Blue Bomber Attendance

[Fan Boy]

2 hours ago, comedygeek said:

6 of the 10 biggest crowds in Bombers history have been at IGF. Our average IGF attendance is higher than our average Canad Inns Stadium average. Given all the things competing for entertainment dollars, combined with 4K TV and every game being broadcast, I don't see why there's a cause for concern at all.

SSK 23 @ WPG 41 (Sep 12, 1993)    Regular Season    35,959
SSK 7 @ WPG 22 (Sep 12, 2015)    Regular Season    35,156
TOR 12 @ WPG 31 (Oct 30, 1998)    Regular Season    33,810
SSK 13 @ WPG 25 (Sep 08, 2013)    Regular Season    33,500
MTL 38 @ WPG 33 (Jun 27, 2013)    Regular Season    33,500
OTT 32 @ WPG 45 (Jul 03, 1991)    Pre-season    33,421
OTT 21 @ WPG 19 (Jul 02, 1992)    Pre-season    33,359
SSK 23 @ WPG 17 (Aug 07, 2014)    Regular Season    33,234
SSK 10 @ WPG 17 (Sep 10, 2016)    Regular Season    33,234
SSK 30 @ WPG 24 (Sep 07, 2014)    Regular Season    33,234

Source: https://stats.cfldb.ca/team/winnipeg-blue-bombers/attendance/

This this this. The sky is not falling friends. CFL is having a bit of a rough patch in all cities. Look at Calgary, it is the best team by far for years and yet empty seats. All live sports are having dips in attendance. In the end live sports is one of the things that will keep cable companies alive so there will be a will to succeed beyond just the leagues themselves. 

South Winnipeg is growing. Big housing growth on both sides of the river. Sure there are a lot of immigrants but the second generation will be more open to "Canadian" experiences. The experience will continue to get better too. That golf course is not going to be groomed grass forever. There will be lots of housing and businesses including bars and restaurants close by. The rapid transit system south will be finished soon and the east west rapid transit will make the "horrible travel" easier still.  A Grey Cup or two will shore up the "losing" mentality.

Source: living in South Winnipeg with immigrant family and friends and riding transit regularly. Also be positive you wimps.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

If you want to increase attendance, eliminate the home games on TSN.

[Spock]

1 minute ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

If you want to increase attendance, eliminate the home games on TSN.

I suppose the question is which of the following is more important: maximizing the CFL's TV presence or increasing attendance?

[FrostyWinnipeg]

6 minutes ago, Spock said:

I suppose the question is which of the following is more important: maximizing the CFL's TV presence or increasing attendance?

There must be some sort of payoff to teams for eliminating the blackout.

[bearpants]

3 hours ago, comedygeek said:

SSK 13 @ WPG 25 (Sep 08, 2013)    Regular Season    33,500
 

 

this was such an ugly game... but man did it feel nice to finally get a W at the new stadium!... especially against the greenies...

[Sard]

22 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

There must be some sort of payoff to teams for eliminating the blackout.

TSN pays the league $40-million per season for the TV rights, which equates to about $4.4-million per team per year.

[rebusrankin]

2 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

If you want to increase attendance, eliminate the home games on TSN.

I'd rather not go back to those days and you know what, average attendance wasn't better in the home games blacked out era.

[NorthernSkunk]

2 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

If you want to increase attendance, eliminate the home games on TSN.

TSN has five channels.....one of them would be covering the game for the rest of Canada.  

[FrostyWinnipeg]

24 minutes ago, NorthernSkunk said:

TSN has five channels.....one of them would be covering the game for the rest of Canada.  

If Shaw/MTS can simulcast Canuck over USA programming at the same time...

 

[rebusrankin]

Average attendance thus far is 26,380. This is right in line with many past seasons. As a point of comparison, we were 14-4 in 2001 with an exciting team. Average attendance was 27,033 and they blacked out home games back then. 2002 we were 12-6 and we averaged 27,559. Blackouts for home games that year too. 2003 we were 11-7 and average attendance was 27,225 and still home games blacked out. I don't think blacking out home games would make an impact on attendance.

[yogi]

4 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

If you want to increase attendance, eliminate the home games on TSN.

It's beyond trivial to find an illegal online stream for CFL games. Illegal streams have no geo-restrictions.

[ddanger]

23 hours ago, Sard said:

TSN pays the league $40-million per season for the TV rights, which equates to about $4.4-million per team per year.

And that pays almost all of the salary cap I think.

[blue_gold_84]

39 minutes ago, ddanger said:

And that pays almost all of the salary cap I think.

The salary cap for the 2018 season is $5.2M with a $4.6M cap floor.

[Fraser]

21 hours ago, yogi said:

It's beyond trivial to find an illegal online stream for CFL games. Illegal streams have no geo-restrictions.

Have you actually found any good ones?  All the ones I find on CFL Reddit seem to be 520p.

[yogi]

52 minutes ago, Fraser said:

Have you actually found any good ones?  All the ones I find on CFL Reddit seem to be 520p.

That's where I also go, always get at least a 720p stream to work

 

EDIT: run a good ad blocker too, makes all the linked sites run so much smoother. I'm using uBlock origin with a bunch of custom filters/white lists and related extensions to block virtually everything and automatically close any popups, redirects, everything. Otherwise I guess streaming is kind of terrible sometimes, I've kinda forgotten what the raw internet is like.

Edited August 9, 2018 by yogi

[SpeedFlex27]

On ‎2018‎-‎08‎-‎08 at 3:36 PM, rebusrankin said:

Average attendance thus far is 26,380. This is right in line with many past seasons. As a point of comparison, we were 14-4 in 2001 with an exciting team. Average attendance was 27,033 and they blacked out home games back then. 2002 we were 12-6 and we averaged 27,559. Blackouts for home games that year too. 2003 we were 11-7 and average attendance was 27,225 and still home games blacked out. I don't think blacking out home games would make an impact on attendance.

Maybe not here but in cities like Toronto, Vancouver & Calgary.

[WBBFanWest]

10 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Maybe not here but in cities like Toronto, Vancouver & Calgary.

I would think that if you were to black out games in cities that have dubious fan support, you would not see an increase in attendance, because if you don't care about the team, the fact that you can't watch them on tv is moot.  You would, however, lose tv advertising dollars, because you are reducing the number of opportunities to run ads.  So a blackout likely does not help the bottom line of any individual team and hurts the league overall.  I sort of suspect that the tall foreheads at the CFL have already figured this out though.

[SpeedFlex27]

13 minutes ago, WBBFanWest said:

I would think that if you were to black out games in cities that have dubious fan support, you would not see an increase in attendance, because if you don't care about the team, the fact that you can't watch them on tv is moot.  You would, however, lose tv advertising dollars, because you are reducing the number of opportunities to run ads.  So a blackout likely does not help the bottom line of any individual team and hurts the league overall.  I sort of suspect that the tall foreheads at the CFL have already figured this out though.

I don't dispute that as what you said is valid for sure but I think the fence sitters, the ones that want to watch their team play would go. The person who isn't a fan would never go anyway but casual fans would.  When a home game is televised people will stay home to watch it. Just human nature, I think. 

[The Unknown Poster]

On 2018-08-08 at 4:01 PM, NorthernSkunk said:

TSN has five channels.....one of them would be covering the game for the rest of Canada.  

During the Blackout years, when TSN got an HD station, the games were never blackout'ed in HD because there was only one.  ie. If you turned on TSN and the game was blackout'ed, you could watch it on TSNHD.  I remember that very distinctly as a benefit when I got my HD TV.

Now of course, they have five HD channels so they could blackout if they wanted to.  I honestly dont think it would make that big of a difference.

[SpeedFlex27]

1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

During the Blackout years, when TSN got an HD station, the games were never blackout'ed in HD because there was only one.  ie. If you turned on TSN and the game was blackout'ed, you could watch it on TSNHD.  I remember that very distinctly as a benefit when I got my HD TV.

Now of course, they have five HD channels so they could blackout if they wanted to.  I honestly dont think it would make that big of a difference.

How do you overcome this? Dramatically lowering tickets, parking & concession prices. I've always maintained that charging $90 or more for an unused ticket is ridiculous as it sits empty making no money for a team. Whole sections of high priced tickets sit empty for an entire season in stadiums across the CFL.  Teams need to lower prices in some areas to anywhere from $25 to $40 the closer to midfield  & every ticket sold then goes into team coffers. Those tickets will sell. I think the CFL has to really look at its ticket pricing structures to get a handle on it. Pricing now is insane & people stay away & watch at home. 

[The Unknown Poster]

4 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

How do you overcome this? Dramatically lowering tickets, parking & concession prices. I've always maintained that charging $90 or more for an unused ticket is ridiculous as it sits empty making no money for a team. Whole sections of high priced tickets sit empty for an entire season in stadiums across the CFL.  Teams need to lower prices in some areas to anywhere from $25 to $40 the closer to midfield  & every ticket sold then goes into team coffers. Those tickets will sell. I think the CFL has to really look at its ticket pricing structures to get a handle on it. Pricing now is insane & people stay away & watch at home. 

I think they are drawing fine and are profitable so nothing really to overcome.  I was a big believe in moving the season up, but not just to add bye weeks, to end it sooner.  Those games in late October or early November when it can be pretty cold, well, people arent going (and when I did go, I was handed a free ticket by Bombers staff once).  On the flip side, we often have nice weather in early-mid October so taking advantage of that would help.

[SpeedFlex27]

5 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I think they are drawing fine and are profitable so nothing really to overcome.  I was a big believe in moving the season up, but not just to add bye weeks, to end it sooner.  Those games in late October or early November when it can be pretty cold, well, people arent going (and when I did go, I was handed a free ticket by Bombers staff once).  On the flip side, we often have nice weather in early-mid October so taking advantage of that would help.

I have heard that some people don't like such an early start with so many summer games as they're on holidays or at the lake so they can't be there.  Families take vacation this time of year & are gone.  I don't think starting & ending the season earlier will magically make attendance go up. In fact, it may go down. To me, ticket pricing is the biggest barrier. People won't pay  for high priced tickets as walk ups. 

[The Unknown Poster]

3 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

I have heard that some people don't like such an early start with so many summer games as they're on holidays or at the lake so they can't be there.  Families take vacation this time of year & are gone.  I don't think starting & ending the season earlier will magically make attendance go up. In fact, it may go down. To me, ticket pricing is the biggest barrier. People won't pay  for high priced tickets as walk ups. 

I think June games are better than late Oct/early Nov games.  Kids are in school so you're not on vacation yet.  Watching football on a beautiful day is awesome, seems a waste to have nothing all June and then sit home in late October because its cold.  I could be wrong...but thats my take.

[Jpan85]

24 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

How do you overcome this? Dramatically lowering tickets, parking & concession prices. I've always maintained that charging $90 or more for an unused ticket is ridiculous as it sits empty making no money for a team. Whole sections of high priced tickets sit empty for an entire season in stadiums across the CFL.  Teams need to lower prices in some areas to anywhere from $25 to $40 the closer to midfield  & every ticket sold then goes into team coffers. Those tickets will sell. I think the CFL has to really look at its ticket pricing structures to get a handle on it. Pricing now is insane & people stay away & watch at home. 

At IGF the expensive ones are the ones that are basically all sold. It’s the corners and top of upper deck that is the majority empty.

[SpeedFlex27]

1 minute ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I think June games are better than late Oct/early Nov games.  Kids are in school so you're not on vacation yet.  Watching football on a beautiful day is awesome, seems a waste to have nothing all June and then sit home in late October because its cold.  I could be wrong...but thats my take.

Well, glad you mentioned June. June can be nice for sure. However on the flip side, I've seen some crappy ones in my life both in Calgary & Winnipeg. We're also talking weekend games. People have cottages & they're at them in June.  In Calgary, tens of thousands of people head out to the mountains in Banff, K Country or SE BC. I also find June is a busy month for a lot of people. Going to a Bomber or Stamps game isn't a priority.