The Toronto media has pushed and talked about the NFL for so long and so vigorously. They have also talked down the CFL for so long but that is not what I'm talking about here.
The ratings for the NFL in the last few weeks is the highest it's ever been in Canada. Marketing, it's all marketing and we in Canada have now been sucked in as well. I even checked out a game the other day, it was good. I am still first and foremost a CFL fan, but the marketing machine has sold the media in Canada, which in turn has talked it up so much that we are beginning to believe the hype.
People are worried about the NFL coming to Toronto, it's already here and I believe it already affects the CFL.
Oh please.
The NFL did 670,000 viewers. Big deal.
The Leaf game did 1.4 million.
So much for the big bad NFL.
And that 670,000 was a huge number for the NFL. But Sunday they were back to their 300,000 numbers.
The CFL has to deal with nothing. The 4 playoffs games averaged well over one million viewers per game. The Grey Cup did almost 4 million. I don't get your point?
And is it coicnidence the NFL gets this number now that the cFL season is over? Hell no.
In fact its CFL fans that push up NFL numbers becuase they want to watch football. Get it?
But it has zip to do with the NFL marketing machine.
Yes, the NFL affects the CFL in that if it weren't for the NFL or a major pro football league in the US, no one in Canada would give a rats arse about the CFL because football in general would be regarded about the same as, hmmm, well, let's put it this way, not even close to shuffleboard I'm afraid. A pro league is necessary to make people really interested in a sport, not saying it should be this way but that's reality.
Thank god for the CFL that pro football is played in the US at a high level with a great league and marketing machine and gives us some great players, otherwise, zippo CFL.
And if anyone here can't see this, well, not much I can do for you I'm afraid.
I have to agree with Berezin. The reason the NFL is doing so well right now is because the CFL is done. Take a look at argotom's threads about the viewer numbers for the weekend sports games. The CFL regularly beat out the NFL. With the CFL now over, people are turning to the NFL for their football fix. But that doesn't mean the NFL is going to take over the CFL.
I don't doubt that for a minute for sure, I mean there is only so much football or any sports people can watch due to, if nothing else, a limit on your time.
And yes Chief, it doesn't mean the NFL is going to swallow up the CFL and spit it out afterwards, not at all. The NFL is not some big, bad mean machine that devours everything in site or in it's way, although some seem to think so.
Found this on the web and I'm sure berezin and a few others will enjoy this:
Seeking to understand the motivations of the Toronto media is a treatise unto itself, but consider this explanation from the usually tiresome Leah McLaren, in a February 2nd Globe column: “The Toronto media type is the most worthless sort of hypocrite – a completely unprincipled, outwardly smug coward. The kind of person who is, technically speaking, intelligent enough to be self-critical, but instead chooses to mask radical self-interest behind a hollowly plumped-up ideal of free speech and independent thought.?
WTF berezin99? For all of your screaming and whining and crying about stopping the NFL from comin’ over the border… and you go and post this? your opinions are skewed, conflicting, and nonsesical.
Every annual survey nation wide has confirmed by a wide margin how the CFL is the second most popular sport to NHL hockey and rising of late.
The TV numbers confirm same.
As for the NFL TV, when head to head the difference is obvious.
The current NFL TV figure for the one particular game is more a reflection of the CFL season being done and some of our fans getting their fix, versus the NFL standing alone.
If your a football fan you watch all football. Ddddduring the CFL season if it came down to watching a cfl game or an nfl game of course it would be cfl. But the season is now over so I go for College football first and NFL last. I am sure the ratings are up for the reason I just stated.
The nfl has been in the cfl,s nest for 30 years at least, its nothing new at all. Why nobody gets pissed at global ?? they never bid for cfl , so cfl has to take whatever tv rev it can get, in its own country,. TV compensation from nfl is way past due!!-- Nfl will flop in toronto.(no more than 4ok average attendance) wich in the long run could be the best thing!
Mass you are incorrect about Global, they did bid for the CFL during the previous contract.
In fact they offered more money at $11M annually when TSN got the bid at $9M.
It seems they wanted to show all the games on Saturday, in order to then protect their NFL sunday broadcasts.
It's a good thing they did not get it.