Advice needed on how to create a CFL fan

[TrueBlue4ever]

So my brother lives in Toronto (problem #1) and has always enjoyed the NFL, enough so that he plays fantasy football every year. I have always plugged the CFL, but he finds it less exciting, and picks out the flaws in the game (to be fair, they certainly exist) and the league in general. So with the Argos move to BMO he says he is willing to really give the game a try. However, he has noted that some games he has seen (Calgary-Ottawa the latest) have real dull stretches in them, and a game he sees some promise in (Edmonton-Sask) is on too late for him to stick it out to the end. His big beef is with how the league markets itself (and I've told him if you compare to the NFL all the time, anything will look lousy). He says he simply wants some competency. Two examples he cites are the new jersey launch and the CFL website. He can't believe the league would launch a new look jersey for each team, and have one team (*cough* Bombers) not have the jersey available for purchase at the time if the launch. Secondly, he goes to the cfl.ca website the morning after the game and still does not see updated standings or even proper game stats for the match. I can't really argue against either of those flaws, but any suggestions on how to convince him that this game is worth getting behind? He says he wants to give it a fair shot, but wonders if being in Toronto where no one would care enough (even on the league website) is the problem, or is it a deeper problem with the game experience itself?

 

Any suggestions on how to convert this lukewarm new fan and sell him on what the CFL has to offer? What is the best argument someone would have?

 

[Fatty Liver]

Send him to the CFL Time website on You Tube.

Sask.-Esk. and Cgy.-Ott. would be two good games from this past weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC358NgkZW9FdzGWlLctt0iQ

As for marketing who cares, marketing is mostly extraneous bullshit.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Throw Long Bannatyne

[17to85]

24 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

So my brother lives in Toronto (problem #1) and has always enjoyed the NFL, enough so that he plays fantasy football every year. I have always plugged the CFL, but he finds it less exciting, and picks out the flaws in the game (to be fair, they certainly exist) and the league in general. So with the Argos move to BMO he says he is willing to really give the game a try. However, he has noted that some games he has seen (Calgary-Ottawa the latest) have real dull stretches in them, and a game he sees some promise in (Edmonton-Sask) is on too late for him to stick it out to the end. His big beef is with how the league markets itself (and I've told him if you compare to the NFL all the time, anything will look lousy). He says he simply wants some competency. Two examples he cites are the new jersey launch and the CFL website. He can't believe the league would launch a new look jersey for each team, and have one team (*cough* Bombers) not have the jersey available for purchase at the time if the launch. Secondly, he goes to the cfl.ca website the morning after the game and still does not see updated standings or even proper game stats for the match. I can't really argue against either of those flaws, but any suggestions on how to convince him that this game is worth getting behind? He says he wants to give it a fair shot, but wonders if being in Toronto where no one would care enough (even on the league website) is the problem, or is it a deeper problem with the game experience itself?

 

Any suggestions on how to convert this lukewarm new fan and sell him on what the CFL has to offer? What is the best argument someone would have?

 

and he's an NFL fan? Like the NFL games don't have real dull stretches in them? The NFL is all hype and less substance. Sure the CFL players aren't as good but the game is less rigid and prone to more crazy **** happening. 

[Jpan85]

Bomber jerseys were due to a manufacturing problem with Addias not the league or the teams fault.

[Jpan85]

I would tell him why does the NFL not let some of the best athletes in the world show there skills off in a third of there games. The kick return game in NFL maybe the most boring thing in sports. Could you imagine if punts actually got return more than 20 of the time and you gave the returner a 5 yard cushion to work with. 

[iso_55]

Fly yourself to Toronto, get 2 tickets to an Argos game & let him enjoy the atmosphere of BMO Field as well as the game with you. Make sure you wear your Bomber jersey though.

[Floyd]

1.  Buy him a fine Joseph Abboud suit

2.  During the next full moon, shake your fists and howl "PRROULLLXX!!!!' together

3.  Introduce him to the Rod Black drinking game

 

[Y2C]

7 hours ago, 17to85 said:

and he's an NFL fan? Like the NFL games don't have real dull stretches in them? The NFL is all hype and less substance. Sure the CFL players aren't as good but the game is less rigid and prone to more crazy **** happening. 

Absolutely. Sure the players are better, they get paid 5x more (or higher).  But how can anyone honestly say the NFL game itself is "better?

As stated, in the NFL dull stretches are plentiful to say the least but it's never more evident than after a touchdown.  Ever since they moved up the kickoffs, get hyped because the next 8 minutes without fail include commercials, the ball being kicked through the back of the endzone, more commercials. FOOTBALL!!!!!!!

Even the players skill difference is overrated by NFL fanboys.  Sure they're head and shoulders better when all they watch are the marquee games.  Watch a Jags-Browns game and tell me about the majestic display of football ability you can only get from the National Football League!

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by Y2C

[Rich]

I think the biggest thing (and you can't really control this), but he needs to have an open mind.

If he watches a game with the mind set that the NFL is way better and the CFL sucks, he will only see its faults.  (the same would be true if you thought the NFL sucks and watched an NFL game).

The biggest thing I think is to get him hooked on the local team with games he can see live and players that are in his city.  Everything this else would flow from there.

 

[bearpants]

5 hours ago, Floyd said:

1.  Buy him a fine Joseph Abboud suit

2.  During the next full moon, shake your fists and howl "PRROULLLXX!!!!' together

3.  Introduce him to the Rod Black drinking game

 

this might be the best idea yet... 

tell him it's nice to watch football in the summer... I'm a fan of both leagues and when the NFL kicks off in the fall, I'm pretty much a Bomber fan (meaning I don't watch many non-Bomber CFL games) and an NFL fan... but it helps to start by scratching that football itch in the summer...

[mbrg]

CFL website is the worst website.  Of all time.

Seldom correct.  Missing things that are really important.

Want to know who won the Grey Cup in 1949?  Check wikipedia, cause you won't find that on the CFL website.

Draft result?  lolololololololololololwhyonearthwouldweputthathere?

Put so much effort into style there was nothing left for substance.

 

 

The CFL game certainly has it's foibles and oddities.  It's an eye of the beholder thing.  One could argue that the extra down in the NFL allows for sustained drives where as the CFL has more punting.  Or one could argue that the extra down in the NFL allows for more boring play calls, as drives look like 3 yard run, 3 yard run, 4 yard slant, 3 yard run, etc etc, down the field.

The CFL has way more WTF??? moments than the NFL.  Both the good kind and the bad kind.  To me that makes it far more exciting to watch.  One person's opinion.

Edited July 11, 2016 by mbrg

[Fan Boy]

12 hours ago, Jpan85 said:

I would tell him why does the NFL not let some of the best athletes in the world show there skills off in a third of there games. The kick return game in NFL maybe the most boring thing in sports. Could you imagine if punts actually got return more than 20 of the time and you gave the returner a 5 yard cushion to work with. 

The NFL punting fair catch is the most boring thing ever, except for the kick offs through the end zone. At least they adopted a longer PAT to add a little spice into that part of the game kind of like some other "lesser" league. 

[iso_55]

Both games are great. I like both. Why do we have to have these discussions all the time? As a fan, i embrace both games. I don't need fans of each game lecturing to justify in their minds which is better.

[Rich]

11 minutes ago, iso_55 said:

Both games are great. I like both. Why do we have to have these discussions all the time? As a fan, i embrace both games. I don't need fans of each game lecturing to justify in their minds which is better.

The point of the discussion isn't to debate which is better, if you read the original post, it is looking for ideas to get someone who is a an NFL fan to give the CFL a shot.

[johnzo]

The biggest differentiator between the two games, I think, is that the tackling in the NFL is so good and the field is so small that you get far less of the exciting open-field action you get in a good CFL game.  In this case, the superior talent leads to a less exciting game.

It's like how junior hockey is more entertaining than the NHL -- the kids haven't been coached up 1000% on goal prevention yet and there's more disparity in the talent levels among the players, so defensive coverage is looser and the game can be more exciting. 

It's more fun to watch people achieving things instead of watching people preventing other people from achieving things.

Edited July 11, 2016 by johnzo

[iso_55]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

The point of the discussion isn't to debate which is better, if you read the original post, it is looking for ideas to get someone who is a an NFL fan to give the CFL a shot.

 I already gave advice on how to make the guy's brother into (hopefully) a CFL fan.

Edited July 11, 2016 by iso_55

[Atomic]

The CFL stats section is still seeing changes every day, I looked today and it is actually at the level of "passable" now.  It will keep improving.  It's too bad they chose to roll it out before it was ready.

[iso_55]

1 minute ago, Atomic said:

The CFL stats section is still seeing changes every day, I looked today and it is actually at the level of "passable" now.  It will keep improving.  It's too bad they chose to roll it out before it was ready.

Yeah, it's not the best.

[Eternal optimist]

Since he likes NFL fantasy football, why not try getting him involved in CFL fantasy football? That way even if the Argos (assuming he follows them, since he lives in Toronto) tank, he still has a vested interest in the other games in a given week. Just a thought.

[Rod Black]

He needs to go to a few games until he meets a skinny female fan with large breasts. He'll love the CFL.

[kelownabomberfan]

20 hours ago, iso_55 said:

Fly yourself to Toronto, get 2 tickets to an Argos game & let him enjoy the atmosphere of BMO Field as well as the game with you. Make sure you wear your Bomber jersey though.

Look up Bluto while you are there.  He'll make sure you guys have a great time.

[kelownabomberfan]

The CFL is trying to market itself (finally) to fans under the age of 75.  I've been watching these SNAP videos (not sure why, couldn't be because of Brodie, nahh) and really liking the effort being made to entice younger fans to the game.  Comparing the CFL and the NFL is a joke.  It's like comparing a lawn-mower to an M1-Abrams tank.  But to me, that's what makes the CFL so great.  They do so much, and provide so much entertainment, with so little.  That's what makes the CFL just plain awesome.

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by kelownabomberfan

[Mr Dee]

12 minutes ago, kelownabomberfan said:

They do so much, and provide so much entertainment, with so little.  That's what makes the CFL just plain awesome.

This says it for me too.

[johnzo]

My wife, who is not a football fan, loves the everyman feel to the CFL. She loves hearing about Khari Jones' stage career and Obby Khan's restaurant and Cvetty's Pets and Kevin Glenn's donut franchises and so forth.

Also, the CFL website is getting much much better. Realtime play tracking appears to work now and the "news" section is actually worth reading (for me.)  I was all set to come in here and complain about how the stats history was removed in last year's redesign, but it appears to be back, and so are the historical game results.

[comedygeek]

With the talk of the CFL website in here, I figured I'd give them a big +1 on one front.

When they launched the new website (and the various teams' websites, which design-wise are the same basic skin as the league site), I noticed that on the mobile version, the CFL/team logos that should've displayed in the centre of the header (as is the case for the small-screen versions of many websites), but for some reason was slightly off-centre. As a designer, it frustrated me to see it slightly off.

After a couple months of this, I finally went to look at the site's source code, and saw some unnecessary code added that was making it off-centre. I decided I would speak up and contact the CFL about it, and by the next day that code was removed league-wide and I had gotten a very pleasant response from the league's top web guy!

Based on his response, it seems like the site was a huge undertaking for a small staff (possibly of one) with a fairly short turnaround. As someone who's been in that position before, single-handedly re-developing a massive website with at least the number of pages/data as the CFL from the ground up, I can relate to missing some things or not being able to get everything done immediately. It explains the rogue code and the missing (at first) statistics and history.

In any case, at least the game day stats aren't as ridiculously off-the-wall as those displayed within the TSN mobile app -- where it for some reason shows the Bombers in the Hamilton game as having 620 yards of total offense, 128 passes deflected, and 2 TD/2 INT! (Thankfully its individual player game stats are accurate.)