Will David Braley be able to withstand further declines for Toronto home games in the coming months?
They are coming off another dismal defeat, and have been averaging 19,000 -20,000 per game.
The next home game may fare even worse since this latest defeat to the Lions and seeming indifference from Toronto fans.
(heck, nobody has posted on the CFL Argos forum in days now..it's sad really)
I know Braley is a multi-millionaire, although how many millions will one pour into a team before he gives up?
Bob Young has supposedly infused 40+ million into the Cats since he purchased the club, and he is worth over 800 million.
Braley doesn't have that kind of money and it worries me that one day soon, he may pull the plug.
Braley was/is there to bring the CFL to the 100th Grey Cup in the birthplace.
After 2012, it's a crapshoot what will happen with the good ship, or not so good ship, Argonauts. The beauty is the CFL just like other leagues, is so, so much more than a team in Toronto. :thup: :thup:
Considering the BC Lions and the CFL as a whole were far worst shape when Braley bought the lions, I don’t see the issue. Braley has stated on plenty of occasions he’s in it for the long haul and it will take time to build up the organization. Hosting the Grey Cup next year, will no doubt help.
20K is low, but next season and hosting the GC will earn him all of his money back. The Argos need to have a good season next year so they can carry some of those season ticket holders over! HE will host it 2 seasons in a row!
The man’s got patience. He purchased the Lions in 1997 and didn’t crack the 25,000 average attendance mark until 2004:
http://cfl-scrapbook.no-ip.org/CFL-Attendance.php
I think he knew what he was getting into, especially after his experience in Vancouver. Unless a good potential buyer comes along, I don’t think he’ll bail just yet.
Lets also not forget what he did for Hamilton…He sucked back financial losses to keep them going. Many owners would walk away. Lets face it, most owners in the CFL are in it out of passion, not to make a financial windfall.
Yeah, FOA has been a fun read the last couple of weeks. This thread in particular apparently started by Byron Parker (though that doesn’t appear to be confirmed). It’s not so much that the Argos have no online presence, just that they don’t post on the Argo forum here. Several times are like that.
I personaly think this idea is horse crap ( nothing against you web, just about the idea in general ). Yes T.O. may be the biggest market population wise, but there is no way in hell they are the biggest CFL market ( based on home team fans alone ). If they were there would not be all this talk about how to save the argos and diminishing ticket sales. They do howerver have the biggest potential market and if their management could get their head’s out of you know where, they could very well be a powerhouse.
There are alot of things this club needs to look at like
1.Finding a reliable QB
2.Building a Recieving corps who can work with the QB
3.HC/GM situation, because it sure is not working right now
4.Is the dome the right option for them, or should the pull a MTL and move into UofT or York
5.Also marketing, how do they plan and pulling fans from the BJ’s, Raps, and the NFL wannabes back to the CFL
6. There are probably some other issues that thoese in TO would know about that us outsiders dont know about
and untill they solve alot of these issues I personaly dont think they will be around for much longer ( ya it is going to suck ) but as a fan why would you want to invest time and money in a product who’s managment wont do the same.
I wish Braley would use his money and his power and influence on the city of Toronto.
make them prove him wrong.. confront the lack of support by Torontonians.
More people and organizations around the country and other teams should be openly criticizing the city of Toronto and it's fans for it's negative journalism, and lack of fan support.
they're so eager and willing to knock our league and say negative things all the time in their newspapers and radio programs yet we just sit back and do nothing!
I listened to the game on Sirius radio on Saturday(it was the Lion broadcast). Most of the talk was about the Lions but he did talk about the Argos a bit and he seems pretty determined. I’ll try to remember a few things that he said.
A. It won’t happen overnight. He will slowly rebuild the Argo brand like he did with the Lions, but it will take time. You can’t bring in some over glorified half time show, get 10000 extra people to the game then declarer the problem solved, which has been done in the past.
B. Love it or hate it, the stadium formerly known as Skydome is it. Get use to it.
C. He is giving himself five more years with both teams. He will be seventy-five then and about ready to step aside.
Looks like he can handle it and he seems to enjoy the challenge. I’m pulling for him as I’m sure everyone is as well. I just wish we could clone him and make a dozen more.
Without braley, the CFL would have died along time ago, how can anyone critize the man. Once TO builds a team , they will come back, but if only they had a empire stadium to go to they would be laughing. Get the hell out of sky dome. If they did that and had a nice 30,000 seat stadium, you could let the bills have sky dome and the argos would shine. And I am a ticat fan.
You wonder why our big corporations aren't buying into the CFL right now?
Why do companies like Rogers blow their brains out on baseball, when you can get a more popular CFL team for one tenth the price and one tenth the costs and not close to the losses the Blue Jays are incurring and will incur?
And with the new CFL TV deal coming up certainly to be much bigger, you can probably start making decent money on a CFL team.
As well you buy into a popular national league that gives you free advertising from coast to coast.
Too bad the Canadian corporate community is so afraid to invest in Canadian culture.
Because bringing American culture up here has been a complete disaster.
See Raptors, Grizzlie, Expos, Blue Jays, Bills.
We all hope a better tv deal is on the works, but we really dont know what is going to happen. Rogers already said no thanx, so its hard to say if the CFL will get very much more money then they already do. Although i do hope your right and its a larger bit of cash then now.