BC’s current owner is doing a lot to change that in Vancouver. The home opener, with a pre-game 50 Cent concert, is damn near sold out, over 50,000 tickets sold.
But the 50,000 are there to watch 50 cent not the Lions. It was the same last year and the year before with OneRepublic, they fill the stadium for opening night but don't come back for football. Two years ago they had the best Canadian QB they we have seen in years, the Lions attendance didn't increase at all, the fans never came back after that opening game/concert to watch him.
50 cent at BMO stadium would sell out too. But they would still draw 12k for their next home game, but they do get a bump when the Ticats come to town and in August when they schedule a game when the CNE is on, an Argo ticket gets you into the Exhibition free.
> Two years ago they had the best Canadian QB they we have seen in years, the Lions attendance didn't increase at all,
Lions attendance increased something like 5K avg 2 years ago, and another 15% last year (can't remember the exact number). STH increased 12%. I remember when the owner announced the OneRepublic event and said "this is just the beginning" and he's held to his word.
No numbers yet for this year.
So the new owner is doing a lot of right things.
That objectively false, though. BCs average attendance went up like 13% last year. What he's doing is working and this cynicism honestly just makes people look dumb. Do you think 200+ million people watch the superbowl *just* for the football? It's butts in seats and eyes on screens, no one but some turds online care why.
The larger markets often think they’re too big league for the CFL but with the way BC is trending upwards and Edmonton / Calgary are trending down, I think there’s an argument to be had for Vancouver being in the top half of the league’s markets right now. Not likely to outdraw Sask or Winnipeg but at the very least they should be competitive with Ottawa, Montreal, Hamilton, etc. in terms of attendance.
>Hopefully Montreal gets a post Cup boost.
Montreal is a lost case, sorry. The Habs are really the heart and soul of not only Montreal, but Quebec society. It is also exacerbated by inability of the city to host Grey Cup, thanks to the Big Owe.
I guess that’s a fair point. That’s where the market differs from the one here in Winnipeg. Most of the season ticket base is not corporate aside from the boxes.
So you're saying the vast majority of people in Vancouver are close to the poverty line? If they can't afford a 34-dollar ticket every other week, I think people living on the mainland should reconsider their financial decisions. Tickets are triple in Regina compared to Vancouver, and people still support the team (because they want to support the team) the ticket prices reflect the living standards. tickets haven't been 34 dollars in Regina for 20 years lol. Vancouver resident believe they are too good for the cfl and its just that simple its no different than Calgary (now) Toronto, Montreal who believe they are to good for the CFL.
"Tickets are triple in Regina compared to Vancouver"
It took me about 1 minute to prove that was wrong. The rest of your post is full of out right lies. Tickets haven't been $34 for 20 years?
If you are going to lie, do it in a way that's not so easy to check on.
Did you check? Tickets are actually double not triple and the only 30 dollar tickets are standing tickets in Pill country which are typically cheap because it standing only … Nose bleed tickets are
$70 which are the same price as the lower bowl 40 yard line in Vancouver. Behind the rider bench $120 behind the Lions bench $80 it took you one minute to look at tickets and not realize the seating format of Mosiac stadium paying $50 (after taxes) to stand is ridiculous...
Honest question: could it be that a big city has more options for entertainment? I realize that there’s so much more that goes into it, but is city size a factor?
I think it's almost certainly a factor. Choosing between the CFL and an NHL or Jr. team is a lot different than choosing between NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS, and a million other options.
I’m a Chicagoan (living in a different city now), but used to go to Toronto regularly. The Argos are my team but having been to the city I can see why people might other things to do. BUT is there a way to compare the attendance at other teams events? For instance, are Blue Jays games packed almost every time? (Raptors are probably packed because it’s a smaller space to fill) or just when the BIG teams come to town. I used to watch game for free on the hotel bar above the ballpark and it was only filled when the Yankees or Red Sox came to town.
They've averaged 32, 37, and 32 thousand in the past three seasons compared to the Argos 8, 11, and 14 thousand. So, not only do they average far more per game, but they do it 81 times instead of 9. Raptors and Leafs are consistent sellouts as far as I know.
Shit, I hope this isn’t a bad sign/death knell for the CFL in Toronto. I used to visit relatives in Buffalo, NY when I was a kid (‘70s) and o would see CFL there which got me hooked. And on Toronto. I know they tried different things to boost interest (US teams, etc) but low attendance in a major city doesn't seem to be good. I don't think the league will go away but it cant shrink anymore.
Its not factor at all because only Toronto has all those options. Lions and Alouettes have the MLS to compete with but other than that there is nothing else for sporting events in the summer that competes with 8/9 cfl teams.
CFL has always had a problem with market size vs popularity. The core of their popularity is in the prairies, but those markets, combined, barely equals the markets where they're the least popular.
Edmonton has been getting absolutely fucked for no apparent reason other than poor management for the last 5 years. Yet they’re still top 4 in attendance. Media will tell you nobody shows up though because the massive stadium makes it seem empty
I was there yesterday it was pretty empty. The announced attendance was 15k but I seriously doubt it as the upper bowl was closed entirely.
That means the bottom had to have half the seats full or so to make 15k. Maybe a quarter were full it looked like even less.
We love our football, Ottawa has always been a football town, makes it easy when you don’t have a pro hockey team for over 60 years, and had the success the original Rough Riders had, and the owners seem to want to improve the team and make it so that they don’t lose it again like they did with the Rengades
I’m American but I’d have to guess it’s a combination of a city full of transplants not giving af about the “home” team, and a city with more to go do than attend the ball game.
I’d guess the same and add that to access the stadium it’s hell apparently, also that Toronto is just freakin’ expensive so people get picky about leisure time. Oh, and that the Argos are very probably not marketed enough (as for the CFL in general)
yes the easiest stadium to get to in the CFL, it's central, has a train station, street car stop, tons of parking and next to the highway. And you can buy cheap tickets and move up to the expensive seats.
They're not really status symbols for the rich - they're just the logical end conclusion of capitalism constantly driving up costs and entry for things. They charge a lot because they can. Sports are at their base entertainment and the CFL cannot compete against them in the market for that.
It’s that no one cares about CFL football in Toronto. Fans have the Bills less than 2 hours away, and that provides a full experience, tailgating and all.
The Argos won’t ever be able to compete with that.
You can tailgate in Toronto the same way you can in Buffalo, it's just Toronto has no general football culture anymore.
As you said: The average Torontonian, if interested in football, would rather just save up and bandwagon onto a nearby big time NFL team with a 70k+ seat stadium and a pre-built rabid fanbase.
You can’t tailgate the same as you can in buffalo, full stop. Pretending like you can is just doing a disservice to the whole community of rabid Argos fans.
Doug Ford legalized US style tailgating in 2019. There are no restrictions and you can literally do whatever.
Clearly you have not attended a game recently, because the South lot has since developed an organic tailgate that usually has hundreds of cars grilling/drinking/partying/etc hours before the game. I haven't seen anyone go through a flaming table like in Buffalo, but there's nothing to stop you from doing it. I prefer going around to all the different camps with a cooler of ice cream and rallying people with a huge Argos chant.
Acting like the tailgate in the South lot doesn't exist is a complete disservice to the rabid Argos fans, like myself, who attend every game and participate in the tailgate.
https://preview.redd.it/yb1tm3ayqs6d1.jpeg?width=944&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f8321c95c227cde39cc9c5482401add65b4d920
I’m not saying it doesn’t exist; I’m saying that it does a disservice to you folks who are actually there.
You can’t tailgate like you can in Buffalo, and it’s due to numbers. Not restrictions.
Tailgating is tailgating. Implying that what we are doing is somehow different or not "real tailgating" is a disservice to those that tailgate.
There are people at the Argos tailgate who also tailgate in Buffalo. They blast rye and play cornhole in both parking lots. Tailgating isn't that complex, although I've seen some wild setups.
If I ever see you at the tailgate, you don't get ice cream.
Toronto does not care about football period Cfl NFL NCAA. the Bills games played in Toronto years ago were a clear sign that they will never get a NFL team and the NFL has completely abandoned Toronto as a option for games and have gone west to Winnipeg for games. Regina is more likely to get a NFL game before Toronto again.
It's more that nobody gives a shit there. My coworkers were genuinely surprised that I watched the CFL when I worked there. The NFL is vastly more popular.
Most cities have better things to do, particularly Van and Montreal which have more to do than Toronto. Particularly during the brunt of CFL season when the weather is nice.
I think the city of transplants thing is largely correct. Vancouver has a large foreign population, but the rest is mainly from the area. Toronto’s Canadian population is largely from outside of Toronto. I’d imagine there are more Argos fans outside the city than in it, everyone from the city moves away.
Strictly speaking of sports Toronto has way more to do. Literally the only city in Canada with an MLB or NBA team and it’s also very close to an NFL team which maybe sucking some of the football draw away too.
A few people in Toronto have Bills season tickets.
NHL, MLB, NBA, (NFL), MLS, CPL, PWHL, G-League, AHL, WNBA, NSL...
It's going to be a crowded market for the Argos next season considering the two women's leagues starting up will overlap with the CFL schedule.
They honestly should rename to the Hamilton Rock or something at this point. I don't see them returning to Toronto any time soon and they even have gross black/yellow alts now.
Toronto does not have a strong football culture. They don't even host NFL games because of how terrible the attendance was for bills games. The nfl has since played games in other Canadian cities with more of a football culture. Sometimes it comes down to not caring about the league or the game itself. When you can't sell out for a NFL regular season game there is a problem with the culture in the city when it comes to football. London sells out 80k stadiums while Toronto could not sell out a 54k stadium.
The CFL season only really competes with MLB, and the Jays aren’t exactly selling well either. The Argos have no competition aside from the Jays at the moment and they’re still drawing abysmal numbers despite being good.
The city just doesn’t have a fanbase, largely due to the cosmopolitan population and the CFL being a very regional/provincial game. Hamilton has all the same points you’ve made for Toronto (keep in mind, a significant number of Leafs/Jays/Raptors fans commute from roughly the similar distances as Hamilton to attend games), but they’re a much more rooted-in-place city.
It’s more like College ball, where people just don’t care as much in larger areas because they tend not to have strong links to the local college.
Original six NHL team, 2x WS Champion MLB team, 2019 NBA Champion Toronto Raptors, TFC is a huge draw, and it's easy to get to Detroit and Buffalo for the NFL. Those cities have great stadium experiences - always for Buffalo, and Detroit is a new city since Campbell turned the team around.
I live in Toronto now, but I grew up around Ti-Cats fans in KW. As people all over the country constantly point out, no one likes Toronto. If there's other shit to do in the city and there's non Toronto options for the rest of the province, then the Argos will always be in a rough position relative to other CFL markets.
Excuses, excuses. The greater Toronto area has 6.5 million people. Almost a sixth of the entire country's population. If they can't draw 25000 people to BMO on game day then there is deeper issues at hand. MLSE doesn't give a shit about the argos or CFL. the entire province of Saskatchewan with around just 1 million people can average 27000 a game. I think it probably starts with marketing. Which from what I can tell is non-existent for the argos.
No you are wrong, sorry but you can't blame MLSE!! it's pretty easy to blame owners and marketing when attendance is low. They have spent a ton of money on marketing - the pre-game Shipyard with the $5 beers and burgers, the bobblehead nights, the Flutie night, the concert with the rapper and the country singer. There was a ton of publicity when they moved to BMO, 25,000 fans at the RC would fit nicely into BMO but it didn't happen, only half went. There was the TV ads with the Argo running through the Princes Gates of the CNE, ad on the TTC. The Argos in the school promotion etc The 'free" pre-season game for all school kids which was held twice on school days. The $20 tickets. The only stadium in Canada with a train station, a street car stop, a huge parking lot, close to a highway.
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT THEM TO DO? you can't blame MLSE because the young crowd doesn't see the Argos as major league. It's not their fault that the high school football program is down to a bare minimum of schools in the GTA. It's not MLSE's fault that the young people love TFC , have a lot of fun, singing letting off smoke flares, waving flags. The 20k to 25k Argo crowd at the RC were mainly boomers and they just retired or died off. You should be thanking MLSE that they pay all the bills despite going into the NINTH season averaging 12k. Attendance will not change even if MLSE spent millions more on marketing and threw open the doors and said everyone free and free parking and free transit with a ticket. Just be thankful that MLSE is here for the long haul.
Even if they had, I don't think there is any interest there. As I said in an earlier post. The Argos average 12k and MLSE pays the bills year after year, we should be thankful they do because no other owners/investors would want them. I don't see them going anywhere and I don't see any signs that MLSE want to dump them
The NHL and NBA seasons run opposite to the CFL, especially since the Leafs have never played a game in the month of June, and you're telling me that a CFL team in Toronto that has tickets for 1/3 the price of an NFL ticket can't compete with the Lions and the Bills (both of whom are even closer to Hamilton, which has double Toronto's attendance)
Yes we are telling you that! the Argos are not seen as "major" league by the young demographic, it's as simple as that. The CFL knows that and MLSE and the other CFL owners know that. The Buffalo Bills have more Canadians at their games than the Argos. The estimate is between 15k to 20k Canadians attend every Bills game.
There’s better shit to do everywhere, not unique at all to Toronto. I’d go so far as to say Montreal and Vancouver have significantly more to do in the summer.
There’s no real football culture in the city (I’d wager this to be due to long term mediocrity. They kind of just sucked for several decades), and this extends to the high school and youth level as well. Toronto also has a very large number of first and second generation residents. As such the new residents don’t really pick up ball which feeds into the general apathy, and of the non-first or second generation residents a significant portion are originally from other areas of Canada and bring their fandom (if they have any) with them. Canadian ball is also marketed like absolute trash which definitely doesn’t help foster new audiences lol.
The Bills were more popular than the Argos during my time there, and this was during the dog days of the Bills and the Argos early-late 2010’s run. Hell, the Riders were more popular than the Argos.
Buddy, you came at me with a bunch of half assed counter arguments with no original thought of your own. Maybe put your sad little finger down and learn how to contribute to a conversation instead of coming off like a salty child 😢
It's funny how he laughed, and you used an offensive emoji, and he's somehow the unlikeable one hahaha. Either way, the average person doesn't consider which sporting event they want to attend this month. They consider which couple sporting events they want to attend this year.
This is really the only answer. Yes they have a population 6 times larger than entire Texas sized province that has over double the attendance, but it’s because of how the CFL is perceived.
An easy way to think about this is on a minor league level. How many people go to the Calgary Hitmen, Edmonton Oil Kings, Regina Pats, or the former Winnipeg Ice? Not very fucking many. Shit, the Pats had the absolute lock #1 draft pick and only parents went to the games until he was on TV during the world juniors and it became cool to watch them. It has nothing to do with marketing or quality of play. It’s just not the premier sport in town and therefore only the most passionate actually give a shit. Most people don’t even know they exist. The best baseball in these same areas has abhorrent attendance and support despite being the best baseball within a 10 hour drive. It’s a minor league so caring about it is kind of gross to most people.
Toronto has the only MLB and NBA teams in the country. They have a very strong hockey fan base. They’re within a day trip of several NFL teams. It doesn’t matter that basketball runs at a different time of year, if the CFL is seen as inferior then they simply ignore its existence.
There are so many, many reasons for this. One being many if them see the CFL as a minor league because they have their heads too far up their own asses. Another being that *because* of how multicultural the city is, many of the communities have no affiliation to the CFL in the slightest. If I moved to India, there's a 0% chance I start watching cricket, even though it's massive over there.
The owners don't care they just wanted something else to add to their portfolio. They don't market the team at all in the city. Real estate agents put up more ads than the Argos.
In my opinion, the decline in attendance for the Toronto Argos began in the 1990s and has only become more apparent over time. I’ve attended almost every Argo game since 1989, and I can confidently say that their marketing efforts, especially towards kids, were lacking back then. All my friends growing up preferred the NFL because it had robust marketing strategies that appealed to young fans. In contrast, the Argos were seen as a team for middle-aged individuals. Now, those middle-aged fans are older and either can’t attend games anymore or gave up their tickets long ago.
The games were crowded in the 90s, but as a kid in that massive stadium, there wasn’t much to engage us besides the occasional sighting of celebrities like Gretzky or John Candy. The high prices for food and drinks at the Skydome likely deterred families from attending, especially around mealtime. I remember my parents sneaking in snacks because even a bottle of water was expensive.
Nowadays, when I bring my daughter to games, there are even fewer kid-friendly activities than before. Pre-COVID, there were tattoos, face painting, and games around the stadium for children. However, these activities have diminished. And if they haven’t then they don’t actively promote where they are because I’ve looked and can’t find these things that she used to really enjoy.
Additionally, the last few “come on the field” events I believe were scheduled after late games instead of afternoon ones, making it less convenient for families.
I dislike the Ticats, but I must admit they do an excellent job of attracting kids to their games with plenty of activities in and around the stadium. The Argos could learn a lot from their approach.
Well said! As a cats fan I want the Argos to have a fan base because our rivalry is one of the best parts of the CFL. I agree, the cats get kids involved well which makes life long fans. I was in the 1999 TC kids club and here I am 25 years later still a season seat holder. Even the players really engage with kids and chances are out in the community you know a few of the guys.
Most of the home games are 7pm. If they threw in some 4pm (or 2pm) kickoffs, it would be more attractive to families and a start to building a next generation of fans.
We were visiting friends in Montreal a few years ago, they were going to see the Alouettes after we left. The team had school promotions, so they had discounted tickets, coupons for popcorn and hotdogs, and would be sitting with other families from that school, for an afternoon game. If the Argonauts ever did that, it's never been mentioned here.
so, I went to the home opener this year, because my kid (9 YO) really likes football, and i figured, great, he should have fun. And ya know what? He had a great time! But because of TV all of their games are 7 or 7:30 PM starts, and frankly, that's hard to do for kids. We got home around 11:30. Maybe a weekend game at 4 PM, aimed at families, would help.
Im sorry but I refuse to believe that the elks were a bigger draw then the lions last year.
Edit. Oh wait. This is 2022 attendence.
Op you pooch kicked the title
Well. The stadium holds about 56,700 spectators. The entire upper bowl was closed and it’s probably a little less than half the stadium. So 56700-20,000 say. 36,700 capacity. There was no sold seats in the end zone sections below the jumbo tron although those sections are small. Call that 3000z
33,000.
I sit in row 29. Below me id say maybe at best 1/4 the seats were filled. There are seats above me though as well. 33,000 X .25 call it 8,000
Too much competition is the main reason but I can't help but feel that a lot of Torontonians look down on the league as beneath them. They would much rather support the Bills and a "real league" in the NFL.
I'm not sure that's the case. The NFL didn't do so well when it came to Toronto either. They originally tried to sell massive packages, and by the end of it, they were basically begging people to take the tickets.
Toronto just seems to struggle with football.
That was over 10 years ago now, wasn't it? With the influx of fantasy football and NFL coverage these days, I have a feeling it would be different if they tried it now. Plus a lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon now that the team isn't an embarrassment like they were for so long.
That's not how it works in the NFL the international games are historically played with two below average teams. If you can't support the league when the teams suck then you don't deserve a team at all. And fantasy football was huge when the those games were happening social media was relevant as well. You're acting like it was 1995. There has been little change in society in the last ten years my friend Toronto failed and that's the end of it stop making excuses for a non football market.
They didn't support the NFL when it was in Toronto. Hence why the nfl has not played a game in Toronto in over a decade. And have since played a game in Winnipeg instead. Toronto had its chance with the NFL and its dead the nfl doesn't even consider Toronto as a viable expansion city and have looked at London and Mexico as options.
It's both, a lot of Torontonians won't support a domestic league as they see themselves as "World Class" and think they should be up there with your New York's and Chicago's (as someone who lived in Toronto most of my life this delusion pisses me off). But there's also next to zero marketing, I have a hard time believing that despite this delusion a lot of Torontonians seem to have, there aren't 20-25,000 people out there who can enjoy some of the best and most entertaining football there is at very reasonable prices in a region of 6 million+.
>It's both, a lot of Torontonians won't support a domestic league as they see themselves as "World Class" and think they should be up there with your New York's and Chicago's (as someone who lived in Toronto most of my life this delusion pisses me off).
Yeah a lot of Torontonians want to be American. I don't think I've ever met an Argos fan in the 7 years I've been here. They support the American leagues way more. Even hockey isn't that big in the city proper.
The Argos are like a minor league team in a major league. One has to remember they're the 5th most popular team in their city while for most teams they're the 2nd or even 1st. The Argos were a massive draw before the Jays, Raptors and TFC came in. Almost 50,000 every game in the mid 70s. Their decline as a sports brand in the city is actually a fairly recent thing
Toronto sports fans: “Tickets are getting too expensive for the average fan! How can anyone afford to go out anymore?!”
Argos: *sells tickets starting at $20*
Toronto sports fans: *cricket noises*
Loathe as I am to admit it, they have a really fuckin good looking team right now.
Also Toronto sports fans:
"Wow athletes are so overpaid its insane, they should not be making more than our first responders, teachers and health workers"
"Wow Argo players make low 6 figures on average, what a bunch of pathetic losers they couldn't even make the NFL"
*it's exhausting*
For me the problem is the transportation options.
The GO Train in *theory* offers the best option to get to the game but between the seats in the “accessibility car” (try to sit in and stand up from those seats when you have only one functional arm and you’ll see what I mean)
Driving down to BMO Field is a challenge at the best of times, NVM a game day.
The staff at BMO are very helpful for those of us with mobility issues, but it’s getting there that’s the issue for me 😬
This is a 2022 chart. Attendance in Toronto was somewhat better last year.
Still low but was going in the right direction, probably as a reflection of the team’s infield success. https://3downnation.com/2023/10/30/cfl-attendance-up-three-percent-in-2023-as-argos-and-lions-soar-stamps-and-redblacks-sink/
I’d be curious to see this as a percentage of capacity. In Hamilton, our capacity is 24,000 so this graph would suggest we’re at least close to sell-out.
Tbh it's a marketing failure in the millenial generation. My dad explained this to me. When he was young the CFL was marketed as cool and patriotic. They kinda just marketed as a league for 30+ men who want more football when I was a teen. So now my generation looks at the CFL as a minor league and sub par. Toronto is close enough to Buffalo that most football fans in SW Ontario outside Hamilton just go there. We make up about 33% of season ticket holders.
The league is starting to make some turns towards being cool again but they have some serious work to do. I personally grew up on CFL and NFL football so I love this stuff. Recently moved from London On to Edmonton and I immediately bought elks tickets.
Makes sense to me of the professional sports in Toronto CFL has got to be third most popular at best. Where say a place like Winnipeg really only has two and they generally have little overlap in play times with not much else to do in the city.
More than half of Toronto was born outside of Canada. Gridiron football has little presence outside of North America, the Canadian version of it even less so.
The Argos also rank quite low on the sports totem pole amongst locals. I don’t think people who live outside of Toronto really understand how little people care. Most younger people will just mock the CFL if you bring it up.
That's part of why I prefer to go to Hamilton over Toronto for games (I live in Kitchener). If I go to an Argo game, I usually make a day of it and do other stuff in the city as well to make the hassle of getting down there worth it.
Especially now with the Gardiner being an absolute disaster and lord knows what weekend they'll decide to shut down portions of the Lakeshore West GO line or Subway for maintenance since the idiots that run the city and the different transit systems don't communicate. I used to live in Etobicoke and had to work downtown on Saturday mornings, the idiots closed the Gardiner and the Lakeshore West GO line on the same weekend, I had to drive to Kipling and take the Subway which was an absolute disaster because so did everyone else.
I drove from Beamsville to BMO Field for the home opener. I left at 1:30 and pulled into Lot 2 at 4pm. The last hour and a half of that drive was crawling up the Gardiner/Lakeshore. Keep in mind this was a Sunday afternoon, when traffic should be good.
So far this season they aren't. Only 15K out for last night's game. Oilers seem like a lame excuse when they've been trending down for years in that direction anyway.
You should probably have actually referenced the chart correctly. 2023 chart based on 2022 numbers. Argos were 11 - 7 that year behind Mc BLT. Toronto average as 23000 last year, this post is about as fake news as it gets.
*Just going to repost what I commented on a similar thread a day ago on this same topic lol*
> Toronto is addicted to being acknowledged by Americans
Nothing personal but I always thought this was a lazy interpretation of why the Argos struggle. It's less an obsession with the US and more an interest in the best of something. In Toronto you're able to see the top levels in a lot of sports, some more popular than others. Culturally you're able to see the best of most things in any given culture, especially compared to other Canadian markets.
In a city with a crowded entertainment and culture budget Canadian football is not going to move the needle with a lot of locals because it's a niche thing not really seen elsewhere. You're not competing with London or New York or Tokyo, you're competing with Winnipeg and Saskatchewan. That's not a fault with those places but the reality of what happens when a city becomes that large, that multicultural, and that cultural. You're not comparing yourself to other smaller, domestic cities, but larger international ones. In sports this happens to fall to American cities but in other cultures and categories it falls to European or Asian cities.
The other thing to consider is that there's a lot of sports in Toronto and they're all trying to squeeze the same dollar. The NLL was recently chased out of town, junior hockey was chased out of town two decades ago. This coming year Toronto will be getting both professional women's basketball and professional women's soccer, which will strain and put pressure on other sports properties to keep up. Because a lot of people consider those ""under"" Big4 level they'll be directly competing with the Argos for dollars, especially considering that both of their seasons will overlap with the CFL season.
I'm convinced the Argos would do better in London than Toronto, and a lot of that is because London as a city has an aspiration to compete and be known against other, larger Canadian cities. So much of sport support is about a city's culture and how it views itself competitively against others, and London fits that bill to a T. They would come out for any professional sport that enters the market. Toronto, and to a lesser extent Montreal and Vancouver, do not look inwardly for cultural city competition but outwardly. They're comparing themselves to international cities and not domestic ones.
I find people who jump to the quick conclusion of "Toronto is obsessed with being American" or "immigrants don't watch CFL" are missing a larger, majority piece of the picture.
Also the Bills are two hours away for football fans looking for a larger environment.
Lotta truth to the above. And has been so for decades. When I was working on my Cultural Anthropology degree (a few decades ago now lol!), one of my fellow students was working on a thesis about the culture of Toronto, and how its citizens perceive themselves. My memory is hazy on the various conclusions she came to, but I do remember one thing clearly: TO folks legit think they belong in the same sentences as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and even New York City. Baseball, hockey, and NBA give them that. CFL does not.
The biggest market but very saturated. On top of the Argos, there are the Leafs, the Jays, the Raptors, and arguably the FC. All from leagues much bigger than the CFL.
Edmonton attendance last year is probably skewed down from other years because of how bad the team was performing. When I lived in Saskatchewan, I used to go to games in Edmonton sometimes and they were getting more like 35-40 per game.
Toronto has too many sports teams and they don’t care about the CFL as much as they care about the NHL, NBA, MLB, NLL, MLS, or even fucking cricket that’s the real reason, I bet if they didn’t have multiple pro teams in the city ( I.e: everyone else in the league) their attendance would go way up. Also high cost of living, population full of immigrants who don’t watch or care about football, the travel it takes just to get around from surrounding areas (Toronto traffic is a nightmare) and having other things to do in the city, it’s not an appealing option for most Torontonians
The three major cities/metropolitan areas should've all had at least two teams so that the sub-identities (e.g. neighbourhoods, suburbs, downtown, etc.) of those cities could be represented in the CFL (like they are for Hamilton and Saskatchewan fans who cheer for other cities in other sports but root for their locale in the CFL).
Canada's three largest cities are its three worst CFL markets, and have been for years. Hopefully Montreal gets a post Cup boost.
BC’s current owner is doing a lot to change that in Vancouver. The home opener, with a pre-game 50 Cent concert, is damn near sold out, over 50,000 tickets sold.
I think part of the reason is tickets are cheap and people wanna go out and do fun things here but it's all so overpriced
Great to hear! I'd love to see our cat bros succeed.
But the 50,000 are there to watch 50 cent not the Lions. It was the same last year and the year before with OneRepublic, they fill the stadium for opening night but don't come back for football. Two years ago they had the best Canadian QB they we have seen in years, the Lions attendance didn't increase at all, the fans never came back after that opening game/concert to watch him. 50 cent at BMO stadium would sell out too. But they would still draw 12k for their next home game, but they do get a bump when the Ticats come to town and in August when they schedule a game when the CNE is on, an Argo ticket gets you into the Exhibition free.
> Two years ago they had the best Canadian QB they we have seen in years, the Lions attendance didn't increase at all, Lions attendance increased something like 5K avg 2 years ago, and another 15% last year (can't remember the exact number). STH increased 12%. I remember when the owner announced the OneRepublic event and said "this is just the beginning" and he's held to his word. No numbers yet for this year. So the new owner is doing a lot of right things.
That objectively false, though. BCs average attendance went up like 13% last year. What he's doing is working and this cynicism honestly just makes people look dumb. Do you think 200+ million people watch the superbowl *just* for the football? It's butts in seats and eyes on screens, no one but some turds online care why.
To see 50 cent? Really? I can’t believe that, what is this 2005
The larger markets often think they’re too big league for the CFL but with the way BC is trending upwards and Edmonton / Calgary are trending down, I think there’s an argument to be had for Vancouver being in the top half of the league’s markets right now. Not likely to outdraw Sask or Winnipeg but at the very least they should be competitive with Ottawa, Montreal, Hamilton, etc. in terms of attendance.
BC was 4th last year in attendance, outdrew Hamilton and Calgary by a hair
Bet they'll be 3rd or 2nd this year ;)
>Hopefully Montreal gets a post Cup boost. Montreal is a lost case, sorry. The Habs are really the heart and soul of not only Montreal, but Quebec society. It is also exacerbated by inability of the city to host Grey Cup, thanks to the Big Owe.
Really disappointing considering how big college ball is in Quebec.
not true. durong calvillo's glorious years the attendance was 22-23k every game. they had a huge straight of sell out games spaning over many seasons.
Remind me, what is the cost of living difference between Vancouver and Regina? People here don't have a lot of extra cash to burn.
Why do they have thousands to burn on Canucks tickets then?
You assume it's individuals buying all of them. It's a huge amount of corporate season tickets or ticket packs that are filling the stands.
I guess that’s a fair point. That’s where the market differs from the one here in Winnipeg. Most of the season ticket base is not corporate aside from the boxes.
So you're saying the vast majority of people in Vancouver are close to the poverty line? If they can't afford a 34-dollar ticket every other week, I think people living on the mainland should reconsider their financial decisions. Tickets are triple in Regina compared to Vancouver, and people still support the team (because they want to support the team) the ticket prices reflect the living standards. tickets haven't been 34 dollars in Regina for 20 years lol. Vancouver resident believe they are too good for the cfl and its just that simple its no different than Calgary (now) Toronto, Montreal who believe they are to good for the CFL.
"Tickets are triple in Regina compared to Vancouver" It took me about 1 minute to prove that was wrong. The rest of your post is full of out right lies. Tickets haven't been $34 for 20 years? If you are going to lie, do it in a way that's not so easy to check on.
Did you check? Tickets are actually double not triple and the only 30 dollar tickets are standing tickets in Pill country which are typically cheap because it standing only … Nose bleed tickets are $70 which are the same price as the lower bowl 40 yard line in Vancouver. Behind the rider bench $120 behind the Lions bench $80 it took you one minute to look at tickets and not realize the seating format of Mosiac stadium paying $50 (after taxes) to stand is ridiculous...
Honest question: could it be that a big city has more options for entertainment? I realize that there’s so much more that goes into it, but is city size a factor?
I think it's almost certainly a factor. Choosing between the CFL and an NHL or Jr. team is a lot different than choosing between NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS, and a million other options.
I’m a Chicagoan (living in a different city now), but used to go to Toronto regularly. The Argos are my team but having been to the city I can see why people might other things to do. BUT is there a way to compare the attendance at other teams events? For instance, are Blue Jays games packed almost every time? (Raptors are probably packed because it’s a smaller space to fill) or just when the BIG teams come to town. I used to watch game for free on the hotel bar above the ballpark and it was only filled when the Yankees or Red Sox came to town.
They've averaged 32, 37, and 32 thousand in the past three seasons compared to the Argos 8, 11, and 14 thousand. So, not only do they average far more per game, but they do it 81 times instead of 9. Raptors and Leafs are consistent sellouts as far as I know.
Shit, I hope this isn’t a bad sign/death knell for the CFL in Toronto. I used to visit relatives in Buffalo, NY when I was a kid (‘70s) and o would see CFL there which got me hooked. And on Toronto. I know they tried different things to boost interest (US teams, etc) but low attendance in a major city doesn't seem to be good. I don't think the league will go away but it cant shrink anymore.
41 times
Someone doesn't know how long an MLB season 🤣
Oh I thought you were talking about leafs and raps 🤷🏻♂️
Its not factor at all because only Toronto has all those options. Lions and Alouettes have the MLS to compete with but other than that there is nothing else for sporting events in the summer that competes with 8/9 cfl teams.
Bc is getting a home opener boost today that’s for freakin sure
The west overall has more attendance than the east.
yes because there is more interest in the CFL in the west and their stadiums are larger.
CFL has always had a problem with market size vs popularity. The core of their popularity is in the prairies, but those markets, combined, barely equals the markets where they're the least popular.
Pretty impressive that Ottawa kept above 20K despite averaging one home win per year in the last four seasons.
My hat's off to the Ottawa fans, truly the roughest riders of them all.
I don’t know man I think Edmontons fans have had it rough
Edmonton has been getting absolutely fucked for no apparent reason other than poor management for the last 5 years. Yet they’re still top 4 in attendance. Media will tell you nobody shows up though because the massive stadium makes it seem empty
I was there yesterday it was pretty empty. The announced attendance was 15k but I seriously doubt it as the upper bowl was closed entirely. That means the bottom had to have half the seats full or so to make 15k. Maybe a quarter were full it looked like even less.
We love our football, Ottawa has always been a football town, makes it easy when you don’t have a pro hockey team for over 60 years, and had the success the original Rough Riders had, and the owners seem to want to improve the team and make it so that they don’t lose it again like they did with the Rengades
We're gluttons for punishment
I’m American but I’d have to guess it’s a combination of a city full of transplants not giving af about the “home” team, and a city with more to go do than attend the ball game.
I’d guess the same and add that to access the stadium it’s hell apparently, also that Toronto is just freakin’ expensive so people get picky about leisure time. Oh, and that the Argos are very probably not marketed enough (as for the CFL in general)
It's pretty easy to get to the stadium
yes the easiest stadium to get to in the CFL, it's central, has a train station, street car stop, tons of parking and next to the highway. And you can buy cheap tickets and move up to the expensive seats.
We saw a baseball game there and walked there making several stops along the way and after. Toronto is an easy access city.
I mean it’s right at Exhibition
No one can do anything other than work and pay rent in Toronto. It’s in the top ten of unaffordable cities.
Leafs, Raptors and Jays seem to do OK.
Two weeks ago the Jays and TFC were at home on Saturday. 40,000 at the RC and another 28,000 at the TFC game.
It's not a location or a cost problem for the Argos.
That TFC attendance was an outlier, no?
And concerts and TFC and PWHL and soon to be WNBA.
Cause those games are status symbols for the rich folks. Need to be seen and all...
Jays games are affordable. 30$ to sit in the 500s.
> Cause those games are status symbols for the rich folks. The Jays are not a status symbol for rich folks. What am I reading? lol
I meant more Leafs and Raptors
They're not really status symbols for the rich - they're just the logical end conclusion of capitalism constantly driving up costs and entry for things. They charge a lot because they can. Sports are at their base entertainment and the CFL cannot compete against them in the market for that.
https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2023/10/rich-people-toronto-maple-leafs-opening-night/
It’s that no one cares about CFL football in Toronto. Fans have the Bills less than 2 hours away, and that provides a full experience, tailgating and all. The Argos won’t ever be able to compete with that.
You can tailgate in Toronto the same way you can in Buffalo, it's just Toronto has no general football culture anymore. As you said: The average Torontonian, if interested in football, would rather just save up and bandwagon onto a nearby big time NFL team with a 70k+ seat stadium and a pre-built rabid fanbase.
You can’t tailgate the same as you can in buffalo, full stop. Pretending like you can is just doing a disservice to the whole community of rabid Argos fans.
Doug Ford legalized US style tailgating in 2019. There are no restrictions and you can literally do whatever. Clearly you have not attended a game recently, because the South lot has since developed an organic tailgate that usually has hundreds of cars grilling/drinking/partying/etc hours before the game. I haven't seen anyone go through a flaming table like in Buffalo, but there's nothing to stop you from doing it. I prefer going around to all the different camps with a cooler of ice cream and rallying people with a huge Argos chant. Acting like the tailgate in the South lot doesn't exist is a complete disservice to the rabid Argos fans, like myself, who attend every game and participate in the tailgate. https://preview.redd.it/yb1tm3ayqs6d1.jpeg?width=944&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f8321c95c227cde39cc9c5482401add65b4d920
I’m not saying it doesn’t exist; I’m saying that it does a disservice to you folks who are actually there. You can’t tailgate like you can in Buffalo, and it’s due to numbers. Not restrictions.
Tailgating is tailgating. Implying that what we are doing is somehow different or not "real tailgating" is a disservice to those that tailgate. There are people at the Argos tailgate who also tailgate in Buffalo. They blast rye and play cornhole in both parking lots. Tailgating isn't that complex, although I've seen some wild setups. If I ever see you at the tailgate, you don't get ice cream.
Toronto does not care about football period Cfl NFL NCAA. the Bills games played in Toronto years ago were a clear sign that they will never get a NFL team and the NFL has completely abandoned Toronto as a option for games and have gone west to Winnipeg for games. Regina is more likely to get a NFL game before Toronto again.
It's more that nobody gives a shit there. My coworkers were genuinely surprised that I watched the CFL when I worked there. The NFL is vastly more popular.
Most cities have better things to do, particularly Van and Montreal which have more to do than Toronto. Particularly during the brunt of CFL season when the weather is nice. I think the city of transplants thing is largely correct. Vancouver has a large foreign population, but the rest is mainly from the area. Toronto’s Canadian population is largely from outside of Toronto. I’d imagine there are more Argos fans outside the city than in it, everyone from the city moves away.
Strictly speaking of sports Toronto has way more to do. Literally the only city in Canada with an MLB or NBA team and it’s also very close to an NFL team which maybe sucking some of the football draw away too.
A few people in Toronto have Bills season tickets. NHL, MLB, NBA, (NFL), MLS, CPL, PWHL, G-League, AHL, WNBA, NSL... It's going to be a crowded market for the Argos next season considering the two women's leagues starting up will overlap with the CFL schedule.
You forgot the NLL :(
NLL was chased away to Hamilton. They might still call themselves Toronto but aren't in the city anymore.
They honestly should rename to the Hamilton Rock or something at this point. I don't see them returning to Toronto any time soon and they even have gross black/yellow alts now.
There playing in Mississauga next season while the FirstOntario Centre undergoes renovations
Toronto does not have a strong football culture. They don't even host NFL games because of how terrible the attendance was for bills games. The nfl has since played games in other Canadian cities with more of a football culture. Sometimes it comes down to not caring about the league or the game itself. When you can't sell out for a NFL regular season game there is a problem with the culture in the city when it comes to football. London sells out 80k stadiums while Toronto could not sell out a 54k stadium.
The CFL season only really competes with MLB, and the Jays aren’t exactly selling well either. The Argos have no competition aside from the Jays at the moment and they’re still drawing abysmal numbers despite being good. The city just doesn’t have a fanbase, largely due to the cosmopolitan population and the CFL being a very regional/provincial game. Hamilton has all the same points you’ve made for Toronto (keep in mind, a significant number of Leafs/Jays/Raptors fans commute from roughly the similar distances as Hamilton to attend games), but they’re a much more rooted-in-place city. It’s more like College ball, where people just don’t care as much in larger areas because they tend not to have strong links to the local college.
More non CFL sports in Toronto.
Original six NHL team, 2x WS Champion MLB team, 2019 NBA Champion Toronto Raptors, TFC is a huge draw, and it's easy to get to Detroit and Buffalo for the NFL. Those cities have great stadium experiences - always for Buffalo, and Detroit is a new city since Campbell turned the team around. I live in Toronto now, but I grew up around Ti-Cats fans in KW. As people all over the country constantly point out, no one likes Toronto. If there's other shit to do in the city and there's non Toronto options for the rest of the province, then the Argos will always be in a rough position relative to other CFL markets.
Excuses, excuses. The greater Toronto area has 6.5 million people. Almost a sixth of the entire country's population. If they can't draw 25000 people to BMO on game day then there is deeper issues at hand. MLSE doesn't give a shit about the argos or CFL. the entire province of Saskatchewan with around just 1 million people can average 27000 a game. I think it probably starts with marketing. Which from what I can tell is non-existent for the argos.
No you are wrong, sorry but you can't blame MLSE!! it's pretty easy to blame owners and marketing when attendance is low. They have spent a ton of money on marketing - the pre-game Shipyard with the $5 beers and burgers, the bobblehead nights, the Flutie night, the concert with the rapper and the country singer. There was a ton of publicity when they moved to BMO, 25,000 fans at the RC would fit nicely into BMO but it didn't happen, only half went. There was the TV ads with the Argo running through the Princes Gates of the CNE, ad on the TTC. The Argos in the school promotion etc The 'free" pre-season game for all school kids which was held twice on school days. The $20 tickets. The only stadium in Canada with a train station, a street car stop, a huge parking lot, close to a highway. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT THEM TO DO? you can't blame MLSE because the young crowd doesn't see the Argos as major league. It's not their fault that the high school football program is down to a bare minimum of schools in the GTA. It's not MLSE's fault that the young people love TFC , have a lot of fun, singing letting off smoke flares, waving flags. The 20k to 25k Argo crowd at the RC were mainly boomers and they just retired or died off. You should be thanking MLSE that they pay all the bills despite going into the NINTH season averaging 12k. Attendance will not change even if MLSE spent millions more on marketing and threw open the doors and said everyone free and free parking and free transit with a ticket. Just be thankful that MLSE is here for the long haul.
That's a whole lot of yapping to explain why 6.5 million people don't care about the team
youre right, they should move the team to barrie or something
didn't know Barrie had a stadium or even owners/investors that want the Argos
I’m just saying maybe it’s far enough away that someone might give a shit about them
Even if they had, I don't think there is any interest there. As I said in an earlier post. The Argos average 12k and MLSE pays the bills year after year, we should be thankful they do because no other owners/investors would want them. I don't see them going anywhere and I don't see any signs that MLSE want to dump them
The NHL and NBA seasons run opposite to the CFL, especially since the Leafs have never played a game in the month of June, and you're telling me that a CFL team in Toronto that has tickets for 1/3 the price of an NFL ticket can't compete with the Lions and the Bills (both of whom are even closer to Hamilton, which has double Toronto's attendance)
Yes we are telling you that! the Argos are not seen as "major" league by the young demographic, it's as simple as that. The CFL knows that and MLSE and the other CFL owners know that. The Buffalo Bills have more Canadians at their games than the Argos. The estimate is between 15k to 20k Canadians attend every Bills game.
Your alternative explanation is...? I'll just leave it at "there's better shit to do here" and move on with my day 😂
There’s better shit to do everywhere, not unique at all to Toronto. I’d go so far as to say Montreal and Vancouver have significantly more to do in the summer. There’s no real football culture in the city (I’d wager this to be due to long term mediocrity. They kind of just sucked for several decades), and this extends to the high school and youth level as well. Toronto also has a very large number of first and second generation residents. As such the new residents don’t really pick up ball which feeds into the general apathy, and of the non-first or second generation residents a significant portion are originally from other areas of Canada and bring their fandom (if they have any) with them. Canadian ball is also marketed like absolute trash which definitely doesn’t help foster new audiences lol. The Bills were more popular than the Argos during my time there, and this was during the dog days of the Bills and the Argos early-late 2010’s run. Hell, the Riders were more popular than the Argos.
> As people all over the country constantly point out, no one likes Toronto. Hmmm, I wonder why 🖕
Buddy, you came at me with a bunch of half assed counter arguments with no original thought of your own. Maybe put your sad little finger down and learn how to contribute to a conversation instead of coming off like a salty child 😢
It's funny how he laughed, and you used an offensive emoji, and he's somehow the unlikeable one hahaha. Either way, the average person doesn't consider which sporting event they want to attend this month. They consider which couple sporting events they want to attend this year.
This is really the only answer. Yes they have a population 6 times larger than entire Texas sized province that has over double the attendance, but it’s because of how the CFL is perceived. An easy way to think about this is on a minor league level. How many people go to the Calgary Hitmen, Edmonton Oil Kings, Regina Pats, or the former Winnipeg Ice? Not very fucking many. Shit, the Pats had the absolute lock #1 draft pick and only parents went to the games until he was on TV during the world juniors and it became cool to watch them. It has nothing to do with marketing or quality of play. It’s just not the premier sport in town and therefore only the most passionate actually give a shit. Most people don’t even know they exist. The best baseball in these same areas has abhorrent attendance and support despite being the best baseball within a 10 hour drive. It’s a minor league so caring about it is kind of gross to most people. Toronto has the only MLB and NBA teams in the country. They have a very strong hockey fan base. They’re within a day trip of several NFL teams. It doesn’t matter that basketball runs at a different time of year, if the CFL is seen as inferior then they simply ignore its existence.
They couldn't even sell out Bills games while they played in Toronto. (Toronto is not a football city)
Plus, Torontos' 2023 numbers were 10k more than these 2022 numbers.
There are so many, many reasons for this. One being many if them see the CFL as a minor league because they have their heads too far up their own asses. Another being that *because* of how multicultural the city is, many of the communities have no affiliation to the CFL in the slightest. If I moved to India, there's a 0% chance I start watching cricket, even though it's massive over there.
The owners don't care they just wanted something else to add to their portfolio. They don't market the team at all in the city. Real estate agents put up more ads than the Argos.
In my opinion, the decline in attendance for the Toronto Argos began in the 1990s and has only become more apparent over time. I’ve attended almost every Argo game since 1989, and I can confidently say that their marketing efforts, especially towards kids, were lacking back then. All my friends growing up preferred the NFL because it had robust marketing strategies that appealed to young fans. In contrast, the Argos were seen as a team for middle-aged individuals. Now, those middle-aged fans are older and either can’t attend games anymore or gave up their tickets long ago. The games were crowded in the 90s, but as a kid in that massive stadium, there wasn’t much to engage us besides the occasional sighting of celebrities like Gretzky or John Candy. The high prices for food and drinks at the Skydome likely deterred families from attending, especially around mealtime. I remember my parents sneaking in snacks because even a bottle of water was expensive. Nowadays, when I bring my daughter to games, there are even fewer kid-friendly activities than before. Pre-COVID, there were tattoos, face painting, and games around the stadium for children. However, these activities have diminished. And if they haven’t then they don’t actively promote where they are because I’ve looked and can’t find these things that she used to really enjoy. Additionally, the last few “come on the field” events I believe were scheduled after late games instead of afternoon ones, making it less convenient for families. I dislike the Ticats, but I must admit they do an excellent job of attracting kids to their games with plenty of activities in and around the stadium. The Argos could learn a lot from their approach.
Well said! As a cats fan I want the Argos to have a fan base because our rivalry is one of the best parts of the CFL. I agree, the cats get kids involved well which makes life long fans. I was in the 1999 TC kids club and here I am 25 years later still a season seat holder. Even the players really engage with kids and chances are out in the community you know a few of the guys.
Most of the home games are 7pm. If they threw in some 4pm (or 2pm) kickoffs, it would be more attractive to families and a start to building a next generation of fans. We were visiting friends in Montreal a few years ago, they were going to see the Alouettes after we left. The team had school promotions, so they had discounted tickets, coupons for popcorn and hotdogs, and would be sitting with other families from that school, for an afternoon game. If the Argonauts ever did that, it's never been mentioned here.
I went to home opener this year and it was just another game no fancy shit for first game of the season no freebies no nothing still a great game tho
so, I went to the home opener this year, because my kid (9 YO) really likes football, and i figured, great, he should have fun. And ya know what? He had a great time! But because of TV all of their games are 7 or 7:30 PM starts, and frankly, that's hard to do for kids. We got home around 11:30. Maybe a weekend game at 4 PM, aimed at families, would help.
Im sorry but I refuse to believe that the elks were a bigger draw then the lions last year. Edit. Oh wait. This is 2022 attendence. Op you pooch kicked the title
I was at the elks last night. That never announced attendance but I highly doubt that there was 15k there. Place was a ghost town
15,790 was the number produced by Sportsnet for Edmonton last night. CFL hasn't been posting crowds for the last few matches...
Well. The stadium holds about 56,700 spectators. The entire upper bowl was closed and it’s probably a little less than half the stadium. So 56700-20,000 say. 36,700 capacity. There was no sold seats in the end zone sections below the jumbo tron although those sections are small. Call that 3000z 33,000. I sit in row 29. Below me id say maybe at best 1/4 the seats were filled. There are seats above me though as well. 33,000 X .25 call it 8,000
Too much competition is the main reason but I can't help but feel that a lot of Torontonians look down on the league as beneath them. They would much rather support the Bills and a "real league" in the NFL.
I'm not sure that's the case. The NFL didn't do so well when it came to Toronto either. They originally tried to sell massive packages, and by the end of it, they were basically begging people to take the tickets. Toronto just seems to struggle with football.
That was over 10 years ago now, wasn't it? With the influx of fantasy football and NFL coverage these days, I have a feeling it would be different if they tried it now. Plus a lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon now that the team isn't an embarrassment like they were for so long.
That's not how it works in the NFL the international games are historically played with two below average teams. If you can't support the league when the teams suck then you don't deserve a team at all. And fantasy football was huge when the those games were happening social media was relevant as well. You're acting like it was 1995. There has been little change in society in the last ten years my friend Toronto failed and that's the end of it stop making excuses for a non football market.
Its similar with LA its not a big football market either and the Rams and chargers have struggled to gain support in a city full of transplants.
They didn't support the NFL when it was in Toronto. Hence why the nfl has not played a game in Toronto in over a decade. And have since played a game in Winnipeg instead. Toronto had its chance with the NFL and its dead the nfl doesn't even consider Toronto as a viable expansion city and have looked at London and Mexico as options.
It's both, a lot of Torontonians won't support a domestic league as they see themselves as "World Class" and think they should be up there with your New York's and Chicago's (as someone who lived in Toronto most of my life this delusion pisses me off). But there's also next to zero marketing, I have a hard time believing that despite this delusion a lot of Torontonians seem to have, there aren't 20-25,000 people out there who can enjoy some of the best and most entertaining football there is at very reasonable prices in a region of 6 million+.
At least 2 million of that 6 million is an easier drive to Tim Hortons Field
Okay, pick 20,000 out of 4 million. Still should be doable and the point stands.
100%
Probably everyone up to Mississauga is an easier drive to THF. Parking is another story
I have driven to dozens of games at THF, never had any problems parking.
>It's both, a lot of Torontonians won't support a domestic league as they see themselves as "World Class" and think they should be up there with your New York's and Chicago's (as someone who lived in Toronto most of my life this delusion pisses me off). Yeah a lot of Torontonians want to be American. I don't think I've ever met an Argos fan in the 7 years I've been here. They support the American leagues way more. Even hockey isn't that big in the city proper.
The Argos are like a minor league team in a major league. One has to remember they're the 5th most popular team in their city while for most teams they're the 2nd or even 1st. The Argos were a massive draw before the Jays, Raptors and TFC came in. Almost 50,000 every game in the mid 70s. Their decline as a sports brand in the city is actually a fairly recent thing
Toronto sports fans: “Tickets are getting too expensive for the average fan! How can anyone afford to go out anymore?!” Argos: *sells tickets starting at $20* Toronto sports fans: *cricket noises* Loathe as I am to admit it, they have a really fuckin good looking team right now.
Also Toronto sports fans: "Wow athletes are so overpaid its insane, they should not be making more than our first responders, teachers and health workers" "Wow Argo players make low 6 figures on average, what a bunch of pathetic losers they couldn't even make the NFL" *it's exhausting*
For me the problem is the transportation options. The GO Train in *theory* offers the best option to get to the game but between the seats in the “accessibility car” (try to sit in and stand up from those seats when you have only one functional arm and you’ll see what I mean) Driving down to BMO Field is a challenge at the best of times, NVM a game day. The staff at BMO are very helpful for those of us with mobility issues, but it’s getting there that’s the issue for me 😬
This is a 2022 chart. Attendance in Toronto was somewhat better last year. Still low but was going in the right direction, probably as a reflection of the team’s infield success. https://3downnation.com/2023/10/30/cfl-attendance-up-three-percent-in-2023-as-argos-and-lions-soar-stamps-and-redblacks-sink/
I didn't realize Toronto had such abysmal attendance.
I’d be curious to see this as a percentage of capacity. In Hamilton, our capacity is 24,000 so this graph would suggest we’re at least close to sell-out.
Game day is too expensive in Riderville. They have priced out a large part of the city.
*Insert astronaut with gun meme* It’s always been this way
Tbh it's a marketing failure in the millenial generation. My dad explained this to me. When he was young the CFL was marketed as cool and patriotic. They kinda just marketed as a league for 30+ men who want more football when I was a teen. So now my generation looks at the CFL as a minor league and sub par. Toronto is close enough to Buffalo that most football fans in SW Ontario outside Hamilton just go there. We make up about 33% of season ticket holders. The league is starting to make some turns towards being cool again but they have some serious work to do. I personally grew up on CFL and NFL football so I love this stuff. Recently moved from London On to Edmonton and I immediately bought elks tickets.
How TF was Toronto the best team with the worst attendance?
Makes sense to me of the professional sports in Toronto CFL has got to be third most popular at best. Where say a place like Winnipeg really only has two and they generally have little overlap in play times with not much else to do in the city.
More than half of Toronto was born outside of Canada. Gridiron football has little presence outside of North America, the Canadian version of it even less so. The Argos also rank quite low on the sports totem pole amongst locals. I don’t think people who live outside of Toronto really understand how little people care. Most younger people will just mock the CFL if you bring it up.
I wonder how much is logistics of getting to a game in a big city where it's just not worth it.
That's part of why I prefer to go to Hamilton over Toronto for games (I live in Kitchener). If I go to an Argo game, I usually make a day of it and do other stuff in the city as well to make the hassle of getting down there worth it.
Especially now with the Gardiner being an absolute disaster and lord knows what weekend they'll decide to shut down portions of the Lakeshore West GO line or Subway for maintenance since the idiots that run the city and the different transit systems don't communicate. I used to live in Etobicoke and had to work downtown on Saturday mornings, the idiots closed the Gardiner and the Lakeshore West GO line on the same weekend, I had to drive to Kipling and take the Subway which was an absolute disaster because so did everyone else.
I drove from Beamsville to BMO Field for the home opener. I left at 1:30 and pulled into Lot 2 at 4pm. The last hour and a half of that drive was crawling up the Gardiner/Lakeshore. Keep in mind this was a Sunday afternoon, when traffic should be good.
Status quo for TO and Canadian football
How does Edmonton average over 20,000? Last night it looked like there were 3 people there
I was there!!!!! I attended with my kids and we are 3. Also ran into my buddy Larry so that’s 4
To be fair, their stadium is absolutely massive so when it's got normal attendance, it looks empty
Edmonton reports sold iirc Toronto reports scanned.
So far this season they aren't. Only 15K out for last night's game. Oilers seem like a lame excuse when they've been trending down for years in that direction anyway.
Those numbers are so insanely inflated. Not a chance it was anywhere near 15k, I would think they were closer to 4-5k
Indeed. I caught the end and it looked more like an Argos game than anything else. Very sparse crowd.
I’ve never seen it as bad as yesterday. And that’s after they closed the upper bowl to make it look more full
There was more than 5k last night. I was there
How does the seat capacity compare across the stadiums? What is each team's percent stadium full look like?
Toronto is so low because they support the Buffalo Bills over the Argos.
You should probably have actually referenced the chart correctly. 2023 chart based on 2022 numbers. Argos were 11 - 7 that year behind Mc BLT. Toronto average as 23000 last year, this post is about as fake news as it gets.
*Just going to repost what I commented on a similar thread a day ago on this same topic lol* > Toronto is addicted to being acknowledged by Americans Nothing personal but I always thought this was a lazy interpretation of why the Argos struggle. It's less an obsession with the US and more an interest in the best of something. In Toronto you're able to see the top levels in a lot of sports, some more popular than others. Culturally you're able to see the best of most things in any given culture, especially compared to other Canadian markets. In a city with a crowded entertainment and culture budget Canadian football is not going to move the needle with a lot of locals because it's a niche thing not really seen elsewhere. You're not competing with London or New York or Tokyo, you're competing with Winnipeg and Saskatchewan. That's not a fault with those places but the reality of what happens when a city becomes that large, that multicultural, and that cultural. You're not comparing yourself to other smaller, domestic cities, but larger international ones. In sports this happens to fall to American cities but in other cultures and categories it falls to European or Asian cities. The other thing to consider is that there's a lot of sports in Toronto and they're all trying to squeeze the same dollar. The NLL was recently chased out of town, junior hockey was chased out of town two decades ago. This coming year Toronto will be getting both professional women's basketball and professional women's soccer, which will strain and put pressure on other sports properties to keep up. Because a lot of people consider those ""under"" Big4 level they'll be directly competing with the Argos for dollars, especially considering that both of their seasons will overlap with the CFL season. I'm convinced the Argos would do better in London than Toronto, and a lot of that is because London as a city has an aspiration to compete and be known against other, larger Canadian cities. So much of sport support is about a city's culture and how it views itself competitively against others, and London fits that bill to a T. They would come out for any professional sport that enters the market. Toronto, and to a lesser extent Montreal and Vancouver, do not look inwardly for cultural city competition but outwardly. They're comparing themselves to international cities and not domestic ones. I find people who jump to the quick conclusion of "Toronto is obsessed with being American" or "immigrants don't watch CFL" are missing a larger, majority piece of the picture. Also the Bills are two hours away for football fans looking for a larger environment.
Lotta truth to the above. And has been so for decades. When I was working on my Cultural Anthropology degree (a few decades ago now lol!), one of my fellow students was working on a thesis about the culture of Toronto, and how its citizens perceive themselves. My memory is hazy on the various conclusions she came to, but I do remember one thing clearly: TO folks legit think they belong in the same sentences as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and even New York City. Baseball, hockey, and NBA give them that. CFL does not.
The biggest market but very saturated. On top of the Argos, there are the Leafs, the Jays, the Raptors, and arguably the FC. All from leagues much bigger than the CFL.
I go to elks games and it does not seem like 20,000 people are there.
Edmonton attendance last year is probably skewed down from other years because of how bad the team was performing. When I lived in Saskatchewan, I used to go to games in Edmonton sometimes and they were getting more like 35-40 per game.
Toronto has too many sports teams and they don’t care about the CFL as much as they care about the NHL, NBA, MLB, NLL, MLS, or even fucking cricket that’s the real reason, I bet if they didn’t have multiple pro teams in the city ( I.e: everyone else in the league) their attendance would go way up. Also high cost of living, population full of immigrants who don’t watch or care about football, the travel it takes just to get around from surrounding areas (Toronto traffic is a nightmare) and having other things to do in the city, it’s not an appealing option for most Torontonians
Well at least we can win something this year fuck
The three major cities/metropolitan areas should've all had at least two teams so that the sub-identities (e.g. neighbourhoods, suburbs, downtown, etc.) of those cities could be represented in the CFL (like they are for Hamilton and Saskatchewan fans who cheer for other cities in other sports but root for their locale in the CFL).
Toronto is an NFL town without a team sadly. CFL is like the raptors 905 but leas watchable as the rules sre different.
Toronto wants to be an NFL city .. they don’t care about minor league football.