The Stadium Question

[isaidso]

The issue facing football is the same issue facing the other 3 Canadian sports: baseball, basketball, and hockey. Unlike before, new immigrant populations are not taking up Canadian sports after arriving in Canada. Instead they are bringing their sports with them and ignoring the dominant Canadian rooted sports.

Football has been the hardest hit. The rest will suffer a similar fate over the coming generations with the possible exception of basketball. Living in Toronto, it's easy to see that huge swaths of new Canadians have zero interest in hockey or learning about hockey. The domestic culture is largely ignored and supplanted by an imported one. Leafs nation is where the Argonauts were in the 1970s. This will be the last decade where hockey dominates in this city.

It will probably take another generation, but hockey will go the way of football and baseball especially in parts of the country with large inflows of immigration.

[waterloowarrior]

I made a chart on MLS stadiums (plus Montreal Impact) and their capital costs. The numbers are from city reports, media sources, and/or team websites. They don't include the surrounding redevelopment projects (e.g. Melynk's $500 million "Entertainment Village") which are in some cases worth around $1 billion



Lansdowne is included for reference, but it's neither a new stadium nor primarily a soccer stadium (Winnipeg's proposed $135 million CFL stadium is getting $100 million or about 75% privately funded).

[phil235]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The issue facing football is the same issue facing the other 3 Canadian sports: baseball, basketball, and hockey. Unlike before, new immigrant populations are not taking up Canadian sports after arriving in Canada. Instead they are bringing their sports with them and ignoring the dominant Canadian rooted sports.

Football has been the hardest hit. The rest will suffer a similar fate over the coming generations with the possible exception of basketball. Living in Toronto, it's easy to see that huge swaths of new Canadians have zero interest in hockey or learning about hockey. The domestic culture is largely ignored and supplanted by an imported one. Leafs nation is where the Argonauts were in the 1970s. This will be the last decade where hockey dominates in this city.

It will probably take another generation, but hockey will go the way of football and baseball especially in parts of the country with large inflows of immigration.

I'm not sure this assessment is accurate. While first generations of new Canadians tend to ignore hockey, the next generations are much more likely to be involved. This has been the pattern for decades, and immigration is probably less significant now than it was 50 years ago. To take your Toronto example, look at the Italians who clearly prefer soccer as a nationality. The first generations to arrive may have had no interest in hockey, but their kids and grandkids are playing in huge numbers. Look at the number of players of Italian descent that are in the NHL now. I can see the same pattern occuring with other groups. You already notice growing numbers of Middle Eastern and Asian names popping up on junior hockey rosters.

I can't speak as knowledgably about football, but I do know a whole lot of second generation Canadians who love watching the sport. I would suggest that your prediction of the demise of North American sports is slightly exaggerated. Soccer is certainly dominant on a worldwide basis, but there is lots of room for other sports to thrive.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by phil235

I'm not sure this assessment is accurate. While first generations of new Canadians tend to ignore hockey, the next generations are much more likely to be involved. This has been the pattern for decades, and immigration is probably less significant now than it was 50 years ago. To take your Toronto example, look at the Italians who clearly prefer soccer as a nationality. The first generations to arrive may have had no interest in hockey, but their kids and grandkids are playing in huge numbers. Look at the number of players of Italian descent that are in the NHL now. I can see the same pattern occuring with other groups. You already notice growing numbers of Middle Eastern and Asian names popping up on junior hockey rosters.

I can't speak as knowledgably about football, but I do know a whole lot of second generation Canadians who love watching the sport. I would suggest that your prediction of the demise of North American sports is slightly exaggerated. Soccer is certainly dominant on a worldwide basis, but there is lots of room for other sports to thrive.

I hope you're correct, but that hasn't been my experience here in Toronto. Not only are first generation Canadians not interested in hockey, football, basketball, and baseball, but their kids tend to go into soccer or cricket. Hockey has been the least effected, but the warning signs are everywhere.

The last time the Leafs made it to the playoffs, the indifference on the streets of downtown Toronto was palpable. They'd be the usual Leafs fans driving up the street celebrating a win, but they'd be totally outnumbered by a completely baffled mass of humanity on the sidewalks. I'd even hear some of them ridicule hockey as a sport of yesterday, that no one cares about. It was all about soccer and cricket for them.

A bit of an exaggeration on their part, but the hostility was telling. I think Toronto has reached a tipping point. Football is our canary in the coal mine. Football used to be a big deal in Toronto, but todays Torontonians are completely ignorant of the sport, and Canada's massive contribution to it. It started with the first generation, spread to the second, and the NFL marketing machine only worked to damage football's position in the greater culture even more.

When you've got a 50% foreign born population, you've got half the city right off the bat who's cultural interests lie elsewhere. Those people who think it can't possibly happen to hockey in Toronto should pay a little closer attention to the sea change that's occurring in this city. It happened to football. There are lots of indications all around that other Canadian cultural interests will suffer the same indignity.

Hockey people who don't care about the demise of the Argonauts are fooling themselves if they think they're immune from the same offshore cultural forces at play. Hockey is coming from a position of great strength, so it will just take longer for the decline to become problematic. In Toronto, you can already tell its happening. People just aren't paying attention.

[phil235]

I lived in Toronto the last time there was any meaningful hockey victory that Toronto could share in - the 2002 Olympic win. Yonge Street was closed for hours by the thousands of fans out celebrating. The other evidence of hockey's popularity would be the television ratings in Toronto. Despite the pitiful state of the Leafs, ratings have grown significantly over the past 5 years. And specifically with respect to new Canadians, Hockey Night in Canada has been broadcasting in Punjabi for a couple of years and ratings of those broadcasts have far exceeded expectations. I don't think that points to an imminent decline in popularity for hockey.

As far as football goes, Toronto tends to lean more towards the NFL than the rest of Canada, but nonetheless the Argos' attendance is better now than it has been in years. I'm not sure that we can write it off as a sport of the past just yet.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by phil235

I lived in Toronto the last time there was any meaningful hockey victory that Toronto could share in - the 2002 Olympic win. Yonge Street was closed for hours by the thousands of fans out celebrating. The other evidence of hockey's popularity would be the television ratings in Toronto. Despite the pitiful state of the Leafs, ratings have grown significantly over the past 5 years. And specifically with respect to new Canadians, Hockey Night in Canada has been broadcasting in Punjabi for a couple of years and ratings of those broadcasts have far exceeded expectations. I don't think that points to an imminent decline in popularity for hockey.

As far as football goes, Toronto tends to lean more towards the NFL than the rest of Canada, but nonetheless the Argos' attendance is better now than it has been in years. I'm not sure that we can write it off as a sport of the past just yet.

You clearly aren't worried, but it's better to be vigilant than assume everything is fine. I've noticed a shift occur in the last 20 years, and I think it would be foolish not to learn from past experiences. Football ignored the warning signs that were everywhere and it almost cost us the entire league 10 years ago. It's a mistake to look at a few examples like an Olympic hockey gold and conclude that everything is fine. The Olympics aren't really an accurate or suitable barometer. You can get people to watch ski jumping if it's the Olympics.

I don't know how this new generation writes off football the way they do either, but that's the attitude here. I hear it all the time. Even Melnyk in Ottawa was quoted as making comments about soccer being the future, and football being a sport of the past. He was lambasted for it, but he echoes a very real undercurrent of attitudes towards football that have developed over the last 2 decades that was non existent before.

I have no issue with new sports gaining ground in Canada, but I take issue with the domestic culture being viewed as having little value, ridiculed, and/or shunned. I've seen it happen to football as Torontonians turn their noses up at the domestic product in favour of a foreign one. I'd hate to see that happen in hockey as well.

Argonaut attendance numbers are up thanks to great leadership under Cohon, but 30,000 a game is still far from satisfactory in a metropolitan area of 6,000,000. If football became a big deal again in Toronto, this city should be able to support 3 teams drawing 90,000 each.