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Old Posted Jul 22, 2017, 4:26 AM
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JHikka JHikka is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Toronto
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Again, your entire post is about me.

Quote:
Originally Posted by elly63 View Post
You better get your prescription checked if you missed the fact that most of my post was proof of good attendance.
Borderline offensive if I was someone who actually had to take prescriptions for any sort of condition.

Quote:
Originally Posted by elly63 View Post
I did, do you need a magnifying glass? Do you want me to repost with a larger font and bold?
Attendances from four games in one week isn't much to really go off of. It's what I was critical of earlier on the MLS attendances from this past Wednesday.

Quote:
Originally Posted by elly63 View Post
Just answer a few questions and man up. Do you want the CFL attendance to improve or die?
Yes, i'd like to see CFL attendance improve. It hasn't been. This also isn't about manning up. You're on an internet discussion forum for crying out loud.

Quote:
Originally Posted by elly63 View Post
Don't give me any garbage about studying trends and crap.
This statement is baffling. Studying trends and crap is exactly how the CFL is going to be getting out of its current attendance decline in select markets. It's what the CFL PR department and and its VP marketing consistently discuss. It's why they consistently talk about the 18-49 demographic, about shifting trends in audience capture, and about gauging interest in the league.

Quote:
Originally Posted by elly63 View Post
If you lie and say you want it to improve then how do your backhanded remarks and poorly disguised shots help with that end?
What does my personal opinion have anything to do with any of the numbers I post? I can't fake numbers and I can't dictate what direction they go in. I can have an opinion but i'm not really seeing any sort of distinct counter-argument to that fact, merely scapegoating. I post numbers, provide a view, and instead of being offered a counter-view i'm usually accused of being a lie and a hack. Productive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by elly63 View Post
And secondly as an MLS guy, are you still a mod in charge of this section? It's like having a wolf in charge of the henhouse. I'd like to know before I get banned.
I'm not an MLS guy.
I'm not a mod for this section. That doesn't exist.
You're not going to get banned, although your consistent intrigue in my attitude, presumptuousness, and overall disdain for my posting style is certainly noted. If you don't like it you're free to put me on ignore.

As an addendum to this discussion, here's an article from the Toronto Sun wrapping up what i've been trying to get across to you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Toronto Sun
But the game also provided evidence of some of the challenges facing a league that has roots dating to about 20 years after Canada was born. After growing steadily in the post-war years until the late 1980s, and a disastrous and failed expansion into the United States in the early 1990s, the CFL bounced back thanks in large part to a national broadcast deal with TSN.

But Montreal’s season-opener, which was more than 3,000 fans short of a sellout, was emblematic of troubling recent trends. While attendance has been excellent in Hamilton’s new stadium, in back-from-the-dead Ottawa and in always-reliable Saskatchewan, the country’s largest markets — Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver — have all seen sharp declines of one sort or another in recent seasons. Even in Calgary, where the Stampeders were historically good in 2016, attendance lagged behind 2015.

Add in the surprise departure of commissioner Jeffrey Orridge this spring, who was only two years into the job and whose split was only ever explained as being over “philosophical differences” with the league’s board, and it’s fair to ask of the one pro-sports league that is unabashedly Canadian: Should the CFL be worried? Or are these just headwinds that the venerable league is figuring out how to overcome?

First, a couple of statements of fact before the discussion. One, the situation in Toronto is so different than anywhere else in the CFL that it merits a separate examination. The Argonauts were thought to be on a short path to an Alouettes-like rebirth with their move to BMO Field last season, but instead attendance was alarmingly poor, the team stunk, and the whole football-operations staff was eventually blown up. But we will leave that for later.

And two, the CFL is in no kind of crisis. The league still has five seasons, including this one, left on a $40-million-per-year broadcast deal with TSN that almost on its own allows clubs to cover their biggest cost: Player salaries. There are dozens of baseball, hockey and basketball teams in the big North American leagues who would love that kind of financial security.

But consider the scene in a Toronto hotel conference room late last year, as Orridge had a state-of-the-league town hall with die-hard fans, the kind wearing vintage CFL jerseys and hardhats with sirens on them and home-made coveralls that said, “Our Balls are Bigger.”

They had questions: What was the league doing about attendance declines? What about attracting younger fans? And the question no one asked: What happens, as the broadcast industry loses cable subscribers, if TSN eventually wants a cheaper deal? What happens, in other words, if the league’s biggest tentpole is chopped down?
Essentially, what's the CFL going to do to improve its situation between now and when the TSN deal ends? Ottawa is a good example of what they could do. Saskatchewan another.

General trending in sports media right now is that TV deals aren't going to be great sources of future revenue increases as TV numbers and markets are tapped out. That is, with declining TV viewership, it should be assumed that future TV deals will decline as such. This isn't solely a CFL-related issue. Online streaming, varying devices, and a multitude of different levels to consume the sport is going to have to be one of the options for future maintenance and growth, and revenue will have to come from them if indeed the TSN contract isn't renewed at a similar level.
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