prosper unless it nurtures the sport at the professional level.

Nope. Professional leagues require a steady source of professional-quality players and that can only be provided via solid and well-organized grassroots and youth development systems. How many professional football clubs does Iceland have?

Originally Posted by Welkin

We don't care enough for professional teams in major cities like Calgary or Winnipeg (which do have professional hockey teams because we do care more for hockey).

Yet Calgary has one of the largest Arsenal supporters groups in the country and when we play in the FA Cup Final the local magazines call it one of the events of the weekend. Nevertheless, Calgary has one of the best run youth clubs in the country (Foothills S.C.) and they are playing the long game. It's going to take longer than the Impact or Whitecaps but Foothills are wisely growing their club and culture from the ground up. Unlike the volunteer-run organizations I mentioned above, Foothills is an amateur club that is taking a professional approach to cultivating local interest.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot

Pinch-hitter not designated hitter

Sorry, you're right. My bad

I knew this, I just had a brain freeze.......

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by Horus

Re: TFC ratings

Perhaps the horticultural enthusiast wing of the RPB were too appalled and distracted by the visible outline of a baseball infield to watch the game?

That's funny... They would lose it if they had to spectate under those terrible conditions.

God forbid that is hybrid turf as well!

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I'm interested - Baseball has a long standing history in Ontario and Quebec as well as parts of the Maritimes. How popular is baseball (historically) in the west???

Baseball runs deep in Vancouver and British Columbia. High-level professional baseball has flourished in Vancouver since the 1920s, including the Triple-A Vancouver Canadians for 22-straight seasons, from 1978 to 1999. After winning the Triple-A World Series in 1999, the Vancouver Canadians were moved by their new American ownership to Sacremento after that city built a $42 million, 14-thousand seat stadium.

Although now Single-A, professional baseball continues to flourish in Vancouver. Still called the Vancouver Canadians, the current team is the Northwest League affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays and continues to have phenomenal success both on and off the field. I have not followed the Canadians for the last couple of years and no one has updated the Wikipedia page, but here is some recent history:

On September 9, 2013 the Canadians became just the third Northwest League team to win three straight championships, defeating the Boise Hawks 5-0 at Scotiabank Field at Nat Bailey Stadium to win the final series 2-1 in front of a sold out crowd.

The 2013 season also saw the Vancouver Canadians draw over 195,000 fans to Scotiabank Field, a fifth consecutive team record which included 23 sold out games.

On November 4, 2013, the Vancouver Canadians were named the 2013 recipient of the John H. Johnson President’s Trophy. The prestigious award is given to minor-league baseball’s top organization. It was the first time that a Canadian-based franchise won minor league baseball's most prized award.[4] The Blue Jays extended their player-development contract with the Canadians through the 2018 season in early 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Canadians

Metro Vancouver has also been the primary fountainhead of Canadian talent in Major League Baseball. Of the current Canadian players in MLB, a plurality come from Metro Vancouver, due to its highly advanced and established youth baseball scene. Indeed, in 1951, British Columbia became the first place outside of the U.S. to join Little League Baseball, and a Metro Vancouver team has represented Canada at the World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania almost every year for the last 15 years.

[esquire]

I wonder how things would have shaken out had Vancouver landed a baseball team in the early 80s? Would they have been a success and stayed for the long haul, or would the team have floundered and left for another market?

You can bet it would have been a dicey proposition since facilities like BC Place did not have a long lifespan and were woefully out of style in baseball by the 00s... it probably would had to have been replaced by now. And while a new facility might be a sure thing in a hot baseball market, I'm not sure it would have made financial sense in Vancouver. It's a fairly big city but not necessarily a huge sports town given that the only thing it has up on considerably smaller cities like Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Winnipeg is a MLS team.

[osmo]

Nobody watches TFC on TV, just like how Raptors ratings are dead outside of the GTA. These types of fans are second screen and consume the teams in other forms.

The reality is young people under 30 don't have cable. Its all Kodi, stream, torrent, and other means of getting content. Only people I know who pay for cable are addicted to reality tv to be honest.

TV ratings are big among older Canadians which is why the CFL cleans house as its demographic is older that still watches TV and likely has landline phones, stuff the younger folks don't deal with at all.

This is why I don't care much for TV ratings. For example, nobody watches baseball on a national level but team are raking in money of digital and local rights. Hockey is a regional nieche in America, if the NHL had any sense it would blow up all the sunbelt teams aside from the California & Denver and focus on the dense Northeast. NFL defies logic as you can put to crap teams on national TV and it will still get a good number. NBA is another weird one where many fans get content via other means and national numbers can be very suspect, especially when faced with competition from the NFL. The NBA still rakes in money and is the second most profitable league in North America so how much do basketball ratings really mean?

TFC TV numbers draw flies but the stadium will be full and digital metrics will be high, the team will make money (unless the construction debt will eat away at profits.. but that is another story).

[elly63]

Originally Posted by osmo

Nobody watches TFC on TV, just like how Raptors ratings are dead outside of the GTA. These types of fans are second screen and consume the teams in other forms.

The reality is young people under 30 don't have cable. Its all Kodi, stream, torrent, and other means of getting content. Only people I know who pay for cable are addicted to reality tv to be honest.

TV ratings are big among older Canadians which is why the CFL cleans house as its demographic is older that still watches TV and likely has landline phones, stuff the younger folks don't deal with at all.

Sorry but that's BS and the excuse the TFC people use for their beyond abysmal following outside stadium walls.

Viewership is down amongst most sports and TFC followers aren't any more likely to consume online content than anyone else. Why do the Caps consistently outdraw TFC (too many Lions fans are also Whitecap fans and are too old to figure out how to use an IPad?)

Maybe it's because many of their fans treat the team as a tree fort that only a select few can enter. Forget being a soccer mom (who help grow the game) and being welcomed. It's like one of the peeny boys said on their own website "Posting shit like this, it's no wonder everyone hates us"

Why does MLB have the best and most followed content portal when we keep getting told the game and it's fans are old and dying and soccer will take it's rightful place any minute now.

And I think there is a big reason why basketball doesn't have larger mainstream popularity outside Toronto and part of that is an elephant in the room kind of thing that I would rather not get into

[GreaterMontréal]

Le rêve olympique relancé à Québec?

Le maire reconnaît cependant que les Jeux peuvent générer des bénéfices, « s'ils sont bien gérés ». Il se dit d'accord pour vérifier une hypothèse de travail visant à s'associer à des villes partenaires comme Lake Placid, Calgary ou Whistler pour tenir certaines compétitions.

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/q...medium=twitter

[elly63]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

Le rêve olympique relancé à Québec?

I said earlier that it makes no sense to cohost, well it does if one of your primary objectives is to cut costs and that seems to be the case here.

Also interesting to note that the mayor was making a case to have the downhill in Quebec and the head of FIS wasn't going for it. Again, engineering and compromise.

Les JO à Québec : une descente plus courte?

[Welkin]

Originally Posted by Riise

Our interest in the sport is undeveloped. It has roots and is growing but the cultivation methods being used by those 'in charge' is misguided at best. The sport lacks strong leaders with an informed vision and is being captained by volunteer-run organizations with limited knowledge about the sport or sports governance. Essentially, instead of being run by a City Council, it is being run by Community Associations.

In regards to your London-based comparison, how many professional hockey teams are there in the GTA?




Nope. Professional leagues require a steady source of professional-quality players and that can only be provided via solid and well-organized grassroots and youth development systems. How many professional football clubs does Iceland have?




Yet Calgary has one of the largest Arsenal supporters groups in the country and when we play in the FA Cup Final the local magazines call it one of the events of the weekend. Nevertheless, Calgary has one of the best run youth clubs in the country (Foothills S.C.) and they are playing the long game. It's going to take longer than the Impact or Whitecaps but Foothills are wisely growing their club and culture from the ground up. Unlike the volunteer-run organizations I mentioned above, Foothills is an amateur club that is taking a professional approach to cultivating local interest.

I am glad that Calgary has a growing interest in soccer. However, the debate was not whether or not there were a few hundred Arsenal fans in Calgary, but whether should we as a country spend Billions and Billions of taxpayer money to host a sporting event for a sport that the large majority of Canadians have little interest. We all agree that there are pockets of fan support for soccer throughout Canada. I myself have been a huge soccer fan from the days of the old NASL. However, I don't believe that my fellow Canadians should spend billions of dollars just so that I can pursue my interest in seeing in person world class soccer. We have much higher needs for our tax dollars than building white elephant stadiums. Personally I would love to see the Americans get the Cup because by butt would be down there catching as many matches as I could get tickets.

[Hackslack]

Originally Posted by osmo

Nobody watches TFC on TV, just like how Raptors ratings are dead outside of the GTA. These types of fans are second screen and consume the teams in other forms.

The reality is young people under 30 don't have cable. Its all Kodi, stream, torrent, and other means of getting content. Only people I know who pay for cable are addicted to reality tv to be honest.

TV ratings are big among older Canadians which is why the CFL cleans house as its demographic is older that still watches TV and likely has landline phones, stuff the younger folks don't deal with at all.

This is why I don't care much for TV ratings. For example, nobody watches baseball on a national level but team are raking in money of digital and local rights. Hockey is a regional nieche in America, if the NHL had any sense it would blow up all the sunbelt teams aside from the California & Denver and focus on the dense Northeast. NFL defies logic as you can put to crap teams on national TV and it will still get a good number. NBA is another weird one where many fans get content via other means and national numbers can be very suspect, especially when faced with competition from the NFL. The NBA still rakes in money and is the second most profitable league in North America so how much do basketball ratings really mean?

TFC TV numbers draw flies but the stadium will be full and digital metrics will be high, the team will make money (unless the construction debt will eat away at profits.. but that is another story).

While I don't disagree with you with respect to people cutting the cord, it's a very tough argument to make to hold TFC and Raptors on a separate pedestal as the CFL NHL NFL, MLB (jays currently getting high ratings even for spring league), and White Caps / Impact (had something over 200k+ for season opener). Why is the argument valid that TFCs/Raptors viewership are mainly torrents/stream/other means, but the others aren't? Would you suggest that the others ratings are infact much higher as it should take in both TV and stream?

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Welkin

but whether should we as a country spend Billions and Billions of taxpayer money to host a sporting event for a sport that the large majority of Canadians have little interest. We all agree that there are pockets of fan support for soccer throughout Canada. However, I don't believe that my fellow Canadians should spend billions of dollars just so that I can pursue my interest in seeing in person world class soccer. We have much higher needs for our tax dollars than building white elephant stadiums.

I think your premise is wrong. I thought the debate has always been whether we could host a WC rather than whether we should fund it.

And I don't know where you get the idea of white elephant stadiums. What new construction there would be would be needed. The only possible white elephant would be if they built something new for Toronto without having thought of its future legacy and ability to draw events or a main tenant. And that we have debated.

To say that a large majority of Canadians have little interest is wrong as well. That has always been born out by the large ratings the WC gets, contrary to what the TFC people like us to think about online content.

I look at it as an event and Canadians love big events, does that correlate to a mainstream interest in soccer maybe not (proving your point) but it does point to a massive interest in the temporal event.

In 2002 our love affair with the CWNT began at the U19WC in Edmonton that evolved into a huge story and event. Does that mean that watching teenage girls playing soccer would become big? (No rude comment please ) No it just was an event that steamrolled.

More people watch the Grey Cup than the regular season should we judge the CFL only on huge Grey Cup ratings, obviously not.

But you can't say the WC wouldn't be a success and that Canadians would have little interest. Whether to spend the money or not is a different story.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

While I don't disagree with you with respect to people cutting the cord, it's a very tough argument to make to hold TFC and Raptors on a separate pedestal as the CFL NHL NFL, MLB (jays currently getting high ratings even for spring league), and White Caps / Impact (had something over 200k+ for season opener). Why is the argument valid that TFCs/Raptors viewership are mainly torrents/stream/other means, but the others aren't? Would you suggest that the others ratings are infact much higher as it should take in both TV and stream?

^What he said.

[sarcasm mode on]And yes ratings would be higher, but only for TFC. [/sarcasm mode off]

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I'm interested - Baseball has a long standing history in Ontario and Quebec as well as parts of the Maritimes. How popular is baseball (historically) in the west???

Originally Posted by elly63

Baseball was probably more popular out west than in the east. Minor league ball flourished for a long time with teams like the Edmonton Trappers, Calgary Cannons, Winnipeg Goldeyes and the Vancouver Mounties/Canadians.

It is somewhat forgotten but one of BC Place's primary objectives was as an inducement to bring MLB to Vancouver.

I've always thought of Langley BC as a hot bed for baseball in Canada, Players such as Kellin Deglan, Tyson Gillies, Tom Robson, Dustin Houle and Brett Lawrie had all been drafted by MLB teams and were all at one time a member of the Langley Blaze.

Baseball in Saskatchewan was probably more popular in the first half of the last century. Of the Eight MLB players from the province all but 3 are from early 20th Century.

The most current Saskatchewan MLB player is Andrew Albers from North Battleford who's claim-to-fame is the first Minnesota Twins pitcher to debut with eight-plus shutout innings in 2013.
It did happened two other times in franchise history: Mike Fornieles with the 1952 Washington Senators and George Dumont in 1915, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/sports...019/story.html

There is an inter provincial Western Major Baseball League on The Prairies, consisting of a Saskatchewan Division and an Alberta Division

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wester...aseball_League

[Darkoshvilli]

106k tickets sold for the jays-sox at olympic stadium.

[rousseau]

A higher percentage of Raptors/TFC followers watching online instead of cable than for the CFL or other sports sounds totally plausible to me, and anecdotally it sounds right in my experience, but I admit that my opinion is partly shaped by the fact that I love basketball and football/soccer but have no interest in American/Canadian football.

Would be interesting to see actual numbers.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by Darkoshvilli

106k tickets sold for the jays-sox at olympic stadium.

Are they playing more than one game?