The Great Canadian Sports Attendance, Marketing and TV Ratings Thread

[VANRIDERFAN]

I received a reply from the CBC and I thought I'd share it.

Now this doesn't mean squat but at least someone in the CBC is at least considering the proposal.

CBC Audience Services (CBC)
Nov 25, 11:30 EST
Good morning xxxxx,

Thank you for contacting the CBC and for your compliments.

We are thrilled that you enjoyed our coverage of the Vanier Cup and I am more than happy to pass your thoughts along to our production team and crew if you'd like.
I know how much they will appreciate your kind words.

As for your suggestion, I will pass this along to our team for consideration.
You bring up a very good point as the quality of USports is not limited to football.
Hockey and track and field are only two USports which offer a great deal of excitement, so we will definitely consider more sports.

Thank you again, Donald, but if you need anything else, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Have a great week, xxxxx!

Kind regards,

Seamus Keane
CBC Audience Services

[Berklon]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

They used to set up huge temporary bleachers at many Grey Cups (and they will at Hamilton). Calgary put up "premium suites" at the one end instead of a grandstand. I haven't seen any numbers of what a sellout would have been, how far short did they come?

It was only a couple hundred... so it was close. Although I'm sure there were some freebies tossed around as well as I heard there were more available seats the day before still.

They better hope the Cats make the finals the year they host, because they're going to be papering the house otherwise.

[esquire]

^ I can see Hamilton doing something similar to Calgary...instead of having temporary bleachers at both ends of the place as shown in the original renderings, maybe they'll just do it at one end and put in temporary suites at the other.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

If the Bisons were a consistently competitive team, they would no doubt host the game. It's been 12 years since they last appeared in a Vanier, and then 6 years before that. If Western had a suitable stadium, we would host it quite often based on the competitiveness of the team. Laval is a powerhouse and has a stadium. McMaster and Western are basically Ontario's Vanier teams, and THF is obviously the best facility in Ontario for these 2 teams to unofficially "host" at, since Rogers Centre is no longer a football stadium. It's been great the see the Vanier committee break the Toronto thing the last 15 years or so and taking the game to other areas of the country.

The talk about pairing the Vanier Cup with the Grey Cup made me think that you'd be depriving smaller, good U Sport cities like Saskatoon of hosting the Vanier.

But then I had a look and Saskatoon has only hosted it once. And some other cities that I thought might have hosted at least once (Halifax, London) never have.

So the Vanier Cup was in Toronto at various venues for close to the first 40 years of its existence. Since then it's been mostly hosted in CFL-level cities and Quebec City, which is the closest-thing to a CFL-level city without actually being in the league. Plus Saskatoon one year.

So pairing it with the Grey Cup isn't really cheating anyone out of anything. And least not if you look at how things have traditionally been done.

I already thought it was a decent idea, and now I think it's an even better idea.

Back in my Grey Cup-going days, the Vanier Cup (regardless of the teams) on the Saturday is definitely something my buddies and I would have attended.

[elly63]

As we allow ourselves to drift into the path of those who dislike the CFL and want that narrative out there, let's remember that it was a successful Grey Cup. Please don't feed the you know whats.

[esquire]

^ Yeah, the Vanier Cup was for many years like the Grey Cup - basically a Toronto institution. Which on some levels made sense for the Vanier, as it's way more accessible to U Sports football schools than a place like Winnipeg or Saskatoon.

[TorontoDrew]

When will the viewership ratings come out for last nights game? They can't be as dismal as last years 3.1 million viewers.

[Prometheus]

107th GREY CUP Presented by Shaw Audience Grows 19%

3.9 Million: average viewership

4.6 Million: peak viewership

9.6 Million: overall viewership of some or all of the coverage

More stats, including half-time show numbers and digital streaming (up 77%) here: https://www.bellmedia.ca/the-lede/pr...n-tsn-and-rds/

[thurmas]

Very good numbers had it been a closer game the ratings probably would have been better but with two blue collar football markets playing to end 20+ year droughts it meant much better ratings than the Stamps being in the cup every year.

[Andy6]

That’s good ... obviously the two cities were highly interested plus it had home field interest in Alberta.

[EpicPonyTime]

My first thought was that I was expecting a bigger audience, but it was a game between two cities of less than a million people, so there isn't the built-in casual audience bigger cities have (like Toronto two years ago). This is a good number for the league, hopefully they can build on it. The online numbers in particular demonstrate that there is a market for the CFL amongst young cable cutters.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime

My first thought was that I was expecting a bigger audience, but it was a game between two cities of less than a million people, so there isn't the built-in casual audience bigger cities have (like Toronto two years ago). This is a good number for the league, hopefully they can build on it. The online numbers in particular demonstrate that there is a market for the CFL amongst young cable cutters.

I noticed some more casual fans (people who don't normally watch football but were interested in the Grey Cup because the Bombers were in it) mentioning that they subscribed to TSN's streaming service for the day for something like 5 bucks in order to watch the game.

If you aren't a hardcore fan, being able to get big events on an a la carte basis like that certainly makes cable cutting easier.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by esquire

I noticed some more casual fans (people who don't normally watch football but were interested in the Grey Cup because the Bombers were in it) mentioning that they subscribed to TSN's streaming service for the day for something like 5 bucks in order to watch the game.

If you aren't a hardcore fan, being able to get big events on an a la carte basis like that certainly makes cable cutting easier.

I've been doing that for a year now. 5.99 for TSN for a 24hr period.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The talk about pairing the Vanier Cup with the Grey Cup made me think that you'd be depriving smaller, good U Sport cities like Saskatoon of hosting the Vanier.

There are few non-CFL cities where the U Sports football stadium is suitable to host the Vanier. Griffiths in Saskatoon wasn't really suitable either, but they got a significant corporate donation to upgrade the field, dressing rooms and washrooms and add enough temporary stands to put a bit over 12,000 in for the first time they hosted. Presumably for them to host next year it would only involve adding temporary seats, and the stadium already has been expanded a bit since then as well.

I would love to see London do something with TD Stadium here. It can be expanded enough (it was built to host the Canada Summer Games in 2001 and I think they put in enough temp seats to being it to almost 20k from it's regular 8000). But really it's a cold boring place, the seating area sucks, with about 100 chairs, a couple thousand benches with backs and the rest are regular aluminum benches, and attendance never justifies a larger seating capacity. Plus, as I said above, Tim Horton's Field is less than 90 minutes away (7 of the 11 OUA football teams are within that radius of it, London being the furthest), so it really makes sense to just use it in Southern Ontario. I could see Ottawa hosting it soon as well, given the success of the Panda game and at least both teams are now competitive. If not sooner, then I would say for sure when the Ottawa next hosts the Grey Cup.

Moncton could host as well, and for sure Halifax if they get their stadium done. It will just come down to the competitiveness of the teams in the Atlantic I think. Saint Mary's used to be like Laval, they had an amazing 15 year run, but it's been a long time since they or any other Atlantic team made it to the Vanier.

[esquire]

^ Ottawa would make a good Vanier Cup location because in addition to the city's competitive teams and reasonably good support for them, it's also very convenient to a good number of other schools in Quebec and Ontario.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Ottawa would make a good Vanier Cup location because in addition to the city's competitive teams and reasonably good support for them, it's also very convenient to a good number of other schools in Quebec and Ontario.

Ottawa also has a bit of a mini version of the classic Edmonton mindset when it comes to getting behind events taking place in the city.

There is less of the "ewww it's not big time enough for us so we can't be bothered" attitude like you have in some other places.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Andy6

That’s good ... obviously the two cities were highly interested plus it had home field interest in Alberta.

To put yesterday's numbers into context:

2013 Grey Cup - 4.5M - Saskatchewan & Hamilton - in Regina
2014 Grey Cup - 4.1M - Calgary & Hamilton - in Vancouver
2015 Grey Cup - 4.3M - Edmonton & Ottawa - in Winnipeg
2016 Grey Cup - 3.9M - Calgary & Ottawa - in Toronto
2017 Grey Cup - 4.3M - Calgary & Toronto - in Ottawa
2018 Grey Cup - 3.1M - Calgary & Ottawa - in Edmonton
2019 Grey Cup - 3.9M - Winnipeg & Hamilton - in Calgary

2019 notables:
2019 NBA Finals - Game 6 - Warriors & Raptors - 7.7M
2019 NBA Finals - Game 5 - Warriors & Raptors - 6.4M
Super Bowl LIII - 4.34M (CTV only)
2019 Stanley Cup Finals - Game 7 - St. Louis & Boston - 4.15M
2019 World Junior Hockey Championships - Quarterfinals - Canada/Finland - 4.0M
2019 Grey Cup - Winnipeg & Hamilton - 3.90M
2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs - Round 1 - Boston & Toronto - 3.72M
2019 US Open Women's Final - Andreescu v Williams - 3.40M

[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.

[Acajack]

Piecing together some info from various articles over the years:

RDS or TVA Sports ratings

Grey Cup with Alouettes playing: 1.25 to 1.5 million

Grey Cup without Alouettes: 250,000

Typical Super Bowl: 800,000-1 million

Alouettes regular season game: 250-300,000

Alouettes playoff game: 400,000-500,000

Montreal Canadiens regular season game: 750,000-1 million

Montreal Impact regular season game: 150,000-200,000

Montreal Impact "big game" (ie Champions League final): 500,000

[thurmas]

CFL's tv ratings are very healthy and stable the main issue is filling stadiums. Teams gotta be quick to adjust like the eskimos are and have special deals to get kids in the stadium. I know BMO is switching to a party deck this year where the steel temp bleachers will be removed in the endzone. BC lions might be wise to change their seating configuration at BC place tarp the endzone seats on both the lower and upper deck and sell seats just facing the field of play on both lower and upper deck as it gives fans a much better view of the field and were always more popular with Lions fans then the endzone seats are.