Went to Argos @ Redblacks in TD Place (cap: 24 000). Game was a sell-out. Great atmosphere in a very nice, well thought-out, downtown venue. Ottawa 67s play in attached arena which is also used for CFL pre-game events. The Fury also play at TD Place.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
Haven't been to Lansdowne since it was redeveloped. Used to be Ottawa's Exhibition Grounds, was a bit of a concrete park in the middle of what was a gentrifying area at Bank. (dating myself here, but I went to a lot of 67's games when Alyn McAuley, Nick Boynton and Brian Campbell were there...) Did not attend a Rough Riders game while there, but those were the Bruce Firestone / Horn Chen years.
The area was ripe for a redevelopment of the facility, and I'm glad it's been done well.
Sounds like a CFL city, again, for now. Good luck to them.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
I was looking hard last night, I couldn't see any football markings or divots at all.
We all know there'll be a game or two in the fall where there'll be rain, and therefore a high likelihood of problems, but at some level I can accept that.
"There are some people who might have better technique than me, and some may be fitter than me, but the main thing is tactics. With most players, tactics are missing. You can divide tactics into insight, trust, and daring." - Johan Cruyff
There is a good discussion over at r/MLS how MLS is outdrawing CFL in major cities. Feel free to input your thoughts, people seem to be on the same page.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comment...canadas_major/
I'm glad for the outdrawing but it's a long way to go till MLS in Canada is considered as strong a draw because of tv. It'll take time to spread with consistency to the rest of Canada like those outside the big 3 cities that celebrate their CFL representation. It's really only a matter of time, though. It's not like grass roots gridiron has a tonne of room to grow.
That said there is plenty of room on tv for both.
Glad to see no complaints on the pitch after a busy footy week. Now we see the first time Argos get 2 games in 2 weeks.
FORMER FULL TIME KOOL-AID DRINKER
Yeah, that's all sweet and lovely for the RedInks these days. But the rubber's meeting the road in a hurry for that franchise and its owners, which includes Jeff Hunt who owns the 67's juniors.
The 67's play in what used to be called the Civic Arena, a 10,500 seat venue tucked under the main grandstand of TD Place stadium. The problem with the arena is that it's decrepit. All the suites that sit just under the crumbling roof - an upper level which includes the old press box - are condemned. They cannot be occupied. The structural decay also extends into the main grandstand of the RedInks seats. They can't even hang a proper hockey scoreboard over the ice anymore.
The city was supposed to pay for all sorts of facility upgrades and improvements. Then Eugene Melnyk floated the notion of bringing the Senators back into the city centre and will now have the opportunity to create and develop a new arena at LeBreton Flats, an area slated for all sorts of commercial and residential re-development just up-river from Parliament Hill. Once that project began to look promising - and it's a complete Go! now - the city got cold feet about pouring any more money into the soon-to-be-redundant Civic Arena.
So now, the 67's play in a crumbling shithole of an arena, drawing crowds of less than 3,000 - one-third of their normal audiences in recent seasons. Their arena upgrades, which would extend into the stadium the RedInks play in, are no longer being paid for by the city.
The RedInks are playing in a semi-nice stadium in mounting need of having one half given an important structural upgrade and a city council no longer interested in funding such work.
When you look at the entire Lansdowne area project, it was never about making a schwingy stadium. It was about using the stadium upgrade as a loss leader to induce the municipality to approve higher density development in the very desirable Glebe district. They got that development variance and can do much more with that in years to come.
The stadium? Hah! Neither Greenberg, Minto or Jeff Hunt are looking forward to carrying the financial hod on this aspect of the project. They conspired to deprive Eugene Melnyk of his dream of an MLS franchise for Ottawa and now he's looking to make payback a compleat bitch.
So we'll soon see what the RedInks are made of. In the meantime, the Fury are doing nicely enough with season tickets and drawing crowds in the 5-8,000 range, which should do nothing to smother MLS ambitions to set up a franchise in the capital city of a member nation.
Done well, eh?
The 67's attendance has never been worse and the commercial development that went up next door to the stadium/arena complex has a high vacancy rate. People in the Glebe (think Leaside or North Toronto) strongly opposed it and many refuse to patronise the businesses in there. It's got a long way to go before becoming successful. And the developers are already looking for further expansion of these developments northward on Bank St. It's not a happy situation.
MLS in Ottawa was never going to happen - he didn't want to pay the fee. He certainly won't pay the $200 million US fee now.
I'm pretty sure the main reason there is no MLS in Ottawa right now was that the Ottawa city council voted for upgrading the old downtown stadium for the CFL more or less thus killing Eugenes plans for a new stadium near his hockey arena. I'm still pretty convinced you put an MLS franchise in Ottawa and it will work , getting say 22 thousand a game not a problem, and it might even cut into the Ottawa's CFL attendance and become more financial sound than the CFL team, remember when your getting say 22000 for 17 games compared to 22000 for 9 it's easy to see who might make more money and be successful, just a matter of time before we see MLS in Ottawa one day, I'm sure the CFL is hoping that does not ever happen.
It's not matter of time. There has to be a lot more elbow grease prep work done by Ottawa to show that they are ready. And first of all is a group of committed investors that's willing to spend the money.
I'm seeing Sacramento having trouble getting their foot in the door and if an American city has trouble convincing MLS FO, does Ottawa have a better chance?
Years have gone by and Ive finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: A pretty move, for the love of God.
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I dont give a damn which team or country performs it.
-Eduardo Galeano
Isn't it widely assumed that Ottawa is moving from the NASL to the CPL when it launches?
has anyone seen the comments on this site...lots of false info spreading around...for instance they think the only reason why we have a roof is because of the Argos, plus as i recall the argos did not put any monies into the stadium except for paying for their own dressing room, on that board they believe the Argos put in $10mill!!!
Well it was reported that they paid 50% of the costs to make BMO CFL-ready - on top of the locker room costs
http://www.thespec.com/sports-story/...an-experience/
The Argos will have a lavish 10,000 square-foot dressing room under the east stand. The Argos' new owners contributed half of the $20 million needed to configure BMO Field to CFL dimensions and is paying for the dressing room separately.
A reddit section gets filled with misinformation- who'd a thunk it?
GabrielHurl is right - $10 million + the dressing rooms
The roof? That's the city + the Grey Cup + the Leafs Winter Classic. TFC and Argos benefit.
i mentioned this myself, ironically enough in the same reddit post.
i know everyone will immediately point to the TV demographic as a reason why the CFL is holding it's own but..
let's look at why that is by answering a few questions:
- how often do you see MLS highlights on a recap sports show?
- how long are these highlights and features compared to other sports?
- how often to you see advertisements running that promote games?
- how often do you see MLS games in "block programming" like hockey, basketball or baseball?
most of these questions are pretty easily answered: not often, not long, not really, not ever.
so there's certainly gotta be a direct correlation between the amount of advertisement, TV time and consistency with how much the sport is viewed. the only time i really ever seen a TFC game advertised is during another MLS match (mostly with canadian teams) or during a TFC game (ie: here's what channel it's on next week). i have to scour channels to find out which one is playing a match. so in short; i don't know when/where TFC is playing unless i'm actually going out of my way to look for it. this is not how you build a viewership base. this is like the Firefly of TV sports franchises. if there's a raptors game on, you can find it on 4 of the the 5 TSN channels. if there's a TFC game on, you might be able to find it on TSN 4 one week, and then TSN 2 the next, with the week after that requiring you to own a cable package that includes sportsnet 360. i actually did a breakdown of it in the reddit thread by comparing it to other toronto teams:
i don't know where i'm going with this, but it'd certainly be interesting to see how TFC would fare with a winning team, a consistent broadcast schedule and some sort of advertisement ahead of games that gave even the most fair weather fan a bit of a reason to get excited.Argos games air on TSN 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Jays games air on sportsnet 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Leaf games air on CBC on a consistent basis.
Raptors games air on TSN 1 / 3 / 4 / 5
TFC airs on TSN 4 / SN360 and TSN 2 over the next three games alone.
yeah. i had someone mention that SN360 isn't a premium channel.
it's like.. dude.. i was at work, i had to flip through 4 SN channels that showed those "top 50 moments of the month" clips, and when i hit the TFC listing it told me that i had to order 360 as part of a cable package. i'm pretty sure thats the definition of a premium channel.
This BS broadcast debate is so pointless...
We're a young frigging franchise and only now have a winning record. Once we make a deep playoff run, the media will begin to show interest (the following season). We lost a lot of initial goodwill with poor performance in the first couple seasons, we're now back and have superseded that baseline. Now let's get some results beyond the small-time Canadian Championship (like a good run to the MLS Cup). We're going to sellout the stadium and be in great shape as a franchise regardless next season, but with a deep playoff run we'll get the bandwagon cases and media attention. Toronto loves a winner in a major league!
I tell you one thing. If ANY of the media tries to do the annual "Go See the Real Leafs play baseball at Christie Pits" thing, I may do some yelling. You do the same story every freaking summer. EVERY SINGLE AUGUST.
I grew up right beside an InterCounty Baseball stadium - I get it.
But geez Louise there's 23-27K of people going to see the consensus best player in MLS and rocking to the beat and the team is playing well consistently for the first time ever....and ya'll want to talk about the same quarter-pro baseball story you do every August?!?!?!
Here you go, Og. A special 12-page pullout on the baseball Leafs from TFC's good friends at The Sun:
http://virtual.torontosun.com/doc/to.../2016080301/#0
That's the second pullout section of the season. Must be what a club earns after 48 years of play and seven titles.
Last edited by greatwhitenorf; 08-09-2016 at 01:19 PM.
That's a paid for ad block - the equivalent of a Globe and Mail special section on Doctors in Labrador.
My issue is media going rhapsodic on Inter County ball every single freaking year.
Good post.
The upside for soccer lovers is that the three Canadian MLS clubs are all doing better at the gate than their local CFL rivals. Little by little, they're eroding media coverage space, corporate support and Canadian playing talent away from football. The CFL doesn't have the financial depth to shrug off such a challenge in the major markets. Add in the changing faces of Canada's current and future demographics and it's simply a matter of time before the scenario changes for good.
Looking like a great night for a CFL watcher to walk and grab a cheap seat. Maybe even cop some freebies if they need to paper the joint again. Mind you, it's a Friday night, it'll be hot, maybe wet and, you know, stuff, like Tommy Youngsteen playing the Horseshoe, is going on.
A lot of tickets available according to this map.
http://www.ticketmaster.ca/toronto-a...0050B1B3766FF1
Last edited by greatwhitenorf; 08-11-2016 at 02:47 PM.