Face Facts. CFL Will Never Get Respect in Southern Ontario

CFL Talk
1

Reading and seeing all the over the top coverage of this baseball steroid scandal, when the bloody baseball season doesn't even start for two months, shows what a problem the CFL has in the southern Ontario market.

Somebody somewhere in this region decided that their sports were also ours. And they also decided that there were only "four major North American sports" worth covering. And the CFL wasn't one of them.

So it doesn't matter how popular the CFL is across Canada. Or how many viewers watch on TV. It will never get respect in this area. Because it isn't considered a major North Amrican sport by the people running the show.

Until we can change this attitude, the CFL will always play third fiddle to less popular sports like baseball and basketball. Because just being a major Canadian sport doesn't count for anything. Strange but true.

2

There are only three seasons going on right now…that is hockey, basketball, and golf. So the fact that the baseball story is making headlines isn’t wrong.

stop the dooms day stuff.

3

The teams and the league get respect from the fans, and that is more important than what the media thinks. I agree 100% with mike, its crazy to post all the negative stuff all the time.

4

first of all, the baseball season is closer than the CFL season, and the NBA season is currently running. it is not like the score and TSN completely shut out the CFL, they mention all signings and trades in their high light shows. and don't include Hamilton in that Toronto talk. Toronto is the 53rd state. The CFL gets plenty of respect in Hamilton, when ever you see a person walking down the street there, they are wearing a jacket, cap or something. And attendance has been strong, even with a losing team. And my final point. Do you ever post on anything relevant to the game? it seems to me all you are interested in is the eventual entry of the NFL into Canada. I never see you posting on the threads about free agency, trades, stadiums, strategy or anything, all you talk about is how inferior the CFL is to other sports leagues.

5

pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training so technically....

6

would we rather they be talking about CFL steroid scandal?

7

Unfortunately, a result of this lack of respect for Canadian football in southern Ontario is that is where our national media outlets are located. So the decisions made by these Ontario-based sports editors has a negative effect on the CFL news coverage across Canada.

It couldn’t be any clearer than looking at the National Post on-line sports section. While it is obviously a very poorly written newspaper, why in their Sports section do they have subheads for:

NHL
MLB
NBA
NFL
Golf
Posted Sports

But no CFL or football subheading? Their CFL news, (they rarely have any), are lumped into “Posted Sports”, whatever that means, along with NLL, Boxing, Cricket, CFL, Beach Volleyball, ect. Sure it’s the off-season, but so is it for MLB and NFL.

Over at the Toronto Star on-line website, (Canada’s largest circulation newspaper), they at least have a subheading for “Football/Argos” on their sports front page, but then readers are confronted with subheads links for NFL Scoreboard, NFL Schedule, NFL Standings, NFL Stats, with nothing for the CFL. Then take a wild guess about which football league the majority of their stories are usually about? The Star’s on-line “Football Wire” contains links to 29 NFL stories and 1 CFL story today.

While these newspapers and their on-line websites do contain more CFL stories than usual today, this is due to CFL free agency starting tomorrow and Coach of the year candidates having just being announced. Next week, like last week, you normally are conforted with wall-to-wall NFL coverage throughout the year. You would be hard pressed to realize if you were in Toronto or Anytown, USA from reading Canada’s on-line sports pages.

While the Globe and Mail sports columnists seem to have a hate-on for anything Canadian, at least their on-line site includes some CFL sub-headings under their “Football” section heading. But after all, they do claim to be Canada’s national newspsper.

I won’t include the Toronto Sun here, as they make no pretense to being a national newspaper, but you have to look no farther than the comments of their main football columnist, Longley?, who referrd to CFL fans as “stubble-jumping hicks” in his recent debate on how popular the NFL was in Toronto.

Newspapers and sports shows across Canada rely on the stories generated out of Toronto to fill their newscasts and sports pages, and let’s face facts, they get a steady diet of NFL news, videos, stats, features, throughout the year. Ontario sports editors seem convinced the NFL is more popular than Canadian football…and unfortunately this negative attitiude effects CFL news coverage across Canada.

8

Where's my last post gone?
I guess I'll repeat myself.
Since we haven't got a team here in London, Ontario, I am more a fan of the league.
So I observe how the league is treated in this area.
And what I observe is that the league is ignored in this area because it doesn't fall into the strange classification of major North American sport.
Hockey is even getting ridiculed in these parts as insignificant because its fallen a few notches down south. Even though its still huge in Cananda.
This type of logic mystifies me.
Why are we promoting them over our own?
At the expense of our own successful athletes?
London would be a great CFL town, yet the local paper doesn't even know the CFL exists.
Andy Fanuz starred at Western and played in the Grey Cup, but there was barely any coverage at all of this fact in the Free Press.
If he were in the Super Bowl or World Series, they'd have held a parade for him on Dundas St.
This attitude just ticks me off.
Until we become the 51st state, anything that happens up here should take priority.

9

Xys.
I agree 100%.

10

It's the off-season, unless your team is making a big trade or signing a big free agent it's going to take a back seat to the leagues actually still playing.

11

Good points. Didn't realize that about the National Post Xuys, sad.

The Score had an excellent free agent segment on the news last night, it was great. Not sure what TSN or Sportsnet had on for this.

I guess the best part of this is that the CFL still has a fairly decent fan base despite not getting the press we think it deserves. So that's a positive anyways.

12

For your perusal.
Read this headline about the Toronto Raptors in the Toronto Star.
You'd think Raptor TV ratings were skyrocketing.
But look at the actual facts in the article.
They're TV ratings are a third of what the CFL gets.
If you ask me the real headline should be why does nobody care about the Raptors.
Instead its all cheerleading.
This is the bias the CFL faces in southern Ontario.
Here's the article.

http://www.thestar.com/Sports/article/303804
13

Thanks berezin for the article.
Strange The Star didn't even mention the Argos. I guess they didn't want to embarass the Raps putting them in same league of ratings as our little ol' CFL, maybe would have given a few people a complex. :wink:

14

Unfortunately, the media tends to dictate what people (especially the non-fans) think. It's likely that there are way more CFL non-fans than fans out there. Most of those people don't know anything about football - CFL or NFL - and so their opinion is based on what they occasionally see or hear ... ie, what the media gives them. The CFL is probably not going to lose any fans. But it's hard-pressed to gain new fans, what with the NFL hype machine.

15

Everything is sort of relative though. You often hear about players in the NHL, NFL, NBA and MLB who don't get much media attention because they play in small markets. Not so much the NFL since it is a real TV league with all the games on but in the other leagues, it is a real issue according to some.

16

Hey. Where'd my Bob Young post go?

17

...didn't you read the announcement section?...your thread won the 'indescriminent evaporation' lottery....

18

Dissing Bob Young should be a crime.

19

...yup, you're in the crapper now #99, better log out before the admins trace your whereabouts...

20

What are you talking about pal?
What was wrong with that thread?
It was an iquiry as to why the guy doesn't get his wallet out. Thats all
What a mickey mouse board this is if they censor a post like that.
Guess you want all positive rah rah stuff eh?
Well I'll tell ya. It'll be pretty hard to have a team in Hamilton in ten years when that eyesore of a stadium turns to dust.