Very true. Anyone have any ideas on the why? (Beyond the normal “Thursday nights suck” and “the season starts too early” and “Argos field is too short” tropes).
The Alberta economy has some role in lower ticket sales, I’m sure. Still, I would have expected higher numbers in Calgary after their GC victory. Maybe the Stamps need a few losing seasons to remind fans not to take their great teams for granted.
That’s a pretty astute observation.
…but in the end, yeah, it’s the economy…ppl are finding free stuff to do and watching the game on tv…
Thanks for that insight. I wasn’t aware the economy wasn’t robust in that area.
(I’m a silly American, where we believe the whole of Canada is rolling in the dough with the oil finds).
I’d love to see the CFL do away with the Thursday night games, I haven’t managed to tune into a single one yet. I also don’t enjoy heading out to them on Thursday night and then have to work the following day.
Shall we assume that you don’t go to NHL games during the week for the same reason?
Actually, how do professional sports leagues anywhere fill stadiums/arenas on weeknights when people don’t want to go to games when they have to work the next day?
I don’t live in a city that has an NHL team, but I do have season tickets for junior hockey. It’s a different animal when there’s 40 home games and week day games are inevitable.
Fortunately, most junior hockey games are on weekends.
That’s the only time I can go as well.
I think that’s telling. Folks are willing to go to junior hockey games during the week, but not CFL games. Hmmmm…
I’ve yet to see a weekday CFL game with no fans in attendance.
No, it’s the expressed sentiment I find fascinating.
I’ve been suggesting for a while that CFL growth won’t come from waiting for big cities to get “big enough” to support a team. It will come from smaller communities more zealous and rabid about their hometown teams.
Here’s a fan who states straight up he isn’t interested in going to CFL games on Thursdays, but IS willing to go to weekday junior hockey games every week.
Is junior hockey better than CFL? I think not. But I’ll bet there’s a real closeness between the junior hockey teams and their locales and fan bases that fans near Toronto and Vancouver and Edmonton don’t have.
For the next television and internet rights agreement, the league has to regain primary control of game scheduling and not leave it to the TSN and ESPN clowns who think they know better than all.
The NFL avoided that mistake in 2003 by wisely running off ESPN. Of many positive results is that Sunday Night Football is the top television program week in week out during the season.
Go with a proven strategy and regain control of scheduling CFL.
Thursdays in the summer even though I am not a fan it gets viewers at home .
It’s not good for those fans who have to travel a distance but I do like the game on TV .
I think Sunday after Labor Day should get a afternoon game that’s just too big of a day not to have Canadian pro football especially when it leads into Sunday playoffs and Grey Cup . Your distorting the product by placing it on different shelves on purpose . Who does that ?
Hopefully Ambrosie will see that there are media buyers for the CFL on Sunday evenings. CBC /Global/or even Rogers until Hockey starts up then just have the early CFL game earlier in the afternoon lead into hometown hockey later in the evening .
Friday night , Saturday double header and a game on Sunday should be the staple of fall weekends . Monday Thanksgiving should also get at least one game .
The CFL needs to get better guidance in selling the product with proper distribution and shelf life . Why would you surrender Sunday ? Who dictates the product placement the league or the rights holder ?
Edmonton got very creative in repricing for tx, food and drink for those wanting to go with the kids.
Voila! It worked. 30,500 vs sad sack Toronto.
Pretty simple formula actually.
Their overall revenues might be less with so many freebies (perhaps made up with concession and merchandise?), but it looked great on TV.
When there are miles of empty seats it screams to the casual viewer, “if they don’t care, why should I?”
Thanks for sharing that, Everyman.
Ticket prices (as well as concessions, etc) like everything else are dictated by the market. Supply and demand. Unfortunately, too many team owners believe in their own monopoly…they’re the only “game” in town, so they can demand whatever they want for tickets. Result is predictable – a downturn in attendance. It’s particularly pointed in larger metropolitan areas, where there are a lot of other competitors for that ticket money.
It sounds like Edmonton is showing the way, along with a handful of other teams that are looking at ticket prices. (Touchdown Atlantic should be a required course in how to botch ticket pricing).
The only wildcard is those organizations that have leveraged their teams to the hilt, and can’t lower ticket prices because their loans are predicated on a certain price point. Banks and investors don’t care about your attendance, they care about their payments.
Anyway…well done, Edmonton!
For the CFL to thrive, they need to grow the number of eyeballs watching televised games.
Doing that would allow them to get more lucrative TV contracts. Live attendance at
stadiums is not as critical. They should have games Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
nights every once in awhile – I was at a pub Tuesday night, and of the eight TV screens,
seven were playing old movies. The eighth had a soccer game, Arsenal vs Real Madrid.
July/August is when weeknight games could establish a niche for the CFL on, say ESPN.
Like I said though, it’s a completely different animal. It’s a lot easier to plan and attend junior hockey when the crowd is between 3k - 6k versus 30k. They also don’t have any commercials and are done in 2 hours.
For the record I do attend the Thursday night games with my season tickets (i’ll be there next Thursday), but I’d be willing to bet the walk up crowd and those traveling from out of town are non existent on those nights.
Giving the likes of TSN and ESPN more control of league scheduling already is exactly how to run your league into the ground. ESPN has managed to do exactly that with every sport they cover but college football, and the only reason their NBA coverage is doing well with their overstayed crew of mostly annoying old New Yorker announcers is due to TNT’s excellence for years. They even have to overhaul their awful studio crew once again.
The NFL wisely put ESPN back in their arrogant low place long ago.
No thanks. The CFL must regain primary control of scheduling including moving more games to Sundays. Some will cite NFL competition, but no way is the slate great every Sunday afternoon and some Sunday night games are either lame or all hype for the team with the star QB (i.e. Mahomes, Roethlisberger, Rodgers, or Brady including the latter three for a decade now!).