Investors Group Field | Winnipeg

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

When you consider the parking pass alone in that deal is worth 20 bucks, the club was almost giving away tickets this weekend to try and get some butts in the seats on a frigid weekend.

The club actually gave away lots of tickets to the game this past Saturday. If you signed up for their "Bomber of Life" monthly payment plan they gave you two free tickets to the game. The season average is also heavily propped up by those "free" tickets. This is the third time this season, four if you count the pre-season game, they have given free tickets to just about every season ticket holder account. And that is without trying to get free tickets from them.

Originally Posted by esquire

So attendance is rising again

No, true attendance it not rising, if anything it is actually falling. The Bombers will try to tell you the attendance is tickets scanner into the game (ie butts in seats) but it seems much more likely the announced attendance is tickets issued to the game.

As for the cold weather game, I know there are lots of season ticket holders that skip the cold weather games every year. If you believe there was anywhere near the 25,000 announced attendance at the game on Saturday you can start planning the Jets Stanley Cup parade for June.

[blueandgoldguy]

I guess we might have a rough gauge of whether paid attendance increased next April/May when the Bombers release their financial statement. An increase of 1500 per game should provide the club with an additional $1 - $1.5 million in revenue compared to the previous year if you factor in additional concessions/parking/souvenirs bought by those attendees.

As for revenues from other events, last year the only event at IGF was the Jets Heritage Classic which I believe provided the club with $200,000 in rental fees though I could be off on that - it might be in last year's financial statement. This year, the only major event at the stadium was the GNR concert. Maybe the Bombers cut is similar to last year's Heritage Classic? - $200,000? Maybe a little bit more?

The other 2 events were the Nitro Circus - 8-10,000 in attendance for that with tickets probably averaging around $60 - and the Canadian women's soccer friendly against Costa Rica - 15,000 or so attending with an average price of $30 - $40. Given that, I'm sure the Bombers made peanuts from those two events.

In the end, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bombers' operating profits for 2017 will not cover their annual $4.5 million debt repayment on the new stadium and they will once again have to dip into their ever-shrinking surplus. They are not drawing enough paying customers to the new stadium nor are they drawing enough big concerts (2 in 2013, 2 in 2014, 1 in 2015, 0 in 2016, 1 in 2017) which is funny considering they had stated their goal was to draw 3 to 4 concerts per year at IGF.

Unless the club increases their current revenue streams or somehow discovers a new revenue stream (maybe this happens on a national level with the league office/commissioner signing some major deal with a new sponsor? perhaps streaming of games as a new revenue source?) I think it is just a matter of time before the Bombers surplus is exhausted and the team will come hat in hand to the province to restructure their debt repayment plan.

[esquire]

^ Assuming that the team hasn't peaked already and can remain a solid playoff team for at least 5-6 years before having to rebuild, I think gate receipts are likely to climb considerably over that time.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

perhaps streaming of games as a new revenue source?

As long as Bell, through TSN, has a vice like grip over CFL operations there is zero chance of a NHL GameCentre streaming style deal. Even if that happened the impact would likely cause more issues than it solves as it would create another source of people not needing to attend the games in person.

Personally what I would like the league to do is undertake development of a system that lets fans in house replay a recent play, view feeds from different cameras, slow it down, etc, all from their smartphone but only if they are in attendance. If you have ever been to a game in person there is a lot of down time for things like tv time outs, etc. letting fans control their own replays would be a smart experience that leverages existing assets and provides a potential unique game day experience.

[bomberjet]

^ I swear that exact thing was part of the orignal plan for the new stadium. Watch reaplys, etc on your phone. But it quietly died likely due to the technical challenges.

[buzzg]

One thing that has surprisingly kept the Bombers in the black since IGF opened is that the year it opened was the year the new TV deal came into place, which over doubled the past contract payouts.

Bell would only add online streaming if they saw a business case for it, which with the data and tracking online streaming ads can provide, I think they could definitely make it work. That would allow CFL to renegotiate the deal for even more money. The CFL has openly said it's #1 focus is on attracting young people to the league, as the demo is clearly aging. The only way they'll be able to do that is by adding streaming, as many young people don't have cable. If you add online streaming, you'll get more regular younger viewers, who in turn become (stronger) CFL fans, and are more likely to buy merch and go to games.

The focus cannot just be mainly on increasing attendance. You have to build fans from the ground up.. if you get them hooked and give them a reason to come, they will. If I'm 20 years old and don't have cable, how am I supposed to be expected to engage (and frankly, care) about the CFL with so many sports options. If it wasn't already hard enough for the CFL, MLS is going to become the #2 league in Canada VERY soon. They need to do everything they can to win over the 15-25 y/o demographic, especially for New Canadians who have no clue about football, before they lose them completely to soccer.

And bj, they did discuss that – but that's more of a CFL directive than the team's. They need to upgrade cell service with boosters, or add wifi, before they do anything like that haha. Even with less than 20k people the other day the service was horrendous (Rogers).

[CoryB]

^^ IGF has free wifi for fans in attendance. Been using it all season. Now if they could just fix it so you accept the terms of use once per event instead of once per hour.

That said, the custom replays like I suggested is likely something that could completely kill their wifi network.

[buzzg]

The wifi never works for me.

[buzzg]

So WFC have quietly been prepping for the first season of Valour which kicks off in April (brr). They really want to make this the best experience it can be.

- only seats on the west side will be open for the games (no corners/end zone). This will allow cameras to use the platforms from FIFA and look better on TV with fans concentrated
- all concessions on that side have already been prepped to be flipped to Valour red branding for soccer games. All F&B names and inspo will be rebranded.
- they’re aiming to have almost no bomber branding in the areas fans will be able to access
- blocked off seats will likely be tarped off like in Edmonton, looking at sponsors for them

They’ve already received over 1,300 deposits on season ticket ACCOUNTS. Each account can buy up to 8 tickets once they go on sale. Expectation is that 2/3 will actually buy, and it’s reasonable to assume they’ll all get minimum 2, if not more. So that’s at least 2,000 season tickets already, but more likely in the 4,000 range. Considering some of the CanPL stadiums aren’t even that big, seems like a good start. I get the sense they’d consider a 5-6k average a successful first season, but that part is just my sense.

[Ando]

They don't need massive crowds to make it work with concessions and parking. The salary bill will be very low.

[rrskylar]

Originally Posted by Ando

They don't need massive crowds to make it work with concessions and parking. The salary bill will be very low.

BB's need to work on getting fans back, nowadays a good Bomber crowd is 26K, so much for the stadium location not being a deterrent!

[borkborkbork]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

BB's need to work on getting fans back, nowadays a good Bomber crowd is 26K, so much for the stadium location not being a deterrent!

Average home game attendance
2007 27,701.0
2008 27,150.8
2009 25,720.0
2010 26,083.2
2011 29,558.7
2012 27,981.1
-- IGF built --
2013 30,637.1
2014 28,314.1
2015 26,745.9
2016 25,935.8
2017 27,681.0
2018 26,398.8 (for the first 4 games)

[Ando]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

BB's need to work on getting fans back, nowadays a good Bomber crowd is 26K, so much for the stadium location not being a deterrent!

we're talking about the soccer team.

[CoryB]

^^ Bombers have been trying the much requested Friday night summer games this year and attendance is going down even though that on product field has been reasonable good.

Guess that proves all the fair weather fans asking for Friday night games aren't willing to actually back that and buy tickets.

[wags_in_the_peg]

I like watching from my couch. Lots replays, rum cheaper. Yes my wife refers to me as an old man too.

[ywgwalk]

Here's the bomber attendance all time (includes nice chart):

https://stats.cfldb.ca/team/winnipeg...rs/attendance/

Basically attendance has been up and down between 20K and 30K since early 1970 with no trend aside from a slow upward one.

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by wags_in_the_peg

Yes my wife refers to me as an old man too.

It can be strangely comforting.

[Jets4Life]

Originally Posted by rrskylar

BB's need to work on getting fans back, nowadays a good Bomber crowd is 26K, so much for the stadium location not being a deterrent!

The stadium location is not a deterrent.

[Jets4Life]

Originally Posted by Ando

we're talking about the soccer team.

lol....

Nobody cares about a tier 5 soccer club.

[buzzg]

Everyone always forgets that this stadium is 4,000 seats larger, so when they visually see attendance, or even the figure, at 26,000 – they think it's poor. That's right at or above average from CanadInns... I don't see an issue with attendance at all. The combo of more seats and the stadium design just seems to make it look worse. It wouldn't be as obvious if we had more seats on the sides and high up like the old stadium. We've discussed it before here, but the Bombers could do a lot for optics by reworking the price structure – the lower bowl corners are far too expensive for the quality, which is why they're always the last to sell.

Fridays are tough in summer because lots of people go to the lake/cabin. The people asking for Friday games likely were going Thursdays anyway, but want to party and drink a lot more on Fridays lol.