Tiger-Cat & CFL Attendance?

Has anyone looked at attendance vs time? I mean is attendance higher/lower during the start of season than later on? I am a believer that CFL should start season earlier (early June) to avoid getting matched up against NFL/NBA hype. Only the finals is on-going for both these other leagues in early June. Just 2 teams and a smaller fan-base. Thus CFL attendance may increase by getting people to watch when less is going on......

Different yes but people go for HYPe and the NFL has lots of that!

According to Wikipedia, the renovations were done mainly for the argos…

"From 2014 to 2016, the stadium underwent a series of major renovations, which added an upper deck to the east grandstand, a roof over the seating areas and lengthened the field to make it suitable for hosting Canadian football. The latter allowed for the Toronto Argonauts to move to BMO Field beginning with the 2016 CFL season, which also saw the 104th Grey Cup played at the stadium."

From what I could find, MLSE paid for the majority of renovations.

I enjoy a competitive game between CFL teams but I find the incompetency of CFL officiating turns me off. Too many flags and too many pass interference calls for incidental contact. When the QB throws a ball in the air, it is up for grabs, both players have the rights to catch it. How many games are decided based on late PI calls. Giving coaches the ability to challenge PI has destroyed the game.

Agreed. I haven't been a football fan for that long, and never played, so I don't know what it should be like. But I hate that stupid PI call so much.

It seems a lot of challenges are the result of poor officiating.

Under the circumstances, it would not be fair to take the hanky away from the coaches as long as we have referees who either don’t know the rules or how to execute them.

I agree! I am still on the fence as to whether or not I want to renew for next season. The product on the field is sad to say the least. The officiating ruins any excitement of close games with inept calls, any time a ref has the ability to influence the outcome of a game so wildly as we have seen many times not only in Hamilton this season but across the CFL one should ask themselves - is this a good system?

Also as someone pointed out in this thread, the games have become less about the football and more about the party, and I am just not sure how I feel about that. I sit in the Coors Light patio, so I expect a more party atmosphere but I also elected to sit in the reserve seats for the space and because I come to watch the game, I don’t have to worry about people walking back and forth in front of me distracting me.

When I was a kid going to IW, I remember the unofficial rule was that you didn’t get out of your seat and move about during plays, you sat down and waited and when the play was over you could leave.

If the football is not the main focus attracting people to pay and watch, it is only a matter of time before a bigger, better party appears on the radar and people migrate there.

I see it in Saskatchewan, even when the Riders were here the football is the main driver people line up just to get a chance to meet their favourite players - and the players interact during warm-ups and get the fans invested.

Outside of games TC’s are great at that - but in games (maybe it is just me) I feel they are disconnected.

So given that the Caretaker is on his forum maybe I ask my question about the role of Command Centre again. When it was conceived, the idea was that the CC was there to get the play calls correct. Not at specific moments in time but at all times, so I thought. So I assumed that the CC would be following the game, second by second, and looking for plays/calls that were WRONG and then set in motion the process to rectify. But this hasn't happened and the CC awaits a coaches challenge, or awaits the 3minute mark before the end of a half, or awaits a scoring play or a forced change in downs. What are they doing for the rest of the time? They should be looking to getting the calls RIGHT all the time. I see where this may make game longer but it beats the heck out of the controversy and frustrations and CFL "I'm sorries" afterwards. Would love to hear from Caretaker.

Those are not bad numbers for a league with an audience limited to only those who have cable packages.

Until we have well-trained machine vision tracking every player from multiple angles, it will be impossible to get every call right. The current stated philosophy of the command centre (regardless of whether they uphold that philosophy successfully) is the right philosophy: let the officials on the field do their jobs, but rectify any glaringly obvious errors. I think the command centre’s biggest problem is that they overturn too many close calls. I like the idea that was floated by some of the TSN team (and perhaps others) early this season: unless the command centre can overturn the call with 99% confidence within the first 60 seconds of a review, the call on the field should stand.

I blame Rogers for that. They convinced the people of the GTA they deserve an NFL franchise and they should forget about the CFL. Yet the attendance at the Bills games in Toronto sucked. And when those games were canceled in 2014 the football fans never came back to the CFL.

I have been to a number of Grey Cup games, and the people of both Vancouver and Toronto didn’t even know the game was happening in their city.