With it being clear that the CFL does not care about putting fans in the stands like they used to and are more concerned with TV revenues and corporate sponsorships. Would it not make more sense to do a football week starting tommorrow. Tomorrow and Thursday must be the slowest days in North American sports. Could the CFL not have a live game tomorrow and Thursday and broadcast the games on ESPN's main network in the USA and on CTV's main network here in Canada
The reason for not having games mid week has always been about attendance, but with barely 20k showing up at parks nowadays,it seems like an afterthought now.. You could always give away boatloads of tickets to make it look good on TV I guess.
The two best locations would be Hamilton and Ottawa since they both sell out now anyways.
Mr . Bungle
Keep shaking us up with your style and right to the point discussions. - we need it - shake up the establishment who don't know they are not relevant any longer .
This is a very good point to consider - Cfl needs to attack the off days in the sporting calendar - to attract corp sponsors and viewership which is down over. 200 thousands fans per game so far from 2013-
The Lions - Stampeders - Esks- Bombers - ALS -and possibly after this week even the(R ed Blacks will,have their lowest attendance in 2 years ) - and the Argos,who will struggle to have 15,000 full.paying customers per game this year
The CFL - has 6 teams that could have less attendance then last year - though it is early - let's not deny these could be frightening trends - throw in the Argos and 7 teams could have lower attemdance this year then last -
It is time to discuss- plan - and implement aggressive changes - before the CFL - loses what it once had -
Well I think the CFL went from giving away to many free tickets and devaluing its product to overcharging and ripping people off NHL style all in the span of 4 or 5 years… A happy medium would have been a better call…
Now that the Als are drawing less than 20202, it makes it clear that the expansion was solely to bring in the corporate suites… The extra seats were a complete waste of taxpayers dollars. It was a scam to get more corporate suites in the building…
This is the real switch that the CFL has done… It has gone from a family orientated league to a corporate league. They clearly do not give a crap about their fans anymore.They are geared solely for the corporate crowd
Attendance drops are more of a concern than TV ratings. We are a gate driven league. If the average CFL team is charging $50 to $60 a ticket and they drop by 3,000 fans per game that’s a $1.6 million drop in ticket revenue and if you add the loss in concessions and merchandise sales it’s probably $2 MILLION per year. That wipes out ALL the gains from the increase in the TV contract.
A drop in TV viewers is not that much of a concern this time of year. But you do want to get your product advertised and to attract fans to the park. I don’t know if the TV ratings are down from last year but the summer ratings are always much lower than the post-Labour Day games.
But whether there are 100,000 or 1 million watching each game, makes no difference to the individual teams, the $4.2 million is locked in until 2022, they need “bums in seats” rather than eyes on their TV sets when the home team is playing.
As for a mid week game? fans complain when the Argos play Tuesday night games and some fans are complaining about the Thursday night games, I can’t see how a Wed game would make much difference. With only having 9 teams the max you can play is 4 games a week, so not a lot of flexibility
Midweek games are never going to fly. Weekends are perfect for families and people who want to enjoy an evening or afternoon at the stadium with out having to worry about going to work in the morning or rushing to the stadium after work. CFL tickets are not that expensive. EG. they are actually selling tickets for 20 bucks a pop in Hamilton . Which is a bit disconcerting. They have a great team, back to back championships and they haven’t sold out the home opener yet. You can get in to any stadium in the CFL for 40 bucks and under. The teams do need to pay people !!! Can’t just give everything away for free and rely on the 1 …Billion dollars they get from TSN :lol:
If the Ticats started playing a bunch of midweek games during the summer, I'd cancel my season tickets. One or two is fine. Any more would be crazy.
I disagree, particularly in the summer months. Having some midweek game will allow families to get away on the weekends, camping etc. I am not saying that it works for everybody or that all games should be mid-week. Just saying that playing the odd game midweek would allow for more flexibility for families.
I actually concidered not renewing my seasons tickets this year as my wife and I want to get away on more weekends and mid-week games would be better for us at our stage in life. I have been a season ticket holder for nearly 40 years, beginning in 1976 at Clarke Stadium, I would welcome any options that will allow me to keep supporting.
I think if it was a regular occurrence , we'd see a dip in attendance. By the time the game ends, you wait to get on transit to get back to your car etc etc, it's damn near 11pm on a later start time. Not much of an attraction mid week for a typical family attending the game. Weekends, fine, but not mid week.
@kasps...
What are these back to back Hamilton championships you mention?
The Tiger-cats haven't won the Grey Cup since 1999 - the second longest drought currently.
oops forgot the word championship game "appearances "
probably means cup appearanceslosses
or maybe reffering to east championships.
Interesting idea there Bungle. One of your best posts I would add.
Personally, I would not support moving to a Wednesday game.
I think that both attendance and TV ratings would suffer. People are usually still very involved in work at that point of the week I believe.
However, a regular Thursday game would work I think. People have started to relax a bit, looking ahead to the weekend by Thursday.
Of course, once the NFL season starts, there would be direct competition on Thursdays.
I think we should track the viewership and attendance stats for this season's Thursday games to see if they are in line with the Friday/weekend games. If so, they should continue with them next season.
I would also like Thursday games as a means of stretching the games across the week. I'm not a fan of doubleheaders.
How exactly would the CFL "do a football" mid week?
On second thought, maybe I don't want to know the answer to that. 
Ask Bingle he’s the one who started this thread and seems to have all the answers 
Commentary in the Winnipeg Free Press on this issue.
When you start getting a lot more money from TSN, you're also giving TSN more influence over when games are. The TV schedule matters more than the gate fans do now.
I was not sugesting that the league routinely have mid week games.. IO was saying for this one week of the entire caledar year when there is no NHL, no NBA, no NFL, no MLB because of the all-star break.