CFL Current/Future Franchises

[Guelphite]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

A team in Kitchener called the Grand River ________ would work well IMO. But IDK if Grand River is a regional name that typically applies to Guelph or is inclusive of Guelph. I know many things in KWC at least use Grand River to include the three cities -- like the Grand River Transit and the Grand River Hospital. I think it would work though; Guelph is in the Grand River watershed.

Still, maybe waiting a couple decades would be wise, the population in the region is expected to grow considerably.

Responding to an old post here as I had another thought for a KWCG regional team name using your idea of incorporating the Grand River:

"Grand Slammers" with many short nicknames..."The Slam", "The Slammers", or just "The Grand".

Question is do you call them 1)KW or 2)Waterloo or 3)Waterloo-Wellington. Only #3 incorporates Cambridge and Guelph to make it a regional team. Kind of a mouthful though. Any ideas or thoughts?

[EpicPonyTime]

Originally Posted by Guelphite

Responding to an old post here as I had another thought for a KWCG regional team name using your idea of incorporating the Grand River:

"Grand Slammers" with many short nicknames..."The Slam", "The Slammers", or just "The Grand".

Question is do you call them 1)KW or 2)Waterloo or 3)Waterloo-Wellington. Only #3 incorporates Cambridge and Guelph to make it a regional team. Kind of a mouthful though. Any ideas or thoughts?

The sponsorship money from Denny's would flow like syrup.

[Guelphite]

Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime

The sponsorship money from Denny's would flow like syrup.

Ha! That's funny. Never thought of Denny's.. We don't have any around here so no sponsorship money from them

[Barnard's Star]

Reading through the posts here I'm struck that in discussions on Ontario expansion possibilities KW and London are brought up often but Windsor rarely merits a mention.

I've long thought it an intriguing location given the presence of Detroit. Put in generous terms, Windsor has a metro area almost the size of the GTA. You could argue the presence of Detroit teams would crimp Windsorite attendance. Or you could take the opposite perspective and argue they'd kill for a team of their own.

I think it will require a couple of decades in the black before Toronto and Hamilton allow a team in KW or London. Windsor, meanwhile, is more than 300 km away from existing teams, which I'd say falls outside the same day catchment area. It's the one city in the province I think the league might allow.

Thoughts?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Barnard's Star

Reading through the posts here I'm struck that in discussions on Ontario expansion possibilities KW and London are brought up often but Windsor rarely merits a mention.

I've long thought it an intriguing location given the presence of Detroit. Put in generous terms, Windsor has a metro area almost the size of the GTA. You could argue the presence of Detroit teams would crimp Windsorite attendance. Or you could take the opposite perspective and argue they'd kill for a team of their own.

I think it will require a couple of decades in the black before Toronto and Hamilton allow a team in KW or London. Windsor, meanwhile, is more than 300 km away from existing teams, which I'd say falls outside the same day catchment area. It's the one city in the province I think the league might allow.

Thoughts?

On the surface it seems quite appealing, but the conventional wisdom from people in the region is that Windsor is effectively Detroit when it comes to sports loyalties... people there are squarely in Detroit Lions country and probably wouldn't be easily persuaded to watch a CFL team even if was Windsor's team and not Detroit's. Now if there were 500,000 people in Windsor, then who knows...

The fact that border crossings are more complicated these days, along with the fact that not even half of Americans have passports to get across tells you that marketing to Detroiters would be a tough sell. That's not to say that it couldn't ever happen, but I would expect that if Windsor ever gets a CFL team, it would probably be somewhere around the 15th franchise, not the 10th.

(I thought that a cheeky move would have been for the Canadian owner of the Pontiac Silverdome to use that facility to host a Windsor CFL team, but judging by the Silverdome's dilapidated state, that ship has sailed...)

[Barnard's Star]

Yes, the Silverdome was tantalizing for a brief period there. I get the feeling the Canadian buyers are sort of small fry who really didn't know what they were getting themselves in to.

Your point about American passports is a good one and I'll take your word for it regarding Windsor being locked up into the Detroit sports market. I do have to wonder though if that's more a matter of lack of options rather than fundamental inclination. Following the Detroit Lions and attending CFL games don't have to be mutually exclusive.

And I do stand by the point that Kitchener and London are off the table for this generation (or quite possibly forever). If Windsor really doesn't work as well then I don't know what's left in Ontario.

[Guelphite]

Originally Posted by Barnard's Star

Yes, the Silverdome was tantalizing for a brief period there. I get the feeling the Canadian buyers are sort of small fry who really didn't know what they were getting themselves in to.

Your point about American passports is a good one and I'll take your word for it regarding Windsor being locked up into the Detroit sports market. I do have to wonder though if that's more a matter of lack of options rather than fundamental inclination. Following the Detroit Lions and attending CFL games don't have to be mutually exclusive.

And I do stand by the point that Kitchener and London are off the table for this generation (or quite possibly forever). If Windsor really doesn't work as well then I don't know what's left in Ontario.

How many people from Detroit cross the border to watch a Windsor Spitfires game? Probably as many as would cross the border to watch a CFL team in Windsor.

[esquire]

Well, after last night's pitiful turnout for a preseason game at Stade Telus, I think Quebec will be crossed off the list of CFL expansion sites for years to come. When you get 4,700 fans for an exhibition game (basically 1/4 of capacity), that tells you that the critical mass of CFL fans there is tiny, and the corporate sector is uninterested in supporting it.



Source: Journal de Québec

[MonctonRad]

OK then, well I guess that it's gonna have to be Moncton then.

We've had three regualr season CFL games over the last five years with attendances at or near 20,000 for each game. Shit, we can even get 13,000 people out for women's soccer!!

[king10]

Quebec city was always behind halifax in the expansion line up anyways. Lets worry about getting that 10th hali team first.

Dissapointing attendance though. Wonder if laval promoting it had anything to do with it. Like they wanted it to fail so they could hold onto their football monopoly.

Perhaps if the caribans keep beating laval they'll be more inclined to want a cfl team because their cis team is second best to mtl and they dont even have a cfl team to compete with them lol.

[bikegypsy]

Originally Posted by esquire

Well, after last night's pitiful turnout for a preseason game at Stade Telus, I think Quebec will be crossed off the list of CFL expansion sites for years to come. When you get 4,700 fans for an exhibition game (basically 1/4 of capacity), that tells you that the critical mass of CFL fans there is tiny, and the corporate sector is uninterested in supporting it.

Although I agree that we're not within a few years of seeing a team in QC, I think that these events have more to do with developing the market rather than gauging it.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bikegypsy

Although I agree that we're not within a few years of seeing a team in QC, I think that these events have more to do with developing the market rather than gauging it.

Probably fair to say in the case of a city like Fort Mac... no one there is under any illusion that their town is likely to get a CFL expansion team no matter how well they support this year's neutral site games. Quebec is a bit different though... if they had consistent sellouts for the 2 or 3 exhibition games that had been held there, it would have made a strong case for Quebec's appeal as an expansion city. Yesterday's result tells you that there is little grassroots fan interest... even Miami, Florida managed to draw 20,000 fans to a CFL neutral site preseason game, for pete's sake.

But as king10 alluded, I'm sure that U. Laval has probably done what it could to protect its football monopoly in that city. The stadium is big by CIS standards but arguably too small for the CFL on anything but an interim basis, and it has been designed in such a way as to make expansion highly impractical.

I'm sure that in light of this, the CFL's focus will probably be on a maritimes team... the only question about team #10 is whether it will be in Moncton or Halifax.

[blueandgoldguy]

Originally Posted by esquire

Probably fair to say in the case of a city like Fort Mac... no one there is under any illusion that their town is likely to get a CFL expansion team no matter how well they support this year's neutral site games. Quebec is a bit different though... if they had consistent sellouts for the 2 or 3 exhibition games that had been held there, it would have made a strong case for Quebec's appeal as an expansion city. Yesterday's result tells you that there is little grassroots fan interest... even Miami, Florida managed to draw 20,000 fans to a CFL neutral site preseason game, for pete's sake.

But as king10 alluded, I'm sure that U. Laval has probably done what it could to protect its football monopoly in that city. The stadium is big by CIS standards but arguably too small for the CFL on anything but an interim basis, and it has been designed in such a way as to make expansion highly impractical.

I'm sure that in light of this, the CFL's focus will probably be on a maritimes team... the only question about team #10 is whether it will be in Moncton or Halifax.

It appears that way. Moncton has a head start with a basic stadium that needs $100 million in upgrades to accomodate a CFL team.

I have to say it absolutely astounds me that a city the size of Halifax doesn't even have a college stadium that compares to Moncton or any number of cities in southern Ontario.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

I have to say it absolutely astounds me that a city the size of Halifax doesn't even have a college stadium that compares to Moncton or any number of cities in southern Ontario.

It confounds and perplexes many Haligonians too, but hey - they do have a nifty new public library downtown.

Part of the problem is:
1) - there are no local billionaires in Halifax willing to pay for a CFL franchise. All the captains of industry in the region (Sobeys, Irvings, McCains, Braggs) live elsewhere (Stellarton, Oxford, Moncton, Saint John, Florenceville).
2)- the province is nearly bankrupt and public funding for an outdoor stadium is seen as supporting a needless luxury.
3)- the province blew any chances for significant federal funding for a stadium when they withdrew from hosting the Commonwealth Games.
4)- the typical "culture of defeat" that tends to permeate the Maritimes (at least certain parts of the Maritimes).

I find this last point especially infuriating. I'm from PEI originally and it always galls me when I hear a fellow Islander prefacing any statement with the qualifier "I know I'm just an Islander but.......". Just an Islander, what the frig does that mean!!!! This needless self deprecation just pisses me off. You never hear anyone from Moncton demeaning themselves by saying something like that. It's just so damned offputting

It's one of the main reasons why I like Moncton as a place to live. At least people here tend to be optimistic and forward looking. I think that's the main reason why Moncton is growing the way it is - the power of positive thinking.......

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

1) - there are no local billionaires in Halifax willing to pay for a CFL franchise. All the captains of industry in the region (Sobeys, Irvings, McCains, Braggs) live elsewhere (Stellarton, Oxford, Moncton, Saint John, Florenceville).

I hear this repeated pretty frequently and it's just not true. Here's a list of the 101 largest companies in Atlantic Canada, sorted by revenue: https://www.lib.uwo.ca/programs/comp...icCanada2.html

34 of them (!) are in Halifax or its suburbs (Dartmouth and Bedford). This is more than I expected to find but doesn't surprise me; there are many more large private businesses and wealthy individuals in the Halifax area than anywhere else in the region. There are billionaires business owners in Halifax too. Kenneth Rowe, who founded IMP Aerospace, is one example.

2)- the province is nearly bankrupt and public funding for an outdoor stadium is seen as supporting a needless luxury.

This is another frequently repeated fallacy. Nova Scotia's debt to GDP ratio is much lower now than it was 15 years ago, when the province somehow managed to evade bankruptcy. The municipality also has one of the lowest debt loads of any major city in the country. It could easily borrow all of the money and start building a $150M stadium tomorrow if there were political will. The tax base is something like 6 times larger than Moncton.

4)- the typical "culture of defeat" that tends to permeate the Maritimes (at least certain parts of the Maritimes).

Yeah, it's too bad so many people put such a negative slant on the level of business activity and economic health of the region.

It is hard to predict if or when a stadium will happen in Halifax but I think the real explanation for why it hasn't happened yet is simply political. Nobody prominent has championed the the project and it was out-competed by other priorities. When the city is considering its next round of capital projects, maybe a stadium will be chosen.

[blueandgoldguy]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

It confounds and perplexes many Haligonians too, but hey - they do have a nifty new public library downtown.

Part of the problem is:
1) - there are no local billionaires in Halifax willing to pay for a CFL franchise. All the captains of industry in the region (Sobeys, Irvings, McCains, Braggs) live elsewhere (Stellarton, Oxford, Moncton, Saint John, Florenceville).
2)- the province is nearly bankrupt and public funding for an outdoor stadium is seen as supporting a needless luxury.
3)- the province blew any chances for significant federal funding for a stadium when they withdrew from hosting the Commonwealth Games.
4)- the typical "culture of defeat" that tends to permeate the Maritimes (at least certain parts of the Maritimes).

I find this last point especially infuriating. I'm from PEI originally and it always galls me when I hear a fellow Islander prefacing any statement with the qualifier "I know I'm just an Islander but.......". Just an Islander, what the frig does that mean!!!! This needless self deprecation just pisses me off. You never hear anyone from Moncton demeaning themselves by saying something like that. It's just so damned offputting

It's one of the main reasons why I like Moncton as a place to live. At least people here tend to be optimistic and forward looking. I think that's the main reason why Moncton is growing the way it is - the power of positive thinking.......

Sounds like some folks out there make Winnipeggers appear relatively giddy with optimism.

[blueandgoldguy]

Originally Posted by someone123

I hear this repeated pretty frequently and it's just not true. Here's a list of the 101 largest companies in Atlantic Canada, sorted by revenue: https://www.lib.uwo.ca/programs/comp...icCanada2.html

34 of them (!) are in Halifax or its suburbs (Dartmouth and Bedford). There are billionaires business owners in Halifax too; Kenneth Rowe, who founded IMP Aerospace, is one example.



This is another frequently repeated fallacy. Nova Scotia's debt to GDP ratio is much lower now than it was 15 years ago, when the province somehow managed to evade bankruptcy. Halifax is expected to have one of the highest rates of economic growth in Canada this year (Conference Board of Canada predict it'll tie for #1).



Yeah, it's really annoying when people are overly negative about the level of business activity and economic health of the region.

It is hard to predict if or when a stadium will happen in Halifax but I think the real explanation for why it hasn't happened yet is simply political. Nobody prominent has really championed the idea of building one and other projects have managed to get more attention. When the city is considering its next round of capital projects, maybe a stadium will be chosen.

No further developments regarding the potential stadium project in that park (can't remember the name of it)? The proposal was supposed to be similar to Ottawa's Lansdowne Park - stadium, residential and retail.

[cjones2451]

Originally Posted by esquire

Well, after last night's pitiful turnout for a preseason game at Stade Telus, I think Quebec will be crossed off the list of CFL expansion sites for years to come. When you get 4,700 fans for an exhibition game (basically 1/4 of capacity), that tells you that the critical mass of CFL fans there is tiny, and the corporate sector is uninterested in supporting it.



Source: Journal de Québec

I think they are entirely focused on the NHL right now.....too bad

[esquire]

Originally Posted by cjones2451

I think they are entirely focused on the NHL right now.....too bad

Yeah... why not have both?

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by isaidso

My brother moved to St. John's 15 years ago and when I mention football he just gets a puzzled look on his face trying to remember what sport that is. He told me he's never ever come across a football team in Newfoundland nor has anyone ever talked about football on any level.

Newfoundland might as well be Zimbabwe when it comes to football.

Heheh my dad was invited to a superbowl party back in 2013, and he spent 2 hours with a puzzled look on his face wondering if he should go.

His buddy who is about 12 years younger than him spent five years living in Raleigh, and he goes all out for it.

It was something out of a sitcom, where the dad gets invited to a jumba doompa party.