Four things the league should change coming into 2019:

1) The Thursday night games are a dud in the stadiums. They may have provided a small bump in TV ratings, but Thursday nights don’t work anywhere when it comes to ticket sales and even worse, it makes things difficult for football ops with so many quick four or five day turnarounds between games.

2) Begin the season with divisional rivals. Seeing Saskatchewan in Hamilton or Montreal in Edmonton does nothing to get fans excited to come to the stadium. Always begin and end the season with rival games. Give the fans the best games to begin the season.

3) End the 8pm starts in the West. It’s difficult to bring families to the game when the final gun goes at 11pm at the earliest and it’s two-hours later in the eastern time zone so no one is watching.

4) Finally, play Sunday games until the NFL starts on Labour Day. Sundays are for pro football, let’s keep it that way.

http://rodpedersen.com/out-of-the-tunnel-wild-times-in-the-cfl/

👁‍🗨I agree that these points are relevant and do affect attendance to a large degree. I don’t know who all came up with these thoughts, but Odd Rod has put them out there to think about. 

The League should think about it..

Polo Park was weird. Some games I could get out immediately, but other games it would take 45 minutes to leave the parking lot.

I find leaving IGF in a car can be an ordeal. I sometimes go with a buddy who parks at the soccer complex, and it can be pretty slow moving. Park and ride is great though! Line up at the bus for 5ish minutes, then home in maybe 20 minutes. I'm 6'3 and can squeeze myself into those bus seats just fine.

Sucks they got rid of the Southdale stop, though.

17 hours ago, Geebrr said:

I think people forget that Polo was pack a lunch time to get out.

 

15 hours ago, Rich said:

Getting out of IGF is now faster for us then it ever was getting out of Polo.  

Polo wasn’t perfect either.   Can’t expect traffic to be no line ups anywhere 25k people are leaving at the same time. 

These two points from @Geebrr and @Rich are 100% correct... those who don't like the stadium location come up with all this revisionist history about how easy it was at polo park... I can often remember sitting in traffic in my car or on a bus for 20-30 minutes without even getting on to Portage... and they act like they parked right outside their gate and just drove off the lot...  

13 minutes ago, sweep the leg said:

Polo Park was weird. Some games I could get out immediately, but other games it would take 45 minutes to leave the parking lot.

I find leaving IGF in a car can be an ordeal. I sometimes go with a buddy who parks at the soccer complex, and it can be pretty slow moving. Park and ride is great though! Line up at the bus for 5ish minutes, then home in maybe 20 minutes. I'm 6'3 and can squeeze myself into those bus seats just fine.

Sucks they got rid of the Southdale stop, though.

I used to take the Southdale park and ride in the mid-2000s... those were some rowdy bus rides... we got in trouble more than a few times for alcohol consumption... surprisingly no tickets or arrests though   ... good times!... 

1 hour ago, Booch said:

HAHAHA....they after studies..and money put into studies and design for it...the city kiboshed it for stupid reasons...stupid city...I actually worked on the design for it...was to tie into the pathway we did all along bishop and up kenaston up to the Costco

That really sucks. I live near the Bishop Greenway, and actually went to the community consultation on it at IGF. Would've been awesome to get to the transit corridor and the other side of the Bishop path without crossing Pembina and its on/off ramps at grade. And for what? An eighth of the price of the Waverley underpass?

Edited July 19, 20196 yr by nate007

Lots of reasons for why attendance is down and most have been touched on.

One I'd highlight is some fans are tired of watching the Bombers lose (especially the first few years at IGF when the team played boring football).

With the Bombers' start I see momentum building and I can see attendance rising every game from here on out.

Fans want to cheer on guys that get them out of their seat. We had good crowds when guys like Charlie and Milt entertained us. Now we have Andrew, Lucky and crew to get us excited.

 

 

Hearing sales have been good over the last 24 hours so we'll see what the total is soon enough

On 2019-07-18 at 12:07 PM, Throw Long Bannatyne said:

Prices have been increasing across the board on everything, name one item that hasn't seen a substantial price increase over the last 3 years?  In the 70's inflation was talked about on a daily basis, now the media doesn't even mention it.

Well, my alarm permit is still the same price, but that doesn't make me any happier about paying it.

20 hours ago, Rich said:

This on going narrative about taking long to get out of IGF is for sure an issue, but it is a false narrative.  

They really botched things the first couple of years at IGF and now can’t shake this perception.  

Getting out of IGF is now faster for us then it ever was getting out of Polo.  

Polo wasn’t perfect either.   Can’t expect traffic to be no line ups anywhere 25k people are leaving at the same time. 

At most it is 10 minutes for us to get out of the U of M area once we get to our car.  Often less. 

But, the Airport hotel and Gladys and the girls were so damned convenient! Now what? 😉

Joke of the day ...

Anyone else notice that the shirt selection in the Bombers online store is lacking somewhat?  Many of their items are sold out and there is only one new offering listed.  I figured that five games into the season the store would be fully stocked and pushing items left & right.  I need my Bomber stuff here in NJ because my NY Giants are a joke, have been a joke for the past several seasons, and the upcoming season will be no different.  

Sorry to say but the Rider store has a huge variety of shirts and awesome hats.

2 minutes ago, Jim McD said:

Anyone else notice that the shirt selection in the Bombers online store is lacking somewhat?  Many of their items are sold out and there is only one new offering listed.  I figured that five games into the season the store would be fully stocked and pushing items left & right.  I need my Bomber stuff here in NJ because my NY Giants are a joke, have been a joke for the past several seasons, and the upcoming season will be no different.  

Sorry to say but the Rider store has a huge variety of shirts and awesome hats.

I don’t like to hear it, but try sending your message directly to the store, you know, where they actually can do something about it.

On 2019-07-15 at 9:43 PM, SpeedFlex27 said:

The death of local sports in the paper & television has a lot to do with dwindling attendance  as well. Before,  games would be set up by some talented beat writers, columnists & tv reporters in all CFL cities.  They hyped players & rivalries. You knew a home game back in the day was a big deal. Well, most of these guys are now gone having retired or laid off.  Now, all games are on television. CFL home games barely get any attention on local tv sports anymore as sportscasts are 7 minutes long. Today, local sports mean nothing to Bell & Rogers. Neither do the CFL teams.

You're exactly right. I'm so frustrated by the brutal lack of sports coverage on the evening news. But let's run the weather 3 times in 30 minutes🤬  Personally I hardly watch the news anymore, I spend many hours listening to TSN1290.

1 hour ago, Jim McD said:

Anyone else notice that the shirt selection in the Bombers online store is lacking somewhat?  Many of their items are sold out and there is only one new offering listed.  I figured that five games into the season the store would be fully stocked and pushing items left & right.  I need my Bomber stuff here in NJ because my NY Giants are a joke, have been a joke for the past several seasons, and the upcoming season will be no different.  

Sorry to say but the Rider store has a huge variety of shirts and awesome hats.

Thanks for repping the W out there! 

Let's go!

2 hours ago, Jim McD said:

Anyone else notice that the shirt selection in the Bombers online store is lacking somewhat?  Many of their items are sold out and there is only one new offering listed.  I figured that five games into the season the store would be fully stocked and pushing items left & right.  I need my Bomber stuff here in NJ because my NY Giants are a joke, have been a joke for the past several seasons, and the upcoming season will be no different.  

Sorry to say but the Rider store has a huge variety of shirts and awesome hats.

Sure they do Jim, and all puke-ity green.  It's like having the world's largest selection of Ebola contaminated cinnamon buns for sale.

Why the **** were you looking at the Riders store????!! 

22 hours ago, bearpants said:

I used to take the Southdale park and ride in the mid-2000s... those were some rowdy bus rides... we got in trouble more than a few times for alcohol consumption... surprisingly no tickets or arrests though   ... good times!... 

Great times Haha!👏👏

3 hours ago, ddanger said:

Personally I hardly watch the news anymore, I spend many hours listening to TSN1290.

What does Blake Wheeler put in his corn flakes?

IMO, a big part of the reason attendance is down, at least here is the price. 

How many families do you see at IGF any more? Not many. When I had season tickets in the early-mid 2000's, my tickets at the 35 yard line (Section F, row 4, seats 1 and 2) were around 42 bucks a game if I recall correctly. Now the 30 yard line at section 103 according to Ticketmaster is 99 bucks after taxes, and the next section over is 155 after fees and taxes. There use to be families all around where I use to have my seats at the old barn. Sure there is the family section at IGF but those arent cheap either, and endzone seats dont exactly offer a great perspective of the game, depending where the action is.

I get that times change and we're in a new stadium. That's  not lost on me, but the bottom line is a night out at a CFL game in this city is not a cheap night out. Me personally last night, I got a ticket for 20 bucks through a friend. Add in another 20 bucks for parking, 8 bucks at rum hut 2.0, 9 bucks for another beer inside and that's 57 bucks for a night out, and that's with a deal on the game ticket.

Price. Plus.. Lets be real... We are cottage country... If you got one, its been a great summer so far... Or spring really but... The lake has been nice. It plays a role... Cuz personally i have seen more bomber flags yard signs etc this year than every other recent year. Ppl at my work are def aware and the 2 things 95 percent of the ppl who dont go say are price and "im going to the beach" 

The other 5 percent are odd reasons like parking or u of m is 2 far or... Yeah... 

Its almost made up reasons. 

There are parts of the stadium for sure where they need to lower the ticket prices.

2 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

There are parts of the stadium for sure where they need to lower the ticket prices.

Or give them away to kids and families who are less forunate. Good way to build future fans and a great gesture. What the Bombers have done with our Northern communities has not been given enough love in the papers.

Im also gonna guess u got a generation or so of Bomber fans with young children now. As much as my 4 yr old wants to go see a game, she's 4. Lol. So that means i cant go as much as i did 5 6 years ago. 

Edited July 20, 20196 yr by Goalie

Sorry but I have never subscribed to the cottage country theory. In 2001, that barn was sold out, or nearly sold out every single game, and that was before anyone knew what kind of season we were going to have. If you have a winner, and your tickets are reasonably priced, it will sell out consistently.

3 hours ago, Noeller said:

Why the **** were you looking at the Riders store????!! 

Just to compare what other teams had for sale.  I'm an Accountant by trade.   More choices can (mostly) mean more sales.

1 hour ago, Mr. Perfect said:

Sorry but I have never subscribed to the cottage country theory. In 2001, that barn was sold out, or nearly sold out every single game, and that was before anyone knew what kind of season we were going to have. If you have a winner, and your tickets are reasonably priced, it will sell out consistently.

It's almost a different world though.  People who have a cottage now really need to make use of it to justify it because a $120,000 house in 2001 is now $300,000.  If you're paying some or all of the bills at both places and making even a slightly above average income you're already basically broke as a family.  

I think it's more of a factor for people in their 30s and 40s who were in their teens and 20s in 2001.  A $600 mortgage payment has basically tripled when you compare Generation X to Millenials, and then like you noted earlier there's been pretty significant inflation on the cost just to get into the stadium....plus the Jets have returned which has taken a big bite out of that sports fan market share.