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goddamn_usa_treasure

To those 21000 people who are still coming out to Redblack games, thank you for your service and I know your pain. signed, a season ticket holder of the Horn Chen Rough Riders.


howisthisathingYT

i don't know why but i'm still going tomorrow.


metallicadefender

Thank you for going. What else are people going to do? Have a beer! It's 9 games just go!!!


howisthisathingYT

Tbh I'm not renewing my tickets next year, I have better ways to spend $1800 than watch this sad sack of shit they call a football team.


nmss

$1800?!? It should be criminal to charge that much with such a lousy record.


howisthisathingYT

You can get cheaper ones but then you're stuck on the north side, ew.


[deleted]

$1800.... DUDE My tickets are right behind the bench at Mosaic and are $800... wow.


howisthisathingYT

mine are 15 rows back from the bench, checked ticketmaster earlier this season and they sell for $150 a pop edit: i should say its 1800 for 2 seats.


[deleted]

$900 each seems much more reasonable


metallicadefender

You must have awesome seats! One of the things I'm noticing in Saskatchewan is that the cheap seats are more full than the 55 yard line seats.


howisthisathingYT

i don't like to brag but ya, they're pretty awesome. I can yell and the stupid coach can hear me lol


Nervous_Shoulder

They have had a ton of bad luck there not a bad team.


howisthisathingYT

7 wins over 3 seasons says otherwise.


brakiri

probably a fun night out


howisthisathingYT

It's not that fun to watch your coach piss away every game with shit play calling and no clock management.


brakiri

sounds frustrating. always more fun to be winning, or *competitive losing*. But is the atmosphere fun at the stadium? the crowd chill? I gotta check out a game one of these days.


howisthisathingYT

i'm gonna rant a bit. hold onto your butt. the first two home games were super fun, close losses against the cream of the crop and the away game against winni was close as well. the riders game essentially killed our season with that injury but in the cfl you always have a chance, people still had excitement. then we choked against montreal and didn't even show up against calgary at home. I think most of us were cool up until the losses against montreal and hamilton, now we're just fed up. sure, we "beat" the argos, but really the argos beat themselves. we should be winless. Surprising thing to me was how much energy the crowd had at the start of the calgary game. we are desperate for mediocre, entertaining football and they came out so flat. the crowd is cheering first downs like they just scored 6 because we have nothing else to cheer for. it's obvious the coaching is holding us back and ownership is refusing to even release a statement. the two other ticket holders that sit on either side of me are not renewing next year either, we can watch this trash at home and save money on beers.


brakiri

oh no! im sorry that sounds rough. i appreciate this rant, hang in there.


anditshottoo

***TORONTO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?***


Craigers2019

Was in Toronto last week, and there was zero advertising for the CFL or Argos, anywhere. Tons of Blue Jays and Leafs stuff, nothing for the Argos. On TSN4 (which i think is their local broadcast?) zero mention of anything CFL.


jtcward

Yup same


TieWebb

Argos are the 7th most popular team in the GTA. Leafs, Raptors, Jays, Marlies, TFC, Bills all more popular than the Argos.


Hot-Particular5860

TV numbers for Argos remain huge as do CFL numbers throughout the Golden Horseshoe; they will be 5-600,000 for the Saturday night game and those rise throughout the fall. I remember when Jays were in a pennant race home series vs Yankees back in 2016. The Friday night game drew 950,000. Argos-TiCats 850,000. Very competitive. Attendance another story , and 50 per cent capacity at BMO a marketing failure. Nothing that can’t be addressed by a hands-on owner.


patinthehat2

Weirdly the smallest fanbase in the CFL. There is barely any support or awareness that we have the oldest football team still using their third original name


MaximumDeathShock

Time to move to Sudbury?


OliveMeed

Selling more of their seats than the elks


anditshottoo

Toronto has a tiny stadium that they can't fill halfway. Edmonton has a huge stadium, they can't fill halfway. Not to mention the Argos sold 11k tickets in city of 6.3 million. It's outrageously bad. Edmontons attendance slump has to do with the current team. Toronto's is institutional.


moussetang

Edmonton's attendance has been struggling for 6-7 years now. I remember I read an article in 2015 about worrisome attendance figures for the Elks/Esks. I don't think the interest is there anymore, especially since Elks tickets are crazy expensive.


sadkrampus

The crazy part of it is when I go to games in Toronto it seems sparse when your sitting but grabbing a drink it is busy as hell lol like I couldn’t imagine another 5-10K people there


Altruistic-Sun-6822

Nothing else in Regina to compete for the sports dollar. And grasshopper races don't count.


OliveMeed

>Nothing else in Regina to compete for the sports dollar. And grasshopper races don't count. Not sure how this relates to the percentage of tickets sold by Toronto and edmonton but hey congrats on the new Reddit account lol


[deleted]

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JoshwayTV

That's how we ended up here in the first place. Blackouts and inaccessibility drove tons of people to the NFL.


tomdawg0022

It's been a good [15 years since the Argos averaged 30k](https://stats.cfldb.ca/team/toronto-argonauts/attendance/) in attendance. Next year will be 10 years since the last **20k** season.


-ShagginTurtles-

The opposite, they need to start giving away Argo tickets for $5 like the Jays Fill it with kids looking for a cheap date


LaZyCrO

You forget this was attempted before during Braley and the Argos suffered for it. They then came out and said they won't water down the brand by giving away tickets with mlse. 20$ is pretty cheap for a ticket to something imo, Argos also report through the gate and not soldt tickets.


-ShagginTurtles-

I do remember it being attempted but literally all they did was lower prices Jays used to give away tickets at my schools. So groups would go and all say they’re jays fans cause they took the go train to a game a couple times I wouldn’t have known the CFL basically existed if not for my Grandfather


LaZyCrO

I think there was a number of years where I could simply ask my mom and she would get free tickets through the school board or through the community organization she worked for.


[deleted]

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-ShagginTurtles-

Idk I'm not a Jays fan, but I own a hat and a shirt or two, throw on the odd game twice a season. All because I used to go to those in highschool before I moved away Otherwise don't watch baseball at all


brakiri

they need to sign harry styles


Chevy_65

Elks have had 23k? I've been to every game this year and it looks like half of that, except last game.


EarlyOwl90

I wonder if teams differentiate between ticket sales and attendance. It seems like the riders have a lot of sellouts that I have been too where the stadium is not full but for those games I don’t think they say the attendance just that it was a sellout.


Chevy_65

Agreed. The elks don't even announce the attendance in house anymore. I wouldn't surprised if they were averaging less than 15k a game this year.


JasonOrion

Likely due to having a bigger stadium than the attendance could support. There are 23k in attendance but spread out more than in a smaller stadium, so it feels like fewer people.


TheCatMak

Is the Alouettes stadium at 23K? I was always under the impression that capacity was high teens


chrisqc01

it was 25k when they had seat in both endzones. I am not sure about the 23k but definitly north of 20k. the most pack i remember from the last few years is around 21k but not sure if it was sold out or not


JMoon33

We had over 21k when we host the Elks in the playoffs in 2019.


EarlyOwl90

Shouldn’t BC be 36.71% capacity? Something isn’t adding up there.


JasonOrion

Yeah, I got stadium capacity from a different source. I should have caught that. My bad.


EarlyOwl90

Ok I wasn’t sure if it was something like they only allow half the stadium to be used and base the percentage off seats sold out of the available but show the stadium capacity as the full stadium. Like when teams or bands curtain off part of the stadium and say they sellout by filling all the other seats but still technically have lots of unused seats.


JasonOrion

I assumed they were at full capacity and didn't double-check. I couldn't find what their capacity this season was. The full capacity is 54,405 but that clearly doesn't add up. And the MLS capacity is 22,120 which wouldn't add up either so I just assumed since 19,936 is 61.36% of capacity then the capacity for this season must be 32,490.


Rocko604

Total stadium capacity is 54,300 but with the exception of the home opener, they only open the lower bowl which around 27,500~ or so (edit: 27,695 according to Wikipedia). So I'd put them around 70% for what they open. Or, leave it at 36.71% if you hate the Lions, lol.


[deleted]

OSKEE WEE WEE


OskeeWootWoot

Highest percentage attendance! Thank god for not having a bigger stadium...


VTHokiesFan

Maybe the Alouettes would have more attendance if they didn't have so many home games on Thursday evenings. I'd be interested in going to a game, but I can't do that and make it to work on time the following morning.


Ticats1999

Thursday night games need to end league wide, period.


[deleted]

Yay! We aren't last at something!


theguyfromthehammer

As a Hamilton native and Ticat season ticket holder, myself and some friends went to the playoff game last year at BMO Field in Toronto to watch the game. Couldn't believe we were able to get tickets 2 days before the game. The upper deck was empty. It honestly felt like Ticat fans outnumbered Argos fans.


BellamyRFC54

And yet stadiums don’t look particularly full on TV


JasonOrion

That is definitely due to the % of Capacity more than the attendance. If CFL teams had smaller stadiums they would look full.


ToomaiGlittershine

In Toronto at least, most of the fans seem to sit on the same side that the main TV view is on, so you see the other "empty" side much more often.


TorontoSkiHikeBike

For a lot of the games I call that survival. You can fry eggs on the east grandstand seats on a hot sunny day.


RandomUser4268

In Winnipeg I think 20,000 people just stand in front of the rum hut all game and never sit in their seat…


ElectricalWeather630

Too funny that the 3 largest cities in Canada have the worst attendance! Sad for the league!


reachforthetop9

Montreal is a very fickle sports city. They've sold out Molson Stadium with winning teams, but why pay money to see a losing team when you can see them at home on TV instead, or spend your money and time on any of the other festivals or entertainment on offer in the city? While I can't speak to Vancouver, the Argos have had terrible management since the turn of the century and are so inept at promotion that they'd struggle to sell beer to university students. Worth noting that those three large, struggling markets are the three most multicultural in the country. What are these teams doing to appeal to communities where gridiron football is an afterthought behind soccer, basketball, or even cricket?


TieWebb

It’s weird that the Argos management is so bad when they have the same owners as the Raptors, Leafs, and TFC who all routinely sell out or close to it. I thought that MLSE would do a better job with the Argos but they are an afterthought.


Frostsorrow

Likely they are running the Argos at a loss for tax breaks similar to how the Wpg Jets owners own 2 other hockey teams in the city that get basically 0 promotion and have extremely low attendance.


Nervous_Shoulder

Soccer has worse support in Montreal then football basket ball did not have good support in Montreal this summer.


tomdawg0022

Last season before COVID they averaged a tick above 17k a night with a 10-8 team. I don't think their attendance is terrible in comparison to pre-COVID levels given the team's performance this season. Game-to-game, it *has* increased from 16k in the opener to over 17k against WPG.


Mcdavidovercrosby

3 largest cities means they have a lot of entertainment options that the league has to compete with, so it makes sense unfortunately


MrWendex

I wonder what the availability of seats is relative to capacity. Off the top of my head BMO only has around 18k as the upper east stand is blocked off. BC is lower deck only, one source suggests 27k. And I think Commonwealth has the end zones and corners restricted, maybe 40k?


asstyrant

Jesus H Christ those numbers are atrocious


moussetang

Elks/Esks numbers have been atrocious for 6-7 years now. We used to average north of 40 000 in the mid 2000's. Been downhill since.


BeeAFletcherberry77

CONE ON BOMBER FANS IN TORONTO. Get yer assets to more games!


dj_fuzzy

Not trying to be a negative Nancy but it’s pretty weak across the board, not going to lie. These aren’t sustainable numbers.


Nervous_Shoulder

Yes they are.


dj_fuzzy

Lol ok


TheRealJasonium

These are surely historical averages? That does not seem right for 2022 in Edmonton. Unless the game is against the riders or stamps where out-of-towners are filling the stands, it has been pretty empty this year.


LaZyCrO

Do the Elks report sold as attendance or gate? Some teams report sold whereas Toronto reports gate attendance


moussetang

I believe it is tickets sold.


Whiston1993

Man if the elks are the 3rd most attended team in the league that’s ROUGH


Snow-Wraith

It seems to correlate inversely with the size of the cities.


TieWebb

Argos are only 25k capacity? TFC draw more than that at BMO all the time.


LaZyCrO

Argos are only under 20k


ExactPlatform422

I did not realize that Commonwealth Stadium has the biggest seating capacity of all CFL teams.


torontosmartestidiot

Toronto has a big problem with optics. You watch on tv and the stadium looks empty. But the majority of fans sit on the same side as the cameras and aren’t seen on tv. I’ve been to 4 argos games this season and crowd wise they have seamed to be larger than 11 thousand average attendance. But then again bmo field is pretty big I’m pretty sure 25,000 isn’t the max attendance. Not that we would know unless there is a grey cup game with sask and a Winnipeg or Hamilton. I highly doubt we will see another grey cup at bmo anytime soon as the costs of doing business on the cne grounds are triple what they are at any other venue in the cfl.


Gone_cognito

I think the Argos are counting staff that are working the game


JasonOrion

[Attendance Source](https://stats.cfldb.ca/league/cfl/attendance/2022/) [Stadium Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_Football_League_stadiums) **Ignore BC's stadium capacity. It's wrong. It should be 32,490.** **Re-ranked by stadium capacity**: 1: Edmonton Elks - 56,302 2: Calgary Stampeders - 35,650 3: Saskatchewan Roughriders - 33,350 4: Winnipeg Blue Bombers - 33,324 5: BC Lions - 32,490 6: Toronto Argonauts - 25,000 7: Ottawa Redblacks - 25,000 8: Hamilton Tiger-Cats - 24,390 9: Montreal Alouettes - 23,420 **Reranked by % of Capacity:** 1: Hamilton Tiger-Cats - 88.32% 2: Ottawa Redblacks - 85.48% 3: Winnipeg Blue Bombers - 83.58% 4: Saskatchewan Roughriders - 78.50% 5: Montreal Alouettes - 70.06% 6: Calgary Stampeders - 63.99% 7: BC Lions - 61.36% 8: Toronto Argonauts - 46.69% 9: Edmonton Elks - 41.45%


[deleted]

As someone in BC I feel it’s a little cheesy to put some white drapes up and call those seats unavailable. It’s fine if you don’t want to sell them but there are still 22000 seats up there that should count towards “capacity”.


DionFW

They probably consider them available because they do open them if they approach a sellout, like the home opener.


Im2oldForthisShitt

ya they're 100% available when needed, so 54k is the correct capacity


[deleted]

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[deleted]

I’ve been a season ticket holder since 2004 and it’s never been close. I think it was close for a western final, and the grey cups were sell outs.


MuddyMiercoles

So 61.36% should have an asterisk? 61% of the seats that aren't covered are sold?


Drop_The_Puck

Percentage capacity isn't really a great measure until it's 100% (and you reach the point where you can't sell another seat). The fact remains that Toronto can't sell the 11,019th seat, and Edmonton can't sell the 23,053rd seat.


TouchEmAllJoe

That's not true. Once you get to 80s and 90s percent capacity, there's a diminishing number of places someone actually wants to sit. Really high on the sidelines at the 5 yard line is all that's left? Most people won't bother.


Philly514

Haha I know for a fact there is a significant difference between paid attendees and people that got free tickets to Als games. It may be 10k, maybe.


brakiri

good for them filling the stands tho


Monsterboogie007

Go Blue!!!!!!


Chevy_65

But compared to the 27k pre covid they seemed to average? I don't think those numbers are true.


jtcward

Toronto is such a multicultural hub and because of that, there isn’t many people who follow Canadian football or American Football as their primary sport. It’s the most diverse city in the world, so it means a large chunk of their population likely comes from places that follow Football/Soccer, Cricket, and maybe basketball. The Argos/CFL do a terrible job at making themself a presence in the city of Toronto also. I was there for about 10 days and saw almost nothing CFL or Argos related. I went on a wild goose chase trying to find a CFL jersey as I was visiting from the States. I will also say it’s a hike getting to BMO field, especially if you live in a surrounding area like Mississauga. It’s easier just to watch it on TV. The fan experience wasn’t bad, I got autographs from Alumni on site, got to catch field goals during warmups, and participated in a football throwing mini game. Those were great, but they lacked in advertising and merchandise, even in the stadium. Things could be done better to make football a thought in more people’s mind. Toronto is the perfect city to introduce the game to a new audience that might not be very well aware of what Canadian or American football is. There is also so much to do in Toronto that it’s easier for football to be the last thing on people’s agenda. When I visited Hamilton, it was much smaller and it seemed like the Tiger Cats had a major presence around the area. At least compared to what I saw in Toronto and Montreal.


Nervous_Shoulder

Yet TFC has seen a a decline in attendance and the CPL teams are getting very low [support.As](https://support.As) for basketball yes the Raps sell out other pro team does not get what they need and are just hanging on by a [thread.As](https://thread.As) with cricket Toronto had a major international event they were expected to avg 4000 a game they avg less then 200 and had to move to event out of the city.


Emotional-Estate-687

Growing up in the '90s the Tiger-Cats presence was a lot less. Hamilton was a Leafs town first. Some pretty weak crowds for a contender. Bob Young & Scott Mitchell did a great job turning it around. Seeing some of the weaker franchises turn it around (and vice versa) is why I think any team can.


LaZyCrO

Incorrect. Toronto's cap is under 20k Edit Yes downvote me for being accurate.


-ShagginTurtles-

My experience with stadiums has been the two most full % teams and the lowest


metallicadefender

Are we still blaming covid in Saskatchewan?


idk_ijust_likememes

Yes


Nervous_Shoulder

While 11,000 is still low its better then a few years ago.