Over the years the cfl has played out of market several times for one reason or another. But after a few touchdown Atlantic games and now a pacific game, I want more.
What if we have at least one touchdown event per year and rotate which team hosts it so that way more areas get a chance to see the game Elks can do for Mac again or go to Yellowknife , Hamilton to London or Windsor, mtl to Quebec City, and so on.
We should also take it one step further for some of these teams with branding - like every touchdown Atlantic the argos wear special schooner jerseys and have a whole slew of merch available. that way we can keep a pulse of potential expansion markets for when the time is right.
Having “Touchdown” series games across Canada is a great idea and one I hope the CFL continues to explore even after a 10th team is created.
It’s a great way for the CFL to get new fans interested and it gives fans across the country an excuse to buy a plane ticket and experience another part of Canada.
In my opinion, it’ll depend on low attendance from the previous year. Edmonton has had some stinkers at home so going to Mac is possible. I don’t believe Yellowknife will happen any time soon. I don’t see Hamilton doing London because their attendance has been solid. You might see Toronto or Ottawa host there though. Montreal has had better attendance lately so they might wait until a down year to host in Quebec City.
TD series has very little to do with expansion. It’s more about owners trying to line their pockets and get decent TV ratings for TSN. If a city gets interested in the CFL, it’s a bonus.
Business reality is that one selects a few successful sites and sticks with those for the Touchdown games, instead of continuing to experiment for a 9-team league with the 10th team quite elusive and not happening this decade.
In the next decade, some of us will be old enough not to hold out hope or care any more, but hey there is much to shore up now before expansion in my opinion.
We have various threads on the following amongst other current pressing issues for the CFL (and also many other leagues and sports):
Gambling Issues
Changes in Rules
Attendance
Media Contracts, including outside of Canada in the US
Those business realities front-and-centre will be addressed first with some select sites for the Touchdown games already at hand.
Mac was an option because there was an international event which booted the team out of Commonwealth for the 1st couple of weeks in July. In 2026 with World Cup Soccer hosting events in Vancouver & Toronto, there is a possibility of the CFL clubs playing some outside venues, like Victoria, London or so on. Otherwise it can be handled with a bye for both clubs over the 3 weeks & road games. But I suspect in BC Victoria may get a game.
FIFA requires all games to be played on grass. Currently only the Argos do, as far as I know. So I am curious to see what happens in BC. FIFA calls the shots & there’s no buts.
It won’t be the Riders participating in that game to give up one of their home games, so will those fans show for this game when the Riders are playing away?
Would enough locals in Saskatoon show up there other than a small few visiting fans? Would 20,000 even show on a summer weekend?
I can’t see many teams wanting to give up the revenue of playing at a neutral site with much smaller attendance. The owner in BC is spending a lot of money and can afford it. MLSE has also spent a lot of money to give up their home field with the TD Atlantics.
Edmonton did host a game in Fort MacMurray which wasn’t very succsesful, the Argos pre-season games at Guelph were far from sell outs and the Als/RB game in Quebec City had a small crowd.
A TD Pacific and a TD Atlantic every few years would be good but I can’t see it working anywhere else.
It’s no coincidence that 8 of the 9 clubs are also in the top 10 population wise. Quebec City & Kitchener round out the top 10 depending on your source. Regina is an anomaly. I don’t know that Victoria would support a club - I’ve spent a lot of time there over the years & there’s lots of other things to keep you occupied.
It’s expensive to build stadiums these days &, if you haven’t been paying attention, taxpayers have lots more pressing issues on their mind.
IMO we’re a long way away from adding a 10 team though I would like to see it.
OUTSTANDING feedback based on some hard facts here - I think a lot of people posting about expansion and for more of these touchdown sites every season fail to understand that it is quite a different proposition on many fronts, demographically and down to the business, for locals to support a team for an entire season versus for one game in the Touchdown series.
The Touchdown series serves well for exposure for the league and also for TV ratings, but I don’t agree with those who see Touchdown as primarily a campaign for expansion.
A real campaign for expansion will emerge only when interested investors arise after these years of also various Touchdown games and various population growth, and well that’s a separate thread every off-season and drum-banging ritual that makes for chatter in slow times, for in the last 20 years, those professed investors for a 10th team are elusive.
Funny, but the three smallest CFL markets, Regina, Hamilton and Winnipeg, generally have the best attendance. We are talking real football towns here. You can feel it when you are in town up to and on game day. None of these cities would or should ever give up a home game to have it played somewhere else. That is pure financial suicide. Have them as visiting teams. Often. For some reaso the Bombers are never the visiting team.
Otherwise I agree with those who say that these type of games aren’t really held for the purpose of expansion, although any exposure outside of the norm is good and there could be such games held in the future with expansion in mind to test the market if expansion ever became more than just a pipe dream. Toronto held Bills games at home on several occasions and despite some intial promise failed miserably and fell off the NFL expansion radar where they remain today.
The league must be able to figure out which team has the most merch sold outside of their target markets…I would select between the top 2 teams in merch sales as the visiting team for the Touchdown series.
This would be akin to having the Lakers, Chiefs, or Man U showing up to your town.
Lastly, and this is a take. Have a preseason exhibition game in the US on a high school field of the Grey Cup winning QB’s hometown. My reasoning would be to show off some hometown pride and also promote the 3 down game to some prospective new player recruits.
The TD games are seemingly successful with Victoria proving the concept. Now it’s more than just a consolation prize for Atlantic Cities.
So why not select a TD host team each year similar to the grey cup where they can show appreciation to fans that support them that aren’t directly in the market.
I agree that teams with high attendance may not like this for potential losses. But what if the grey cup host hosts the TD event the year after to mitigate grey cup fatigue?
This way the TD event can grow CFL support as opposed to just helping teams bleeding money. Obviously TD events in Halifax / Moncton or Quebec City could keep a pulse for potential expansion investors, but in general the primary focus would be to obtain more CFL fans outside of the direct market.
I agree with some of the other posts where cities with high merch sales like Saskatoon would be short listed for a TD event.
There is also no real competition for the sports dollar in Regina & Hamilton & probably Winnipeg considering the Jets draw is a problem, eliciting talk How many sellouts do the Riders have anymore - & the Bombers don’t sell out every game either. Ask a Rider fan who attends games how many empty seats there are in the upper decks.
The average attendance for Winnipeg fans in 2022 was 28,641, the high 33,234 (source CFL.db Statistics). For 2023 it was 30,448, high 32,343 - capacity 33,022. So that’s great for a team who led the league in points twice in the last 4 years & 2 Cups in that time. But coming off a GC in 2021, that 2022 total is not exactly filling the barn.
What happens if they start losing? We’ll have to see.
It would have to be at a different venue if that’s the case. The reason TD Pacific was in August instead of June was the baseball obligations in Royal Athletic Park.
All of these ideas cost a lot of money which CFL teams don’t have. Flying a team to somewhere in the US, housing them, feeding them and then you may find out no one is interested, to risky.
Someone said Saskatoon, the Riders draw fans from Saskatoon now and why give up the guaranteed 28,000 to 30,000 crowd they get in Regina.
There is no need for neutral site games except for TD Atlantic and maybe TD Pacific again in a couple of years.
A lot of places in America have cheaper housing than Canada. People who live close to the border in Canada often buy gas and groceries in the states and I have to think at least one club member would have a Costco membership. Quite a few players live in America in the off-season so reporting to a pre-season training camp would be more convenient than crossing the border for them. Quite a few Canadians live out east in the off-season so it wouldn’t be much of a hardship. Some would even drive down there.
We know how Winnipeg would do if they weren’t winning. I was a season ticket holder for 25 years during that time. They sold 24-27,000 tickets on average as I recall during those years and that was at a vastly inferior stadium.
The competetition in Winnipeg for the sports and entertainment dollar is and always has been very tough. Easily tougher than any other CFL city on a per capita basis given the myriad of entertainment options available which I have posted on extensively previously and won’t get into again. It’s a town that is awesome in supporting the arts and sports and entertainment despite the limited population and the legendary and not incorrect cheapness of their residents. Paying $500 a game for two NHL tickets plus plus would be hard to sustain in any NHL city, even Toronto. Fortunately Toronto sells almost all of it’s seats to corporations so this isn’t an issue. The Jets selling every seat for every game for 10 years plus at the second most expensive per ticket price in North American sports is astounding when you think about it.
take. Have a preseason exhibition game in the US on a high school field of the Grey Cup winning QB’s hometown. My reasoning would be to show off some hometown pride and also promote the 3 down game to some prospective new player recruits.