Well the Advertising is a necessary evil like it or not. It keeps the salaries up and the Ticket prices lower , nobody really likes it but it's better then having no CFL.
Getting rid of the weekday games would certainly help attendance, Thursday games are usually not a great draw. I'd like to see the CFL either do double headers Fri-Sat each week, and use Sunday more often early in the season. The CFL still draws good viewership on Sundays during the NFL season, but you are still losing viewership so keep those games to a minimum once the NFL starts up.
I don't think the gameday experience is the reason people don't go out to the games, nor is the length of the games. TV production quality has gone up since the CBC has stopped broadcasting games, we could still improve it a lot, but it has gotten better.
i dont recall CFL tv ratings being affected by the NFL season on sundays.
i prefer 1 game each nite, thurs-sun on TV....but id never go to a live game on a thursday or a friday.
then again, i live over an hour from my closest CFL stadium...IWS.
I'd like to see the Thursday games axed. Supposedly weeknight games were initiated because the league had research showing that one reason people were staying away was that there was too mcu else to do on summer weekends, like trips to the cottage or out of town.
Further to the line of thought about production values, I had a friend in the 80s who became an NFL fan because, he said, "American announcers take a dull game and make it exciting. Canadian announcers take an exciting game and make it dull."
If the Esks weren't forced by the league/TSN to take 5+ home Thursday games like we have the past two seasons, we'd be averaging at least 37,000+ like we did before the Thursdays were forced on us. Way more marketing is needed for the CFL to attract new fans, including a video game however unlikely that may be.
Your friend never tried to stay awake through a Pat Summerall game. Thank gawd he finally retired. He was about as exciting as a corpse. The game would be tied with ten seconds left and an interception for a touchdown and he would call it like it was the first play of pre-season, his voice trailing off as if he was nodding off at the mic. There is simply NO WAY he ever made a game more exciting. I complained about this once and an American friend said that people liked him because they didn’t want an announcer who hyped the plays and that the game was exciting enough. I don’t know what your friend could have been watching.
Some of the coverage of the CFL was pretty spirited in the 80s as I recall. I wasn’t a huge fan of guys like Pat Marsden and Johnny Esaw, but they at least tried to inject some life into the games as best they could given limited budgets. Then there was long timers like Don Whitman and Don Chevrier. Those guys did a pretty good job.
Today we have TSN and it’s making CBC coverage look junior college by comparison, and it’s reflecting in the good ratings.
Don Whitman? More than once he called the Stamps and Esks the Flames and Oilers. Don Chevrier was good but was long gone from CBC in the eighties. Pat Marsden had a serious man crush on Joe Galat (Als GM)and couldn't stop talking about him whether Montreal was playing or not. If you think that Rod Black and Duane Forde are any better, well....what can I say? But your point about Pat Summerall is taken. Pleasing voice but almost monotone.
The best CFL announcer that I recall, other than Chevrier, was named Bob Irving (I think) on the league's CFN network (mostly Global stations) in the late 80s or early 90s. Kind of a funny looking character, but a good voice and not repetitive at all, no dead air.
Ed whealan gets my Nod , best announcer in Proffesional Wrestling.
I agree it s…,s to see empty seats on T.V , But in fairness to CFL, there are lots of empty seats for other sports as well, mlb, nba, nhl, even nfl, dont sell out all their games in every city, The CFL has come along way since the difficult 90,s wich was the result of poor judgment in the 80,s. and the boom in free agent salaries, fuled by big American T.V contracts that, the CFL could not keep up with, the CFL has proven that the big free agent contracts dont gaurantee the best product on the field, The CFL in 2009 has 8 strong football team,s that are providing high calaber sports entertainment to thier fans, But just when is it enouph, How big can we expect the CFL to become :?
You're joking, right?
Geezis, so you're not a football fan...fine. But your ideas are so shortsighted. Stick to hockey, ...20 minute intermission's and commercial breaks at 14, 10, and 6 of each period. Oooo... :?
Directed at ‘2much2Soon’…
THere were MAYBE 25000 fans at the Raider game today. And 20000 left by half time. The CFL looks wildly successful in comparison.
I’ve been watching football longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve been to far more games than you are ever likely to get to and I’ve been to games in 6 out of 9 CFL cities.
Sports in general has declined in entertainment value. Hockey at the pro level is seldom any great shakes, Baseball would do better if it were only 6 innings.
A huge drawback to internet anomymity is that people figure they can get away with saying things to people that they would not dare say to their faces. That’s a juvenile chicken-shit mentality.
Could you possibly be any more crotchety and old fashioned? Should we take the forward pass out of the game? How about getting rid of all that equipment players wear now?
You are remembering a time of your life that you really enjoyed and coincidentally sports entertainment was something you likely enjoyed at that age. As a result when you look back at that time you remember more that you enjoyed it and that that was how the game was when you enjoyed it but that in now way means it was by default better that way. Commercials and promotions at games and on TV are a huge source of revenue and have improved everything from production values and analysis of the game on TV and being able to show the games on TV draws way more people to the game than trying to get a TV station to show games without commercials out of the goodness of their heart. Sponsors on the field pay to help the stadium up and running and in good shape and an enjoyable and safe place to watch games. Cutting revenue and cutting jobs just to get the game under some arbitrary length is not progressive thinking and not helpful to the league at all and would actually do more harm than good to the league as they would come off looking very old fashioned and out of touch with todays fan
To be fair, you are comparing regular season CFL too pre-season NFL, and the NFL isn’t that far behind, I think ultimately that speaks powerfully for the NFL. This is particularly true, because you are talking about one of the NFL’s WORST team’s and NFL preseason games are considered more or less unwatchable by many fans.
pre-season NFL is almost unwatchable, and that they can draw more than flies (or that the NFL network can air every one of the pre-season games to decent numbers says a lot about the NFL. Comparing the NFL pre-season to a regular season CFL game doesn’t work (and for the record, here in Chicago, the Bears sold out pre-season against the Giants).
LTF
:roll:
Maybe you’re right old timer and that really is pathetic attendance. Some people would conclude that the whole Bay Area lacks community spirit and/or don’t like football so don’t deserve their teams. Maye the 49ers and the Raiders should just move to LA.
But maybe the stadium is the problem. After all, only the Packers play in an older stadium than the 49ers and the Raiders. But what kind of real football fans would allow their beloved teams to play in hopelessly outdated 40+ year old stadiums? Where is the grassroots campaign to build new stadiums? Some people would say that the lack of new stadium proves that there is no grassroots interest in football and/or stadiums and that the Bay Area has no community spirit.
Do you know anyone who would say stuff like that? :lol:
Well, as a season ticket holder for several years, I can also say there are NO excuses. The weather was perfect for an afternoon game in the bay area. It doesn’t matter that the Raiders blow at high dough, they should still get at least 40k every single game, pre-season or not. There are more than enough people in the Bay Area to fill that stadium several times over. My point is that empty seats happen sometimes. It doesn’t matter if it’s CFL or NFL. Even the mighty NFL with all it’s billions can’t put butts in seats sometimes on even the most beautiful of days. The CFL has NOTHING to be ashamed of.
And Brett, please stop calling me “old timer”. I’m 52 years old. You’re probably right about the stadiums — after all there only two 65K seat stadiums here. There is plenty of community spirit though. Just put some winning teams on the field and spirits will soar.
Mada7 - What bothers me most is people who presume to know what I think. The question posted concerns empty seats. A number of people have put in their 2 cents on the topic and I most make a good case for their way of thinking about the issue. There is some good back-and-forth on some points but that’s all to the good as this is a FAN FORUM in which such issues should be discussed. That being said, there are also a lot of people who utterly fail to comprehend that.
If you want to criticize my comments go ahead. Take a look at the BB forum for a good discussion about the merits of the new stadium proposal. I may not completely agree with the other posters but they made their cases well and we all (I hope) respect one another. I have made points several times only to find that another true fan of the game had better information and I stand corrected. Please re-read my original post and you will see that I’ve made no mention of forward passes or jettisoning equipment. Stick to what has been written and criticize that. Please don’t try to criticize what I have not written.
OK, let me expand a bit on my original comment. Yes, you are correct that I remember a time when going to a game meant that I got very good entertainment value for my dollar. Even when the game was lousy there was still music playing, pretty girls dancing, mascots clowning and people laughing. I don’t see that anymore. If a game is lousy there are no other distractions. It just may be that people younger than me are used to having ads in their faces all-day every-day. All it does for me is serve as a reminder that I’m bored.
People are tuning out traditional radio and TV because of ads and they’re willing to pay a premium for the privilege. The CFL has not struck a balance between costs and sustainable revenues. I gave as my example rosters that have expanded. These extra players have not increased the entertainment value. All it has done is drive up costs, which require extra revenue, which means more ads, and that means less game and more sales. There are other examples where the league has driven up costs but those are irrelevant here. What I said was that the games are now too long, ads are to blame, and this drives away customers. If I’m mistaken on that point please let me know.
…maybe you have your hoody on backwards?..
…the rosters are what they are, dictated by the sport itself, by the football operations end of the equation not the beancounters, revenues are then acquired to make the whole thing profitable and if selling some additional airtime is what is required then so be it, I probably don’t have to tell you that but it segues into my next point…reducing those rosters IMO will make the sport suffer, quality wise, and would lead to a de-evolution of the game, and a loss of public support and their entertainment dollars…just my thoughts…
…also, this extra airtime doesn’t rob from the game, it only extends it…I could also make an argument the airtime necessary for running today’s game enhances the play as the teams use the commercial breaks for communication time with their coaches, extra time outs if you will…I could, but then I would be missing out on desert…