SpeedFlex27

The alternative is do nothing & go full steam ahead into oblivion. Because quite frankly, just about everyone can see the writing on the wall. There aren't enough of YOU to save this league.

I went on the Bomber website & they aren't showing individual game day ticket prices. I know for a fact that ticket prices for people who don't have season tickets (or who don't want any) is substantially higher. So I know tickets are over $50 in that scenario. I also know that people have voted with their wallets. They won't go to games. In their zeal to market season tickets, they have cut off a substantial part of that base. Game day walkups. I can remember a time when a big game, say for first place with Edmonton would generate 15-20,000 single game day sales in the days prior to a game like that for the Bombers. That doesn't happen anymore. I don't care about your season ticket discount. You're hooked. You're a season ticket holder. I'm talking about fans who have to shell out big bucks to go to a single game who maybe don't have kids. Or don't want to sit in a family section. They pay full price. A guy wants to take his GF to a game & he has to pay, pay, pay. Why should he? The CFL has eliminated the game day ticket walkups with their pricing. I know McMahon Stadium pricing. Single game day tickets on the 30 yard line were $80 in 2019. No way people will pay that when the game is televised in Calgary. So yeah, that seat sits empty all season. No one uses it. No one buys concessions & merch. Times that by 12,000 each game for 10 home dates. That is where the missing cash flow for teams are. Yet, they won't change it. Hence, here we are with the league crying & bleeding red. My premise is this. In taking care of STH, teams forgot about the other fans. The ones that don't have or don't want season tickets.

I've developed a really bad nasal infection in the past couple of days. It really started bothering me Thursday afternoon at work while wearing a mask. Every time I had to adjust it on my face, the bridge of my nose hurt like hell. I went to an emergency clinic Thursday night & got some antibiotics. They also gave me a Covid test for which I tested negative. But man, my nose feels like it's broken even though it isn't. With the infection, it hurts just to touch it. Hopefully the antibiotics kick in the next day or so. I was concerned as every Grade 9 student at one of the schools I drive for have been put on isolation/at home computer learning & won't return until after Spring Break in early April.

But in reality, you probably won't.

I just watched that podcast & thanks for the link wbbfan. The more I think about the situation, the more I'm in Dave Naylor's camp. I'd rather have football then none at all & the Bombers being a part of it. There will always be die hard CFL fans who say they'll never watch a new league with 4 down football & would rather the league die. We've read those comments on this thread here. But the demographics of these fans are older. He's right when he says younger fans prefer the 4 down game. They play Madden. They watch the NFL. How many times have you heard people say thaat the NFL is "real football"? I've always kind of scratched my head whenever I heard that statement. How is the CFL not real football? They block & tackle, run & catch just like 4 down football. So how is not real??? Yet, we CFL fans hear it all the time & it hurts when it is said as we love the CFL. We don't like it when our game is mocked. Some fans may not want to hear this but 4 downs is more popular. That's just the way it is. That fact just can't be ignored anymore. I think CFL owners know they'll lose some older fans by changing the rules but they feel that there's a potentially bigger & younger audience out there that will prefer 4 down football & grow with the teams the way I did when I first started watching the Bombers in 1965 as a 10 year old. So, they'll go with new rule changes despite the anger they'll hear. However, the reality is that when I was growing up, EVERYONE cared about the Bombers & the CFL. At elementary & high school in the 60's & 70's,, we'd talk CFL just like Dave Naylor said he did when he was a HS student. That does not exist anymore. Kids don't talk about the CFL. today. They don't wear merch. There is no CFL video game. They don't care. I wasn't depressed listening to the discussion. I appreciated Naylor's candor & honesty. He is going to piss off a a lot of people with the things he said. But people gotta hear it & face reality. Status quo will not work anymore. The pandemic has destroyed it. Just my opinion.

Every home game is televised for every team. The price point of tickets & concessions is so expensive that people stay home rather than go to games now. Teams have refused to lower ticket prices to sell these empty seats in every stadium across the CFL. Empty seats should represent an opportunity for increased revenues. I never understood the logic of having a seat priced at $50 or more sit empty all season. Not only is it lost ticket revenue for the team but also lost concession & merch revenue. Wouldn't it make more sense to charge $15-20 to get butts in the seats where people spend money rather than having vast sections of seats sit empty game after game?? How many hundreds of thousands to millions does each team lose per season when stadiums are at 60% or lower in capacity? Calgary has 35,000 seats but averages 23,000 per game. Edmonton has 50,000 seats but averages 26,000. The Bombers average somewhere around 26,000 in a 33,000 seat stadium. Bc Lions have the entire upper level of BC Place draped off. I won't even mention the Argos. The CFL is brutal at pricing tickets & marketing the game. Always has been. Looks like they always will be. The CFL used to pride itself on being an affordable family oriented league. That stopped in the 90's.

What would be the advantage of playing 3 downs if players want to play 4 downs? And if fans don't watch U Sports now they won't suddenly start.

I will say it seems the rollout here is going faster than in other provinces. Hope your Dad gets his soon.

In Alberta, today was the first day my age group (65) could book. My vaccination appointment is for March 31st.

Which is worse as Trump lied & it costs lives because of it. He put the economy ahead of preventing deaths.

What do you think Manitoba is? North Dakota, South Dakota? Montana? Nebraska? Give me a break. Most if not all are GOP governors who followed Trump's beck & call. No leadership on the Covid file from Washington so no leadership on Covid at the State level. Trump didn't like masks. So, the GOP governors didn't like masks. Trump felt the virus was fake or at the very least the flu so the GOP Governors felt the same. Trump never followed the advice of experienced medical advisers like Fauci so the GOP governors didn't as well in their States or had a Yes Man or Woman in place that followed what their Governor wanted. You can't compare what happened in the US to Canada. What is saving America's ass is that they have vaccine production facilities & we don't. So the US can go all out vaccinating its citizens while we rely on vaccine delivery supply chains from Europe & India which have been & will be interrupted in the future. Biden is hoarding vaccines while other countries suffer. Stats that can be skewed to the user's perspective when comparing what has happened after schools in Manitoba reopened to what happened in the US. Trump politicized the virus. You were a Democrat if you wore a mask & Republican if you didn't. It cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Trump knows it but I bet he sleeps very well at night not sorry at all.

Goalies don't do that anymore. They just flop on their knees.

I never watched Tim & Sid because quite frankly, Sexeiro was a prick.

Didn't know Tim Micalief was so passionate about the CFL. Which is good to see. And to work at Sportsnet, sounds like he has had to defend himself quite a bit from all the NFL Proud Boys over there. I don't think his former partner Sid Sexeiro thought much of the CFL. It just reiterates my thought that the team means more than the league to me. I want my football team in Winnipeg. I want the Bombers to stick around. Not fold & go away forever. I also think a new league with 4 downs will be an easier sell to fans across Canada if their teams still exist. Bring in a new league with different names like the Winnipeg Zippidy Doo Da's or the Saskatchewan Prairie Oysters with zero history & it'll fail.

But it won't be 3 down Canadian football.

Different owners & different people negotiating. Media savvy people as Redbird has shown itself to be. The XFL 2.0 was Vince's baby & he stroked his ego getting it off the ground twice while spending a ton of his & WWE's money. I have a feeling a different kind of tv deal would be negotiated where the league did get paid. Just don't know how much they'd get.

Again, it comes down to using a sports cable channel that has limited viewers or a network broadcaster. CBC used to be a CFL partner & probably would be the best to be associated with again as CTV has the NFL. However, doesn't this show just how limited the revenue streams for the CFL in Canada truly are?

Our TV deal with TSN didn't cover the cost of running a team only a percentage like 60%. That's why the CFL is in this mess. You don't compete. You don't get paid. The old saying goes. Or You can't win it if you're not in it. The CFL would rather have their product on a cable sports channel in Canada to a limited audience where not everyone subscribes than on a major Canadian network available to everyone. The loss of potential audience means loss of potential ad revenues which means a smaller TV deal, That is one part of the the broken business model the CFL lives by. Maybe it wouldn't matter if all the games were televised on a major network or not. Maybe the money TSN pays is all that is available to the CFL. But until they actually do it, we'll never know. Another old saying. You never know until you try.

Justin "Click Bait" Dunk.

This is how many fans would show up if the Bombers played the Stampeders in the US,,, It also shows you why 3 down football on an NFL sized field would never work. Why 4 down football with the smaller field is the only alternative. Right, Colin Unger? They can't add 5-8 yards to the width of the field like you suggested.

Wasn't he in the first Alien movie?

The Republicans are repugnant,

He sold some tee shirts after the race riot in Charlotte. And the Colin Kaepernick banning. Took advantage of both situations which really turned me off of the guy. Especially when that BLM protestor was killed. He mocked the NFL saying our league was more diverse. Well, how's it worked for him since?

I know. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I just shook my head at that comment.

Anyone still think that Redbird Capital owners of the XFL approached the CFL??? I don't think so. This is why the CFL needs the XFL far more than the other way around. Check this deal out. RedBird Capital Acquiring Ten Percent of Fenway Sports Group for $750 Million (yahoo.com)