The Great Canadian Sports Attendance, Marketing and TV Ratings Thread

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Pretty damn impressive considering that unlike most of those events, the Grey Cup is not available on free TV and therefore has a more limited pool of potential viewers. To pull in that many viewers when you're available on a cable channel demonstrates the value of the league to Bell Media. No surprise they re-upped for more money.

Coupled with all the negativity that gets heaped on the CFL (poor pay, old white guy fans, decrepit stadiums, irrelevant to a diverse Canada) that none of the other leagues have to deal with its a credit to the people who watch the games.

[TorontoDrew]

Source: https://pattitherivercityrenegade.wordpress.com/

Randy Ambrosie, the commish of Rouge Football, was in total blow-smoke-up-their-butts mode during Grey Cup week, calling the CFL “the world’s largest global football league” and telling interrogators that he’s “super optimistic” about the markets in the Republic of Tranna and Vancouver. Here are some numbers that he’s “super optimistic” about:

[esquire]

^ It doesn't matter, you still aren't getting a NFL team

[elly63]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

I don't troll Elly

Un huh

That's quite the news source you used above, I particularly enjoy the masthead. Journalism at it's finest, old time reporting, Matthew Halton, Ed Murrow, J Frank Willis, Patti Dawn Swansson LOL

[esquire]

^ I'm actually impressed by that source. Patti Dawn Swansson was for years the main sports columnist at the Winnipeg Sun before leaving the biz and moving west. She writes for fun in her blog, so obviously no more quotes from the locker room and that type of original content, but still a good read although unfortunately she said she's going on hiatus after the Grey Cup.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I'm actually impressed by that source. Patti Dawn Swansson was for years the main sports columnist at the Winnipeg Sun before leaving the biz and moving west. She writes for fun in her blog, so obviously no more quotes from the locker room and that type of original content, but still a good read although unfortunately she said she's going on hiatus after the Grey Cup.

No one is a better writer than Paul Friesen!

[esquire]

Friesen stirs the pot but he's good to read. Patti Dawn may be better known to old timers as Pat Doyle.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by esquire

Friesen stirs the pot but he's good to read.

I can't remember off the top of my head, who was the coach, that was only there for a year? and Joe Mack was GM IIRC. Friesen was still going after him a year after he was gone. My God he was brutal, maybe he has grown since then. Remember that Youtube video about the stadium delay, even Hitler didn't like Friesen.

• Video Link

[esquire]

Originally Posted by elly63

I can't remember off the top of my head, who was the coach, that was only there for a year? and Joe Mack was GM IIRC. Friesen was still going after him a year after he was gone. My God he was brutal, maybe he has grown since then. Remember that Youtube video about the stadium delay, even Hitler didn't like Friesen.

You're probably thinking of Mike Kelly, who was head coach and GM in 2009.

It's funny, I had pretty positive memories of Kelly from his OC days in Winnipeg in the early 90s. But when he came back as HC he was a pretty prickly guy who would get into it with fans and the media. He ended up in some domestic incident during the off season and once his mug shot from the US hit the papers in Winnipeg that was it, he got axed even though the team was 7-11 and would get a hell of a lot worse without him.

I remember it was a pretty big media circus in town when it happened...


The most infamous mug shot in Winnipeg sports history

[elly63]

That's the guy, Friesen just wouldn't let it go, kinda like Bruce Dowbiggin's Don Cherry vendetta.

[cjones2451]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Source: https://pattitherivercityrenegade.wordpress.com/

Randy Ambrosie, the commish of Rouge Football, was in total blow-smoke-up-their-butts mode during Grey Cup week, calling the CFL “the world’s largest global football league” and telling interrogators that he’s “super optimistic” about the markets in the Republic of Tranna and Vancouver. Here are some numbers that he’s “super optimistic” about:

What is a commissioner supposed to say, we had a downturn in attendance, and Toronto is too good for the CFL, so fuck it?

Why do you revel in something Uniquely Canadian "Failing"? Whats next, cheer for the failure of Universal Healthcare or CPP. the maybe the US will assimilate Toronto and you can be happy

[elly63]

Originally Posted by cjones2451

Why do you revel in something Uniquely Canadian "Failing"? Whats next, cheer for the failure of Universal Healthcare or CPP. the maybe the US will assimilate Toronto and you can be happy

Hammer, nail, head! Good one, and so true.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by cjones2451

What is a commissioner supposed to say, we had a downturn in attendance, and Toronto is too good for the CFL, so fuck it?

Why do you revel in something Uniquely Canadian "Failing"? Whats next, cheer for the failure of Universal Healthcare or CPP. the maybe the US will assimilate Toronto and you can be happy

I think for a bunch of people, somebody wearing a CFL team jersey stole their lunch money in kindergarten and it has so scarred them that they are triggered every time the CFL is mentioned.

[JHikka]

CEBL and CBC agreed to an extension of their partnership this week.

Originally Posted by CBC

To that end, the seven-team CEBL has extended its partnership with CBC Sports through 2022, making the public broadcaster the premier media partner of Canada's only First Division professional basketball league. The final 39 games of the 2019 season and championship weekend in Saskatoon were live streamed at CBCSports.ca.

Next season, 70 regular-season and five playoff games will be live streamed at CBCSports.ca, CBC Gem and via the CBC Sports app for iOS and Android devices. Eight games, including the championship, will be broadcast on CBC-TV.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/cbc-sports-cebl-partnership-deal-1.5374202

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by JHikka

CEBL and CBC agreed to an extension of their partnership this week.



https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/cbc-sports-cebl-partnership-deal-1.5374202

What is CEBL ha ha? Didn't know Canada even had a basketball league, Never heard of it do these players even get paid?

[EpicPonyTime]

Originally Posted by thurmas

What is CEBL ha ha? Didn't know Canada even had a basketball league, Never heard of it do these players even get paid?

We actually have two, the CEBL (which is Western Canada/Ontario) and the NBLC (which is mostly centred in the Maritimes).

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by JHikka

CEBL and CBC agreed to an extension of their partnership this week.



https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/cbc-sports-cebl-partnership-deal-1.5374202

This is great news. I hope to try and follow it more closely this time around. Good to have more sports cancon be accessible.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime

We actually have two, the CEBL (which is Western Canada/Ontario) and the NBLC (which is mostly centred in the Maritimes).

It would be nice to see a single national league emerge. When it's fragmented it's too easy to ignore... if the CPL was three different regional leagues it wouldn't get any press. I think that was partly the issue with women's pro hockey.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by esquire

It would be nice to see a single national league emerge. When it's fragmented it's too easy to ignore... if the CPL was three different regional leagues it wouldn't get any press. I think that was partly the issue with women's pro hockey.

It will emerge eventually just by CEBL being a stronger structure than NBLC. IN an ideal world CEBL picks up a couple of the NBLC markets and calls it a day - otherwise there's no real incentive for the two to merge from CEBL's perspective.

The issue with women's hockey was, and will continue to be, that there is very little corporate support on the whole, although this has potential to change. The leagues were split fairly evenly between Canada and the US, and once the Chinese money migrated out of the Canadian league it simply couldn't function on its own finances. Having just one North American women's league will likely be the way things go, as you've mentioned, but it will need the support of the NHL if it's going to last long-term.

Basketball in Canada, on the other hand, can survive on its own financial merits with the correct combination of leadership, support, and determination. The CEBL is off to a very good start on that behalf, although it's interesting to see them take a slightly different direction to CPL wrt media partnerships and video production/licensing. CPL has the benefit of the heft of the sport of soccer, which is great for them; and that's something the CEBL can't quite build yet. The idea of the leagues is similar, though, with single entity providing the centralization and base needed for sport development in Canada.

[thurmas]

Blue Bombers are on pace to sell the most Grey Cup merchandise in CFL history.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/blue-bombers-grey-cup-merchandise-1.5381838

Couple that with 800,000 more viewers for this year's Grey Cup CFL you should give a huge thank you to Manitoba and Bomber fans across Canada. To beat Rider fan merch sales is incredible!