Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
Do fans travel in great numbers for anything in Canada, though? The distances are so vast that not all that many people are going to go from, say, Edmonton to Vancouver or whatever to watch their home team play on the road. It's not like going from Chicago to Milwaukee or what have you.
Any well supported local sports team is generally supported by locals, not by away fans in any significant numbers. So in that sense U Sports teams have large population bases to potentially draw from... they don't necessarily need visitors.
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No, I think you're right. However, I wasn't saying USports needs visitors to support local teams. USports could use visitors to add more excitement to gamedays.
With major league teams, you'll always have at some visiting fans, especially for the Canadian teams. The fanbases are just large and affluent enough that it happens. Further, even if they don't have that, there's usually some other sort of element present that makes the game day experience worth it.
The same cannot be said by basically any USports team. Realistically, there is very little to attract people to games. Sports? No, I can pay a little more and go watch a pro team. Drinking? No, I can do that at home. If there were some more interaction between different student bodies, it'd help add some excitement to the games - after all, how many teams use some spin of "Defend This House" as a rallying cry for their fans - and might get more students. But for reasons you mentioned, it's not really a solvable problem outside of specific rivalries with close proximity (Calgary/Alberta, Sask/Regina, etc).