Yes, the rest will catch up. There will always be competition from other sports. Someday maybe even the Leafs this time of yearOriginally Posted by Shakes McQueen
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But even when the Jays or Raptors aren't doing well the NBa and MLB are still major leagues with a lot of interest. The Rock could win a championship every year but lacrosse can only get so big. It remains to be seen if MLS is going to break into the NBA/MLB/NFL level but it seems to be on the way.
Toronto FC ain't your fathers team... but it will be your kids. We are 10 years old, even the youngest of the SSH right now likely didn't start going to games as a child.
Once we start being able to pass the team down to the next generation is when we can start to see the growth.
So wait a minute from what I'm reading from a few of the posts on here , people in and around Toronto and even parents of kids playing soccer are really looking forward to the Argos at BMO Field than even TFC and this from parents of soccer playing kids wow. Well if this is the case then BMO Field should be sold out for every Argo game. Look TFC is hardly talked about on any of the two all sports stations in Toronto, never mind, soccer in general is hardly spoken about on these two stations. I coached a youth soccer team up until last year for many years and I would say I was lucky if I had maybe two out of the 18 players on our team that followed TFC at all or had ever attended a game or watched a game on TV, however, the vast majority of my players were big into world and Euro soccer EPL and so on. These were 18 year old kids who had been playing youth soccer ever since they could walk, who were more or else oblivious to TFC, would not know a Jonathan Osorio if he fell on them from the sky. However, having a head of a youth soccer club ridicule TFC and MLS is a fucking disgrace, and if somehow that idiot is reading this forum I would like to say you are a fucken disgrace! Anyways I'm hoping things will change in terms of TFC becoming more popular with the general sports fans but it's going to be an uphill battle for it to ever happen.
Last edited by SoccMan2; 04-26-2016 at 11:29 AM.
for some reason the jays have the frat boys market cornered, those crazy backwards cap wearing kids. pfff
Man Moment of the Day.......almost shed a tear. (cant wait till my toddler can take the pitch or diamond, i cant wake up early enough for hockey though LOL)
I'd love to see Dichio / Dero go out there and school these guys and their backwards mentality. An MLS quality campaign!
What really annoys me is when the news will discuss the jays, raptors, and leafs for 5-10 minutes going into deep analysis and then lastly..." oh, in other news, TFC won 2-0 last night" (shows a 5 second video highlight) and ends abruptly with " Now lets take a look at the weather forecast."
Frat boys are a sub set of millennials but its a good point. Jays are huge with the under 30.
That second bit you did makes you sound as old as me.
FYI...My son had soccer practice at 7AM every Saturday for the past several months as part of their team's winter training. Soccer parents are not immune to the early starts unfortunately
I think they also have the highest percentage of girls viewership as well in the GTA, so many cute girls doing those selfies all game long!!! come think of it, id rather not have them all at BMO field.
That's a decent assessment. If you compare where soccer awareness is now compared to where it was two or three decades ago, it's night and day.
There was a time when the Blizzard's NASL games would draw great crowds - north of 20k - to CNE or Varsity stadiums and get very spotty coverage in much of the local media. The Star, via Bob Koep and Norman Da Costa, would usually have some solid info, but they were always looking to cultivate an immigrant audience (not that that's a bad thing).
But CFTO wouldn't dream of reporting on soccer. Nor CFRB. And they were top of the table in terms of TV and radio.
Now, there's all sorts of coverage and it's only going to get better. However, we live in an age where there's this perception that things have to be 'trending' in the next 20 minutes or it's a disaster. Laughable, really. The greatest impetus to the process of growing soccer awareness and coverage - as others here have rightly stated - is winning.
Win and you're In.
Happily, MLSE have put this principle ahead of prudent finance. The money will come eventually. Winning now is what matters most. Building a winning culture is close behind. Slowly, surely and steadily, it's happening.
Last edited by greatwhitenorf; 04-26-2016 at 01:46 PM.
Yeah, TSN can plead guilty to that charge.
It's sad that MLS gave them so many games to televise and didn't stipulate some additional support broadcasting, like what is done with the CFL or Hockey Canada telecasts. TSN shows a game, gives a quick highlight or two, a concise summary and whoosh!, off to show some lame, time filler like the 100 Worst Moments in Jai-Alai History. They frustrate motorsports fans the same way.
I guess we can say the issues are
1) Lots of soccer haters in the GTA
2) Euro Snobs won't give TFC the time or day
3) MLS is not the top league, there for its a harder uphill battle just like OHL Hockey has struggled in the many GTA markets despite Toronto being a so called "Hcokey Mecca", but they are not the NHL
4) Low News coverage compared to other sports
5) TFC had many awful seasons finishing at the bottom of the league
6) TFC is only 10 years old, the league needs time to grow
7) Lets be honest TFC at times is not the most entertaining team to watch on TV, it really is more of a "You have to be there" type experiences
8) To many kids and parents didn't grow up with Soccer as a pro club to follow and are not pushed as hard as say parents and kids growing up wanting to play for the Leafs or Canadians.
One last thing I could say tho is, while we do struggle because of those that view Toronto FC as a "mickey mouse" league and they only follow Euros/World Cup and premiership, I would say even in England they have this issue tho. I can tell you some smaller clubs, even in big cities (London as a great example) has some clubs that are supported only by locals and die hards but the general public would follow Arsenal, Chelsea, or Tottenham even tho they live down the street from clubs like Crystal Palace, Millwall, QPR, AFC Wimbledon, or Luton Town. Or you even get Manchester United and your Liverpool fans in London who have no ties to the cities or even been to visit the cities. TV ratings can also be low as many that follow the smaller clubs actually attend the games , probably a lot like TFC fans do, our ratings are very low, but we can still draw 15k,20k,25k fans, but much of the supports actually attend games, unlike the Leafs for example.
I can say when I lived in Wimbldeon for a short while, I saw Chelsea fans everywhere (Chelsea are one of the closer teams to the area) but 2nd most was probably Arsenal, then maybe Tottenham, then maybe Man U or Liverpool then maybe Fulham fans even tho they were just as close by as Chelsea. It was rare sight for me to see AFC Wimbledon fans, Crystal Palace fans or QPR fans, even tho they were not far away. You only really saw them on game day, near the stadium. Other than that I never saw packs of them watching the games on TV at the pubs, or in mass taking the transit (Unless again you just timed it right and on route with the fans). But when Chelsea played, or even Arsenal you would see a lot of people watching games at the pubs.
Last edited by james; 04-26-2016 at 03:14 PM.
Exactly, we avoid lots of headaches by being a little niche, and we have much cheaper tickets. This is a hidden blessing.
There unfortunately is an insecurity with main stream media about soccer. They see that TFC is getting great fan support but will not report it. Their way of keeping the sport down is by not covering it all or giving minimal coverage. God forbid that hockey, baseball or football have competition. The reality is that you do not see any kids playing baseball anymore or football and hockey is also in decline. Soccer fields are jammed but as was stated above they keep MLS and TFC down so kids can focus their interest in foreign leagues. Still much work to be done by MLSE. Most important is to get their stations to cover MLS and TFC.
i know hockey is on decline, but tons of kids are playing baseball again, but not like we grew up playing it, they are now in the batting cages at 10 years old with pro coaches and analytics, same with golf.
Everyone wants their kid to be a pro, no one seems to want them to have fun or learn things on their own. (you know how many windows I broke whipping tennis balls up again the house wall?)
TFC needs to get out to the schools, get their merchandise out in the play grounds, and get media hip (as the youngns say, 'get lit') for the current 18-28s
Last edited by C.Ronaldo; 04-26-2016 at 02:16 PM.
Baseball situation a year ago : Weekend big crowds mostly under 30 there for the event. Weekday was paltry and the numbers for watching and listening were on the decline.
Rogers spent big money to get back in the reckoning. But if they tank, that interest will go do something else and they'll be back to being an event occasion.
As for marketing campaigns. I don't think we'll see any sort of Bloody Big Deal stuff for Seba considering we openly mocked it and teased it in less than a year. Now consider how the silly "We The North" Campaign might fall flat for the third year running, MLSE might be little hesitant to put themselves out there like this again.
Sidenote, I can't believe the Raptors fanbase buys all that crap with the slogan all over it. We can be proud of our crowd for rejecting such silly shit, hell even the Seba comics are looked at in bemusement.
I don't think it's insecurities because they seem pretty arrogant about soccer but the traditional radio guys honestly have no fucking clue how to talk about it. They can't carry a conversation about it.
I was at Skydome last may and there were maybe 8000 people at the jays game on a tuesday night. It felt like last few years in montreal in the big 0 .. really sad like the team was about to die. They come mid june it was a complete 180 and rest is history.
I was listening to Q107 on Saturday and they were talking about how it's a busy sports day for Toronto teams. Mentioned the Jays, Raptors, .... and Marlies
I was at Joe's watching this weekend's game against Montreal. I don't really care for Joe's at all but at least there are fellow supporters there. This guy, I don't know, comes in at half-time and he's really angry. He, apparently, works for MLSE and had been busy hosting a "meet the team" event at The Local, a pub in Liberty Village (meters from BMO Field). He said Caldwell and Dichio were there and they were giving out hats and scarfs and other TFC paraphernalia and having a good time. According to this fella, they had pre-arranged the event with the pub and selectively advertised it, so there was plenty of people there with TFC jerseys on and people had brought their kids, etc., and things were going very well. Then the game started. The pub refused to turn any of their multiple TV sets to the game. The Raptors were losing by 28 points at the time -- the place was at least half-filled with TFC supporters -- but the owner said he didn't care. People were forced to scramble out of the place to find somewhere to watch the game or sit there in their TFC gear and watch the Raptor's be humiliated.I was listening to Q107 on Saturday and they were talking about how it's a busy sports day for Toronto teams. Mentioned the Jays, Raptors, .... and Marlies
That doesn't surprise me and hopefully it will be the last time Local gets business from TFC. If you want to watch the game while other events are going on in Toronto you need to be at Joe's, wheat sheaf, the Duke etc.
May even be tough at those establishments if raps are in game 7 Sunday at the same time TFC play.
I was in the local during the women's world cup just after a TFC game along with loads of other TFC fans who wanted to watch the Canadian woman play. It was a big hassle to get the game on and then it was only on one tv. So I left.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Roy Keane
So an owner gets a corporate group down, from a company owned by Rogers and Bell, gains business and then refuses to change his station on some of his TV's?!?!?!
Not the brightest bulb.
It's not even a corporate group it's the TFC viewing parties. These are regular fans that will be coming to BMO weekly for the next 6 month that they are screwing around with.
@impactmontreal: #IMFC has passed the 9,500 mark in season ticket-holding members for the first time >> https://t.co/AAxbTdsCoy https://t.co/G7sl53jh8G
sometimes we forget to appreciate what we have.
yeah, remember last year they went from 50,000 for CCL games to 4000-5000 for MLS games ... until they sign Drogba
Wow this story about this pub The Local is insane just crazy. Moreover , what does the Impact season ticket count have to do with this thread?
Wow that pub story is amazing. I know it would be way too hard to organize -- but it would be funny, fill the place with TFC fans (with gear) for the next Raptors game, cheer hard, order almost nothing, tip well, and leave with a big FU at the end of the game.
Or something like that.
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