With all this talk about expansion and city size I desided to look up populations and saw something interesting
The highest city populations(metropolitan area) as of 2001 are
Toronto 4,682,897
Montreal 3,426,350
Vancouver 1,986,965
Ottawa 1,063,664
Calgary 951,395
Edmonton 937,845
Quebec City 682,757
8 ) Winnipeg 671,274
Hamilton 662,401
Halifax 359,183
Regina 192,800
Moncton 117,727
The 6 highest populations have CFL teams. Que City the 7th largest city has a higher pop than Winnipeg, Hamilton and Regina and does not have a team.
I think that Quebec City should be next.
I've been saying that for a long time! Not only that but Quebec is producing great football players and They already draw the most fans in QC for University footbal than anywhere else in the Country, by far!
Regina has the team over Saskatoon because of where the rest of the population is drawn from. Most of Saskatchewans population live in the lower 1/3, about 3-4 hours from Saskatoon. It makes alot more sense to have the team in the lower portion of the Province. (even though Saskatoon is a much nicer city than Regina). But, if you polled the fans at a Rider game, and asked them where they are from, most of them are from outside Regina. (atleast in my experience)
I think your demographics ar incorrect. Although there is a large attendance of fans from around the province at Regina games, the majority of spectators come from Regina. I think the population to draw on for a Saskatoon as far as how close to the city they live is about the same as Regina. Swift Current and Yorkton are about the same distqance from Saskatoon as from Regina. While Regina has the cities of Moose Jaw, Weyburn and Estevan closer, Saskatoon has the comparable cities of Prince Albert, Lloydminster and North Battleford closer. There is a similar spread for towns and smaller places.
If Quebec City built a stadium a CFL team would be there. So really whoever can get government and private support to build a cfl approved facility gets a franchise.
The other thing about the team being in Regina, and not Saskatoon, is because the team is very old ... Regina may have been (and probably was) the larger of the two cities "back in the day" when the Roughriders (who were originally called the Regina Roughriders) were created. And they're not gonna move a team every time the city its in loses its position as the biggest in the province!
I think the problem with putting a team in QC, though, is that most of the fans there are probably Alouettes fans - on the basis that it's the only Quebecois team in the CFL. IMHO, I think it's the same reason that a team in Saskatoon would be hard-pressed to work: the fans there are already hooked on the Riders. I could be wrong ... Quebec City may never cheer for anything Montreal (I know they had a GREAT rivalry in hockey!).
Plus, the exhibition game stage at QC a few years ago drew a very, very disappointing crowd. Whereas the Rouge et Or can draw 19,000 to their games (which is incredible - good on 'em!!!), I think less than 9,000 showed up for a game featuring the Als.
I still say Halifax should have a team (and not Moncton). I didn't know the market was bigger than Regina, Winnipeg or Hamilton ... and look at how far down the list Moncton is!! Moncton may be more central, but are people really going to drive upwards of 1.5 hours for a single game? I doubt it. There are enough people in Halifax, and the population is CONCENTRATED there - which I think it needs to be. It's the same knock against inner BC ... there may be a total of 1,000,000 living there, but it's spread out over an area the size of New Brunswick ... so crowds would end up being very small.
I believe the Ottawa Senators have had attendance issues in the past (and look at THEIR team! They're GOOD!) ... and, the Corel Centre is way out in the middle of nowhere, as far as I can tell ...
plus you should see the Tailgate party !