171 people polled in Toronto, 428 in the GTA, obviously when Jays fever at its highest - not very relevant to my thinking.
I'll be more concerned next year after we make a deep run in the playoffs and it remains the same - then we will be marginalized, like the Argos.
They must have taken the survey at the local senior citizens home. I don't know anyone under 60 that watches baseball??
You must be joking. The Jays demographic fan base is the youngest and most diverse in all of MLB.Originally Posted by Prof
At the Dome, yes.
Watching on TV? Not so sure.
The jays bandwagon fan base is young... it has turned into the thing to do on a Thursday night after work from what i'm told.
I wouldn't call them hard core baseball fans but the games were turned into events
to be fair, I think once shit kicked into gear and we got Price and Tulo it really was everyone watching.
I do not believe this poll, or the poll does not quite paint the proper picture when it comes to TFC. Lets put it this way for at least 50% of the people of the GTA football, soccer for CFL first persons, is their first sport. That is the truth. At for 50 % of people I interact on a daily basis, football is their first sport, and I interact on daily basis with people of all kinds of ethnic backgrounds. Now this does not mean that they support TFC first, most support some over overseas team first, but most of these people are aware of TFC and follow it at least casually. The only group of peope that this is not true for ( at least on a general basis) is those people who do not have relatively recent immigrant roots, and even many of these people have heard about TFC, most of these people have heard of the CFL, but support the NFL.
Now I like the CFL, I like it for the Canadiana, I am a Torontonian, and an immigrant, but I am not a big city snob, and I love most things Canadian with a long history, the CFL is it, and the Argo's and the Ti-Cats, the two "local" team have history. However, in my observations, since 2006, Football is AT LEAST the third sport among Torontonians , and TFC has the potential to be AT LEAST the third biggest franchise in the city, but it needs to do better. Unfortunately despite the widespread support for football in the Area, it is not enough to be the local team without a tradition to get the support, you must became the local team with a winning tradition. clearly we do not have that yet.
Bottom line is that football is much more popular then CFL, and therefore TFC has a a huge upside, much bigger then the CFl.s not matter what the management of the Argo's think.
I wish I had more information about the poll, but one thing I do not understand is why was in Ontario wide? I would think that there are many places outside the GTA that do not give two shits about soccer and TFC. I think support for TFC is predominantly urban,so non urban numbers really skew the results.
People need to understand: this isn't a poll of sports fans' preferences. This is a poll of the general public. At any given time, past national polls have identified that less than 35% of the general public follows professional sports.
So while they may poll at 2-4% in a national subsector poll of the general public, that can be equivalent, plus or minus, to roughly 4% to 8% of the sports market. That's probably not far off when you consider how divided attention is. Now, take away the fact that the Jays are in headlines, wherein non sports fans who have local or regional pride identify as Jays fans, and that number would probably plummet (based on other polls of sports preference) to somewhere in the high teens, low 20s.
So really, the only Toronto team to have won a title in the last quarter century would probably poll out somewhere around 20-23%; the raptors probably come in aroudn the same number. Then you have a bunch of people who love soccer but only support teams in their homeland, so soccer, which might normall come out in the mid-teens, is whittled down to its hardcore base, the same that contribute to its lousy TV numbers.
This isn't an indictment of soccer as a popular sport; it's an indictment of MLS selling the game beyond those in the stands, and, to an extent, part of the continuing failure of Canada's soccer infrastructure, its leaders, to advance knowledge and backing of the game here from our diaspora communities. Unwillingness on the part of TV to push it hard, and fighting with the stations' media parents to get coverage in their other entities, doesn't help.
^ This makes sense. I could also accept that the support across Ontario is 4 to 8 percent, but that most of that support is centered in urban Toronto, bringing the percentage in those areas up, not necessarily double but up.
'bump', I think it's supposed to be said in this situation but may be wrong.
Purely for the sake of interest, whilst travelling the TTC today and reading the '24' free paper wax about the Raptors playoff hopes, this paragraph caught my eye with reference to who qualifies as the city's favourite team:
"It's always been assumed that the Toronto Maple Leafs is first, with the Blue Jays, Raps and TFC fighting for second place."
Recognition. Inaccurate recognition but recognition all the same and bonus.. no mention of the Argos.
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