Take a look to your left.
Now take a look to your right.
Is there one or two people ten or so metres away from you? If so, you’re either on a pretty nice subway ride, or you’re at an Argos game at BMO Field.
Whether they like it or not, a lot of the attention that the CFL’s franchise in Canada’s biggest market is regarding the lack of attention that the team is getting.
And unlike the fans, these headlines aren’t going away.
You have to give the franchise credit, though. The Argos are pulling out all the stops to try to draw more fans to BMO Field. The atmosphere there alone should be a big draw and the stadium’s primary tenant provides just that – Toronto FC regularly sells out, bringing in more than 10,000 more fans per game. PER GAME.
The Boatmen are now pulling out promotions to get fans into the stadium and they’re still barely working. On Monday night, with the team trotting out CFL legend Doug Flutie and the 1996 and ’97 Grey Cup teams – and giving out a Flutie bobblehead at the gates – the attendance was still just an announced 15,000 or so (a number that’s often inflated).
Oh, and that was with a special deal of two tickets for $19.97 and cheaper beer prices at the tailgate.
But here’s the problem: The Argos aren’t going at this hard enough.
That Flutie bobblehead looked about half the size of a usual one when a TSN analyst placed it beside his own.
Those discounted tickets were only available in four sections of the stadium and in the top corners of the upper deck on the east side.
And the fans that would come out to see a reunion of the great 1996-97 teams aren’t the types that the team needs to come out, it’s newer fans that the team needs to survive. Everybody that was happy to see Flutie, Pinball Clemons and Co. was already likely to buy tickets at some point this season. Where’s the promotion targeted at new fans?
The first thing that the team needs to do is lower ticket prices – a lot.
It’s ridiculous to ask a new fan to pay $72 for a decent seat – and $97 for one near midfield. Why would anyone pay that?! It’s no wonder why there’s large sections and rows of seats empty during games. Ticket prices need to be slashed to draw crowds – just like they were when Grey Cup sales were bombing last year. The prices that Argos tickets are currently at reflect a major league experience – something that the Scullers can’t provide.
Next: Promote your rivalries. The Hamilton Ticats are just down the highway and their fans could take an easy GO Train ride right to BMO Field. How in the world was the game between these two teams not sold out last month?! It was the Argos home-opener to boot!
Third, start something – anything – that could become a tradition. The CFL is currently running a commercial which highlights various traditions around the league. There’s beer snakes in Winnipeg, the Green Wave in Regina, “Oskie Wee Wee†in Hamilton. The Argos are noticeably absent from the montage.
Toronto FC has done a good job with this, starting chants, beating a drum and really involving the fans. It’s not a hard thing to do, but you need to build it over time and really make it yours.
Finally, do something about the ridiculous scheduling. No football team should have to play three games in 11 days and no team should play just one in a month – both instances the Redblacks face this season. And playing games on Wednesdays and Monday nights aren’t making it easy for the fans, either. TSN is obviously the driving force behind this, as well as the Argos’ secondary tenant status, but there’s no reason why the league couldn’t work out something more manageable here. Or why there was just one game on Canada Day. Or why the Argos are now on a three-games-in-11-days stretch. Somebody – anybody – has to know this was a bad idea and terrible planning.
Many will say that putting a winning team out there will turn things around, but that’s not entirely true, either. After the 1996 and 1997 Grey Cups, and even the more recent championships, tickets sales don’t take off like you would expect. While having a winner on the field is nice, it’s not necessarily a winner in the ledgers at MLSE.
The CFL has a huge problem, one that won’t sink it, but is making life hard on the league. Without new fans, there’s no new money coming in. And without younger viewers, there’s less advertising revenue for TSN and less TV money to feed back into the league.
The CFL can be an exciting product at times, but if nobody’s watching, it doesn’t matter.
Follow me on Twitter @danbilicki