Not to mention the utmost annoyance of one team not playing every week. The by weeks add 3 weeks to the 9 team schedule. 10 teams, 18 weeks.
4 Likes
the Argonauts kinda make me wish the league was 8 teams instead of 9.
5 Likes
All football levels, regardless of number of teams, regardless of even or odd number of teams - High school, NCAA & NFL give bye weeks to all teams. In this day and age its a must
12 teams is a definite goal for the CFL. Two 6 team divisions.
1 Like
this page is a fun read
2 Likes
No, itâs about trying to keep 9 teams and not going back to 8 teams.
3 Likes
As someone who grew up in the London area I can tell you that the CFL will never work there. Londoners just donât go out to big events in large numbers. Even concerts were lightly attended a lot of the time. Itâs a very white collar city.
1 Like
Naaah. Argos attendance hit rock bottom under Bill Manning. He was a soccer guy who didnât give a crap about football. They finally parted ways with him a few weeks ago.
I am Tiger-Cats season ticket holder but have purchased tickets from Argos.
Keith Pelley came aboard early in the year. I am alteady seeing a big change. I have had calls and emails from Argo ticket reps. Just under 20,000 attended last home game.
Pelley is a CFL backer who will hopefully help the Argos return to respectability.
Toughest market in the league
I stand by my comments. We will see 10 teams this decade (or more)
London is hit or miss. But is also promising. The OHL Knights fill that stadium. 9,000 to 10,000 fans. Western Mustangs are not far removed from crowds of 10,000.
With the right model and good owner, you can have a fairly successful CFL franchise averaging 18,000 to 22,000 fans.
I am confident that any of London, Victoria or Halifax can sustain that
2 Likes
He needs to be commissioner.
Youâd see interest in this league skyrocket
1 Like
Toronto canât even get anywhere near that, and yet you think London can. Youâve really gone into pure speculation mode.
2 Likes
Itâs the small fish in a big sea. The Argos are not seen in Toronto as major league unfortunately. In London it big league in a small sea. Other than Jr hockey, there is no other competition for the sports dollar. They could backload most of there home games in late August and into September and October when the population grows by 30000 because of the University. Look there is no perfect place, other than Halifax and Quebec. Those places have been on hold for decades. If the CFL wants to grow at some point they will have to take a chance. London has the bones for a stadium and population, what they lack is an owner. Maybe itâs a pipe dream.
Why do people think this actually needs to be explained? Everyone knows the Leafs, Jays and Raptors are all most care about.
By the way⌠the sky is blue and the Titanic sunk.
1 Like
What baffles me is that the Argos are owned by MLSE along with the Leafs and Raptors,
Having some Leafs and Raptors players show up at some home games and sign autographs and mingle with the fans would sell tickets and bring young fans to the games
Just seems like such a wasted opportunity
My guess is that MLSE genuinely sees the Argos as charity to the CFL. The costs of the Argos are just a drop in the bucket to them, which is why they will continue.
And we certainly donât need to worry about them running out of money. Theyâre easily the most stable ownership group in the CFL.
1 Like
Fully realize that anyone outside of the Golden Horseshoe (or I should said many, not all) feel that the CFL could survive without Toronto. That is very false. As a diehard Ticats fan we love to hate the Argos. But no one wants to see them go away. Its our biggest crowds of the year. TSN would lose a ton of sponsorship. There are more CFL fans watching games in Toronto than anywhere else ⌠on TV. That is a fact. Obviously biggest reason is almost 25% of the entire population is within an hour of Toronto. They just donât attend the games. Losing that market would be catastrophic!
As for attendance, 2021 they only averaged 8,500. 2022 they were in the 11,000 range. 2023 bumped up to 14,000. I fully expect they will be closer to 16,000 by end of 2024. Which would be double the attendance in 3 years.
So its baby steps.
2 Likes
IMO if London was truly a target of the league then they need to play at least 2-3 exhibition games there before even being awarded a team first to test the market.
2 Likes
How do you know that? where are the ratings breakdown?
I think that most CFL viewers are in the West, the highest rated CFL games are usually the Riders and the Bombers.
Labour Day weekend the lowest rated game was the Argo/Ticat game.
Sports fans in Toronto are watching the Jays in the summer and not watching the CFL
2 Likes
I have a friend who works at Numeris. Have also read a few columns including Simmons in the Toronto Sun. He has stated multiple times that the viewership in the GTHA (Greater Toronto Hamilton Area) is greater than any other area.
Plus its not hard to decipher this on your own. The province of Saskatchewan has just over 1 million people. Ontario is around 15 million. So if 50% (which is way too high and not possible) watched in Saskatchewan you would have 500,000 viewers. And only a very very tiny amount of 5% watched in Ontario, you would have 750,000 viewers. Neither of these numbers are accurate as we donât have 1.25 mil viewers for any games in the regular seasonâŚ
ButâŚObviously the largest viewing audience for almost all CFL games is in Ontario
1 Like
Absolutely correct. The most TV eyeballs and consequently advertising dollars are in the West year after year. Toronto adds nothing financially to the league and in fact sucks equalization dollars from the West. For the TV contract Toronto is the weak link and doesnât help the CFLâs position. The league in fact would be stronger economically without Toronto.
Having said that, I donât think very many, including myself, want to see Toronto leave the league, for the sake of image if nothing else. Calling a financial spade a spade is all we are doing. Toronto is lucky to have MLSE footing the massive losses every year in a non football town, although I still have a hard time getting my head around the reality that the Manitoba taxpayer subsidizes the needy MLSE. The CFL version of have and have nots I guess.
Not much of different than MLSE âsubsidingâ the NHLâs wealthiest ownership group. No?