Game Day Experience

Over the past couple of years I've noticed that my in game experience has been awful. I love the CFL but I've come to the realization that I actually enjoy TV presentation more than stadium.

Went to the BC/Edmonton game on Saturday and it was awful.

Dead crowd energy and every minute of in between plays was filled with ear shattering inane music, chants and phony mic'd up hype. Every moment. Its like that, now in the Twitter world, some feel we need to be "entertained" every moment. It was actually laughable. The stadium-created noise sucked the life out of everyone in there at 3 in the afternoon.

When Ed had the ball the noise from the crowd was loud. But you look around and the crowd is doing nothing. It was a piped in, amped up, affair. $85 ticket? No more for me.

Not sure what its like elsewhere lately. I haven't been to games outside of Vancouver for two years now. But it'll take a lot to get back to a Lions home game.

Agreed,

The CFL would do well to get back to basics for in stadium programming. Hopefully in time they can pay for it.

The phony piped in cheering has got to go. Get back to team bands and drummers. Use effective, real, cheer-leading and mascots to get the environment rolling and leave the rest to the fans.

I would also take fewer commercial breaks during the run of play in exchange perhaps for longer commercial breaks between the quarters and at the half. The promotional contests and what have you can be carried out in these longer but rarer pauses. I’ve mentioned in the past that perhaps more LED advertising around the field could offset the cost of maintaining a cleaner or even ad free field. That said, perhaps selling ad space on the TV score box could help offset commercial breaks and keep the pace of action up in the stadium.

Winnipeg is very lively, tailgating all over ,lounges packed by the stadium ,two radio stations with pre and post games. This year with Wade Miller having a year under his belt, he used to tailgate beside us at the old Stadium he is in tune with the fans. He has kept beer sales open in the lower concourse a hour after the game ,brought bands in and allow fans on to the field after the game to throw a ball around and continue the party.

I wonder if perhaps part of the problem in BC is that the stadium is too big, much like Rogers Centre for the Argos. Other than for the odd really big game - something about being in half empty stadiums just saps energy from a crowd. Usually something about being in a packed stadium contributes to the crowd being amped up instead of it being only a stadiums public address system being amped up.

I've heard that a packed Whitecaps crowd that has the awning draped down blocking the upper deck from view is infinitely more enthusiastic than a Lions crowd that may have 5 - 10 thousand more people but has banks of empty seats staring at everybody.

You have to hate that piped in crowd noise, that’s just not right. I think they should ban it.
But the reality is if people don’t go to the games, there will be no games to watch on TV :roll:

This is true. Previous more intimate configurations at Rogers Centre during the C&S years were much more lively. I don’t understand why the Lions don’t employ the draped awning for their regular season games. The stadium keeps bright and airy while becoming more cozy. No need for 52,000 seats.

I can never figure out why they need to play the music so loud.

I don’t agree with Slant about the stadium being dead. With the roof closed, that place became a solarium (not sure why they decided to keep it closed - we had a band of very heavy rain showers pass through the area 2-3 hours prior to kick-off, but it cleared up for kick-off). When people feel like they’re sitting in a Turkish sauna with no air circulating, it’s not hard to figure out why they’d be docile. But I actually thought there was decent noise when the Esks had the ball, and quiet for offense, especially with the game on the line in the 4th quarter.

When Ed had the ball the noise from the crowd was loud. But you look around and the crowd is doing nothing. It was a piped in, amped up, affair.
Sorry, but I have to call BS on that one.

Lions typically average 28K - 30K with crowds building as the seasons wears on. The problem with BC Place is it’s too big for regular season games. I would be favour of a creative tarp system like the Argos employed several years ago. The black curtains that the Whitecaps use don’t work for me, and some fans would rather sit on the 50 yard line up top than in the lower bowl end zone.


http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c302/oceanvista/roger-center-supersize_zps2a1eefd3.jpg

On this past Saturday it was not hot at all in there.
I contend the noise in the 4 th Q. was amplified. It was loud when the Esks had the ball but I contend it was amplified. There is no way that was real crowd noise. The crowd was not generating that volume and it was obvious if you were there imo.

But docile crowd or not the real issue in my post is the constant and debilitating shower of sound that gets blasted at you in between plays. Constant and continual.

Is that the way it is elsewhere now?

I will agree on the piped in noise I’ve been to many Lions game and sat under a speaker and could clearly hear noise coming out from it. I didn’t make it to this game but a friend of mine was at it and he was a little miffed that the roof was shut on a perfect afternoon. The Lions like to keep it closed so the noise is louder but people wont show up if it’s way to hot. As a tax payer and fan we put a retractable roof on it for a reason so if Lions management reads this open the Dam thing.

Lions games at home are a joke Bob ackles had that place Rocken at home games ( 2004-2008), Skulski is a joke , he does not know what he is doing, until Bradley sells this team and the new owners go out and get them selves a professional marketer BC place for lions games are going to driddle down from 24,000 to 20,000 to 15,000 . I will not go to a game until the experience improves 100 %.

I guess having a winning football team for almost 20 years doesn’t cut it ?

Not anymore

you have just experienced the Hype of Edmonton.

their stadium is huge, far away from the field and the fans are quiet.

the last few years or so when they were a bad team their fans were disappearing fast.

pretty embarassing for a team with the largest stadium in the league to get beat in attendance by a team with the smallest city in the league.

the Atmosphere in Edmonton has been sub par for years.

what they need to do is take away a certain # of their seats and force people to sit closer together. since they hardly ever get to 40,000 fans anymore, they can reduce the available # of seats to 40,000.

How’s that reading comprehension thing going? The game in question was in BC. Another example of your ridiculous hate on for the city of Edmonton and its Eskimos fans.

Now that looks very cool. It is just complete lack of effort for a club not do something like that to consolodate the seating to a morelower level coziness.
Hopefully the Canucks will buy the Lions like the Stamps were by the Flames.
I read somewhere last year that the Lions were thinking about opening just like the first 15 rows of the upper levels along the sidelines while doing some creative tarping or curtaining. Instead it appears the upper deck is just open on the home team side and the rest of the seats are just left empty.

Rogers Centre / SkyDome was never better configured for football than during the C&S years… The place had energy and the creative tarping made it look ALMOST like a football stadium.

where are these graphic tarps today?

Can the Argos not still use them for home games or did Rogers place a moratorium on this as well, as they did by disallowing Argo adverts and placards within the stadium?

no Shyt the game was in BC. wow how observant.

i’m talking about seasons previous to 2014…

I have gone to many games, seeing as I live in Edmonton. I’ve also been to games in Calgary and Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan makes both cities look embarassing.

but Calgary’s atmosphere is better than Edmonton’s.

I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have said this:

if you actually knew the thread was specifically about the game in BC.

But if you did, fine, that’s your won own prerogative, but then again my point stands you are just trying to derail another thread into bashing Edmonton, and upping Saskatchewan for no apparent reason.