CFL in Victoria, BC. I know... its a crazy idea. A rapidly growing city with the population of 390,000 with 2 hub locations approx 1hr 30 mins away has an added population of approx., 185,000 (Nanaimo and Cowichan Valley).
By the numbers: 575,000 people on southern Vancouver Island with close access to attending a game only an hour and a half away.
Toronto Argos move to Victoria. Toronto clearly doesn't want a CFL team- and smaller cities seem to support a team better.
BC Lions will not lose support. Trust me. I live on the island, nobody wants to spend $200 to catch a ferry to then have to book a hotel because ferry services don't run late enough. In fact, having another team in the province could promote a healthy competition.
The stadium... keep it small. Smaller stadiums that fill up with people is better optics than a massive stadium like Edmonton where it looks empty, even with 30 thousand fans. Keep the seats to a max 20,000 people (similar to Hamiltons).
Victoria is growing rapidly and soccer is making an imprint already in the Langford community. I think it would be smart to look at Victoria, before soccer does.
It would be great for the province to have that rivalry. Victoria is a great little town with a cool atmosphere. (Sammy Davis Jr had a house there). It’s like a mini version of Ottawa in some respect.
I’m not sure it would have the fan base. I would love to see that though.
I live in Victoria, I agree its hard to justify the ferry and hotel and just travel in general to go to a football game. I still do it twice a year when Edmonton is in town but damn that’s too much money. Again I still do it, also I’m from Edmonton I’ve been to dozens to EE games thirty thousand people on TV doesn’t look like anything. But the people that actually live on the island can’t support a team. The royals don’t always sell out, and that’s 7,000 at best.
Should be a partnership between the group and the city on a project of such nature.
No owner in their right mind would go all in at 100 percent to build a stadium unless there are part of a larger conglomerate.
All optics aside, still can’t rack my head around this idea of how removing Toronto, Montreal and/ Vancouver will actually improve the CFL. Sure things aren’t good but bailing on them won’t increase the CFLs profile at all, especially if they are looking for a US TV deal.
Richardson Stadium is newer and has over 8,000 . . . but it’s in Kingston. It might be fun to have an exhibition game there someday, but I don’t think it’d make any sense as an expansion site.
I just hate to see the CFL add more teams. I was happy with 8. Eight team max gives the eight team owners leverage to move to another city in Canada if fan support lags.
Plus having just eight teams gives the league less money to lose and more wealthy folks available to takeover. Having lots of teams dilutes the availability of wealthy individuals to take over the teams as time passes.