TAFL? (Toronto Argos football league)

I disagree on a lot of fronts. Raptors have a decent following in Toronto (I am not a big Basketball fan) they are in the top third in attendance in the NBA. Their tickets are not cheap either. Comparing them to the Leafs is unfair. They do well in this market and have a big following in city. As for the Jays they have one year in declining attendance an people claim they are on life support? Come on, sure the baseball side of the business losing money, but Rogers makes it up in cheap advertising for it’s products, plus gives Sportsnet content in the summer. Rogers Sportsnet doesn’t pay the Blue Jays market value to broadcast it’s games. Believe it our not people still tune into baseball. Is it as popular as it was in 1992 of course not but I would hardly claim the Jays are on life support. If they are then so are 20 other MLB teams.

The really need to get out of the RC it’s not a great place to watch football. MLSE is the real enemy to the ARGOs. If they argos could get into a 30,000 seat stadium out doors I guarantee it’ll be sold out (season tickets).

Wow....a whole page of great points.......starting with my fellow Argo fan argofan1990. Why is Torontobased here, on a forum for a league that he apparantly hates? Any explanation for that Torontobased?

No kidding. Even if they draw only 10,000 per game, getting that 80+ times a year is still pretty impressive. Same point with the Raptors.

I would argue that you could find nearly twenty MLB teams that could be seen as being on “life support”. Major League Baseball would benefit greatly from up to a 50% retraction in franchises. Without some form of salary management, baseball as a league is in serious trouble, I believe.

The Raptors do draw very well for the NBA. When you watch them on the road, or even other teams playing, you can see that very plainly. The team is very popular in the GTA, just not so in the rest of Canada.

Getting 10,000 fans per game to an MLB game, regardless of how many times they play, is abysmal. There are numerous franchises in the league that consistently do FAR better than that, even when the team is poor.

Toronto teams are not in dire financial shape at the moment, just the argos.. believe it or not.. obviously most of you don't..

It's clear most posters on this aren't from the GTA...

And yet the Argos are the only team I really care about. You're right, I don't live in Toronto and and am not from Toronto, thank goodness gracious. MLSE and Rogers are making sure the Argos are behind the 8 ball in that city though. They want an NFL team and are trying to destroy the Argos. I hope they never get their NFL team though and it doesn't look good since Goodell says the RC isn't an NFL stadium and no team without an NFL stadium. Good luck getting that stadium, you're best bet is to rent the Bills like they are doing now for a game a year and paper the house to get bums in the seats.

No kidding. Even if they draw only 10,000 per game, getting that 80+ times a year is still pretty impressive. Same point with the Raptors

Too many games and therefore the excitement of each game pales in comparison with a team in an 18 game league, like the CFL. That's just me though and if football teams played as much, who knows, here in Hamilton the TiCats might draw 20,000 a game for 40 home dates.

Baseball is just a boring game for me to watch as a whole but it's a sport outing and definitely even at 10,000 per game, draws people to downtown Toronto to spend money. Basketball the guys laugh during most of the game, I can't take the sport serious. Soccer, don't understand the game. Hockey is ok but I'm a Habs fan, thank goodness and the Leafs aren't on my radar.

Actually, we do realize the situation in Toronto isn’t great… we’re just not ready to pack things in like you are. :roll:

Shouldn’t you be writing for a Toronto newspaper right now instead of posting on here?

I wish I got paid to cover sports lol… I’m just saying the league should come up with a real plan for long term survival in Toronto, or relocation of this franchise?

That's a good point Chief. Why are some people in Toronto that actually like the CFL somewhat and the Argos trying to say their team would be better off somewhere else? That's weird because if I'm them, I would do everything I can to not only keep my team but be sure they are successful. I don't get it. A defeatist attitude.

Torontobased, is your long term plan for the Argos a football specific stadium paid for by the rest of the CFL teams? That seems to be what you're suggesting. And by doing so, the Argos would be doing the CFL a favour by staying in the league and remaining healthy? Also Torontobased, do you want the Argos to relocate? Are you a fan of the Argos?

So much for the St. Louis Rams moving to Toronot, as one headline screamed last week.
I wonder what the next boogeyman around the corner is?

http://www.tsn.ca/nfl/story/?id=309793

I was more of an Argos fan in the 90s… I still watch em (not much this year) I’ve been to a few games this past decade… yeah I do think they need their own stadium. Would CFL teams subsidize the Argos new arena if it means a lot for them to have a franchise in Toronto? Honestly, sometimes I just think this team would be appreciated in a city that has no professional teams and it would do very good for that city. Hey, Montreal didn’t have a team for awhile after the concordes…

C'mon Torontbased.
Outside of the Leafs, there is no competition for sports in Toronto.
Every team is scraping the barrel.
If you ask me though Argos have shown the most improvement when it comes to attendance and TV ratings,
while the other sports are seeing attendance and TV ratings slide.
Toronto isn't a great football market.
Its not a great sports market really.
Enough of the excuses for not getting bigger crowds for the Argos.

TV ratings, OK.

Attendance? To ballpark it, I’d say TFC going from 0 to 300,000 paying fans per year at higher ticket prices better than the Argos going from 135,000ish in 2003 to 270,000 per year at their peak in 2007 with lower average ticket prices.

The Argos frustrate the pro-NFL crowd because they know the NFL can never be truly successful in Toronto while half of the football fans identify with another league. In any "honest" poll or survey you look at, 30% to 50% of Toronto football fans support the Argos. The CFL has the hearts and minds of the majority of Ontario football fans...and until that is overcome, the NFL will never gain a foothold in Canada.

They believe the Argos are the kingpins of the operation...if they can be taken down, the rest of the league will just fade into obscurity and the red carpet can be laid out for an NFL team. Toronto city council will feel no guilt about helping finance a new stadium, for instance, matching what other NFL cities are offering, as there will be no Canadian competition that would be harmed.

I think most of the Canadian sports media love the NFL, mainly because for sports nuts, the NFL is king. It provides an endless supply of stats, commentary and information that all sports addicts crave. The sheer volume of professionally produced media and information provided make the NFL easy to follow and easy for sports editors to fill their webpages...and while the CFL games are exciting, stories must often be written from scratch and there's just not much media "buzz" in comparison. :roll:

Here is an article outlining the Blue Jay financial losses early in Rogers' tenure...

Financial woes visit Canadian team; Blue Jays say they're losing money and fans.

Rogers Communications, which bought 80 percent of the Blue Jays in 2000, claims to have lost $15 million Canadian in the first quarter of 2002.
Rogers' chief financial officer, indicated "other alternatives" will have to be considered if the team cannot make money. According to Commissioner Bud Selig's numbers, the Jays operated at a loss of $43 million last season. Toronto went 80-82 and drew nearly 1.9 million fans, down from more than 4 million in '93. The reported losses would have been $53 million without revenue sharing.

[url=http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20020428&slug=basenotes28]http://community.seattletimes.nwsource. ... asenotes28[/url]

Through cost cutting, it was reported that the Blue Jays reduced their losses by $20 or $30M, but their payroll has recently edged back up to $100M and attendance has continued to decline. Forbes magazine reported last year the Blue Jays lost money and pegged their franchise value as the lowest in MLB by over $100M.

If the Argos has a football specific stadium like the TFC, ticket prices would be the same or maybe even higher. TFC has their own stadium all nice and soccer specific, given to them on a platter. Good on them, that's the main reason they are successful at the gate.

If I was a big billionaire, I'd love to build a CFL stadium in Toronto. But that's not a possibility.

Same ol’ thing… one proportionate television contract…

Salary cap increases, hype increases = new fans coming out.

Here’s to 2013. Just gotta wait…

Good reporting Xvys.
Funny how you rarely read blunt articles like this about the Blue Jays these days in this area.
Guess they think if they don't talk about it, the losses will just disappear like dust.
Lucky for baseball they have all kinds of fans in the media.

As this is a public forum, I will say this as nicely as possible: You have a very low intelligence level. The Jays lose more money in a week than the Argos could in a season. The only team that actually makes money is the Leafs. I wish a moderator would just get rid of this guy so that the real fans can talk about the Argos on the field, not in the media.

I wish there was a Balsille, Jerry Jones or Roman Abramovich type to steward this league into perpetual stability. I just gather to the high rollers of the world want nothing to do with mere CFL teams that move only $20 million in and out per year. David Braley is as close as we get and he doesn’t seem to be in the business of building stadiums.