Its good that they temper this ranking with total league annual attendance. Yes the CFL does the 7th best per game attendance of outdoor team field sports leagues world wide but lags in annual league-wide total attendance. We only have 8 pre-season, 72 regular season and 5 play-off games annually.
That said, we do pretty well for a country our size.
It's quite amazing that this is being done in a sport that is not the no. 1 sport in Canada as generally thought of and in a league that has strictly Canadian teams in it and barely any hype or advertising from the US. I keep thinking to myself is the CFL really for real? :o
And as you say joedav, not a hugely populated country and quite scattered over a large geographical area.
Nice info Captain. :thup:
What's even odder, come to think of it, is that some Canadians see the continued existence of our league as some sort of failure. That is really weird in my mind. :roll:
Look at Australia, a country half our population yet they love their sports. Look at the total attendance!! I think they are a more sports minded country and respect other sports.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attendance_figures_at_domestic_professional_sports_leagues]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_at ... ts_leagues[/url]For the CFL numbers if you took the Argos out of the numbers the “average” attendance would be a lot higher but the total attendance would be down.
mike, with reference to Australia, they don't have a giant right next door to them as in the US with basically the worlds no. 1 media hype machine so they are more apt to have to rely on themselves for their own created enterainment and culture.
Australia has a population of 23 million which is 2/3 the size of Canada, not half, and the AFL (Aussie Rules Football League) comprises 18 teams in total which clearly aids in the overall attendance total.
To note, the CFL is fairly close in avg. attendance (4,800 difference) to the AFL which is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.
and BTW, the Alouettes had the worst attendance in the CFL at 22,456, not the Argos.
and to state that Australia is more sports minded than Canada is inaccurate as hockey is religiously rabid in this country with Canadian football gaining in pervasive consciousness as well.
I've been to Australia often. Australia is quite sports minded. I don't know if that means it's more so than Canada. The climate is different, so different sports and seasons take predominance in the two countries. Snowboarding in Canada, surfing in Australia. What can you expect?
Aussie Rules football is a great game and has a large following. It's a weird (to my eyes) mix of soccer and rugby with a bit of basketball and football thrown in. I find it quite exciting to watch, fast-paced and with a lot o athleticism. Attendance isn't quite what it used to be though as I understand it from people I know there. There is competition from Rugby Union and from Rugby League (different versions of the game), soccer (the A League), as well as lingering interest in cricket. I'm pretty sure it's still #1 in the country though. If you get a chance to watch a game, I highly recommend it. There's an amateur league in Ontario, including the Hamilton Wildcats.
With more teams in the top-level league (Josh Bartel played in a lower league I believe) and a longer season, with Australia's population base (tangledweb is correct), and with no huge neighbour playing a very similar game, it's not surprising they get larger total attendance figures than the CFL does. Good on 'em.
Canadians long ago decided that hockey was their sport of choice and we have done quite an impressive job of dominating the game for as long as we have for a country of 34 million. Even if you want to argue we aren’t the best at hockey (which is a perfectly valid one), there is no doubt that no other country cares about hockey as much as we do.
To think that Australia is more sports minded then us is quite a broad assumption based on the fact that they average 5000 more people at AFL games…
Reality is; football is not Canada’s game (no matter where it was invented). We are a hockey country and goddamn do we love our hockey.
Mikem, why do you always seem to be trying to tear down Canada and the CFL??? I just don’t get it :?