A Testament to how PITIFUL the Toronto Market is for the CFL

I read this in an online Entertainment article on Canoe.ca

Here's a shocker: In the week of Nov. 13-19, more Torontonians watched Prison Break than the Grey Cup
Not that ANYBODY needed to be told how PATHETIC the 'center of the universe' is ... but, I thought I would anyway.

Peace.

Hard to believe.....

Beauty Mean!

Using the American spelling of 'the center of the universe',

to subtly mock the 'world class city' image
that Toronto politicians so clearly crave.

I guess I am not so shocked. I figure that nobody has an obligation to like football or any other sport. Remember that article a while ago about the games in Hamilton, Toronto and Buffalo all on the same weekend? Lots of neat parallels and comparisons. But the biggest thing to me was that we got 25,000 fans out, the Argos some more but not huge, while the Bills sold out their 73K seat stadium as usual(at higher prices too...).

I love the CFL and the Grey Cup, and I'm glad there are enough others who do to keep the league going. But I don't think it's ever going to be something that becomes the talk of the town (or country) the way it was say 35-40 years ago.

I've never seen Prison Break, probably won't, don't care to. To each his (or her) own.

Look, even Monday Night Football as big as it is in the States couldn't compete with regular programming which is why it is now off ABC and onto ESPN. Sports is well, just sports, it usually can't compete with regular big-time shows anywhere.

I can't blame anyone for not Watching The last Grey Cup.
IT WAS BORING !!!!!!!!!!

A real Snoozer... Prison Break would have been a Better Choice..

who can blame them when the CFL made changes to rules that made the game so boring this year.

I Watched NFL Games Instead..
If the Cats are out I really don't give a Rats butt who playing in the Grey cup..

Not boring to me Onknight, I loved it right until the very end.

Good game by my experience too.

a Game with a Ton of Field Goals was fun???
No real offence no big Touchdowns?

If you asked me Edmonton Montreal Grey cup was better..

The Rules really need to be looked at..
They CFL Killed the Punt Return game.

I do agree that one of, if not the most, signficant aspects of the Canadian game is punting and the potential returns for punts and this really needs to be made a potential for exciting returns. I’m sure the CFL will look at the blocking rules and other issues on punts in the off season to be sure that this is an exciting part of the game, as much as possible anyway. I’d like to see a 10 yard halo rule to be honest.

Hey -knight … not to be DISAGREEABLE or anything, but …

Although I can agree there was LESS DRAMA in this year’s edition to the Grey Cup, I cannot accept your premise of the game being BORING … I mean, you either ENJOY Football or you don’t. If all you want to see is Touchdowns being scored then WHY WATCH a game at all ? … All you need to do is WAIT for the HIGHLIGHTS to be shown later in the eve.

I would SUGGEST there is more to the sport than ‘scoring’, eh ? For example, if you were to ask, ME, whom I thought the MVP was - I would have said Montreal’s LB Kia Ellis … he was making plays all day for the Al’s defense, and was a HUGE factor in McCallum’s (Grey Cup RECORD TYING, no less) 6 FG’s.

Granted, the first half was MARRED by the alternating incompetency of Montreal’s QB and Receivers,however, I could suggest the LACK of TD’s were more a testament to the calibre of Defense than an indictment of each team’s offense.

Not to mention the PALL cast on the game by the UNFORTUNATE Officiating Issues which had a huge role in the LACK of DRAMA. (ie TD’s).

Anywho … sorry ya missed the opportunity to partake in one of the FEW GREAT TRADITIONS this Country has to offer.

Peace.

P.S - Ronfrom-, I would LIKE to TAKE full credit for the ‘subtle mocking’ you attribute me, however, if that were the case then it was completely SUBCONSCIOUS … instead, I will GIVE YOU full marks for FINDING the IRONY whilst docking marks for MY poor SPELLING.

FEW GREAT TRADITIONS this Country has to offer

Apart from having a coffee at Tim Horton's. This is really what Canada is all about from what I've heard. :lol:

I assume you know for a fact that the Grey Cup was the highest rated TV show of that week among Hamiltonians? Because otherwise this would be a very strange insult.

I assume you know ...
Well, you know the old saying "Never assume, as it makes an ASS of U and ME/" ?

I’ll make the same mistake and ASSUME you just want to argue with me. In which case …

No. I did NOT ASSUME anything … If I were to READ the same statistic held true for the Hamilton market then I would HURL the same ‘insult’ to the general population of Hamilton, too. Same goes for any other CFL City.

If you would like to take the arguement to its’ LOGICAL END then I would also say the General Population of Canada was a PITIFUL CFL MARKET if the Grey Cup were watched by LESS people, in total, than a U.S Crime Drama.

Peace.

P.S - For all I KNOW, MORE people in this Country did watch Prison Break … if so, then as a fan of the CFL, I would not hold mych HOPE for EXPANSION as a REALISTIC option.

Are you sure about this? I didn't know that tv ratings were broken down to the city level. I thought the smallest geographical unit of analysis for marketing purposes was regional like southern Ontario.

In any case, as others have stated above, it wasn't much of a game anyway. Had it been the typical Grey Cup barn burner, I'm sure the ratings would've been higher.

I'll say one more thing about Argo fans. I think there's a group of about 30,000 true fans who go to the games here in Toronto; average attendance this year must've been around 25-27,000/game. The Argos don't have the corporate seasons ticket holders that the Leafs, Raptors and Jays have. The 25,000 fans that go to the games here are real fans, just like in Hamilton. Well, maybe not quite like Hamilton. :wink: I've often wondered how the Leafs would make out trying to fill a stadium instead of a rink. My guess is that you'd see a few more (alot more?) empty seats.

An Argo fan

REMEMBER THIS; THE WORST THING A FRIEND CAN DO IS LET THIER FRIENDS BECOME AN ARGO FAN!

Don't read too much into the TV ratings thing. Hockey is supposed to be Canada's past time and the sport everyone in this country watches. Yet at the Salt Lake City Olympics with Canada in the final the CBC was telling us that they had the highest ratings ever for a spots event - 3 million viewers.

What were the other 29 million Canadians watching???

The 29 million were trying to get the remotes away from the 3 million so they could watch Prison Break reruns.

An Argo fan

Actually it’s the vicious, blanket insults that tend to draw me out of hiding, more than the sheer joy of an argument. I thought characterizing a whole city as “pathetic” because they don’t watch what you watch was a little over the top.

Probably nothing at all because they had something better to do…