CFL’s new TV deal not good for fans in the stands

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/07/2015 (4048 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

First, the bad news. The crowd of 25,605 that turned up at Investors Group Field last Friday to watch the Blue Bombers defeat the Montreal Alouettes 25-23 was the fourth smallest since Winnipeg moved into IGF in 2013.

Friday’s crowd was bigger than the 24,872 who turned out for the opening game of the 2014 season. And, it was bigger than the woeful crowds (22,320 and 24,223) that attended the final two games of the 2013 season when the Bombers were on their way to a 3-15 record.

Aside from those low-water marks, Friday’s crowd was as bad as we’ve seen in these parts since the Bombers moved into their shiny football palace.

So what’s the good news? Well, when you consider last week’s game was played on a Friday night in the heat of summer — always a bad idea in a city where everyone either owns a cottage or knows someone who does — and the start time was a very fan-unfriendly 6 p.m., all those empty seats last week shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise.

So why would the Bombers ever agree to a home game starting at 6 p.m. on a Friday night in July, you ask? Welcome to the new CFL, where it is increasingly the league’s official broadcaster, TSN, more than the teams themselves, who decides when and where games will be played.

A lucrative broadcast deal the league signed with TSN two years ago worth almost triple (to $40 million from $15 million a season) the last rights deal has meant a lot more money in the coffers of CFL teams. But it has also meant those same teams no longer call the shots on scheduling.

The result is a league that now how has more games on Thursdays — which TSN has found to be a profitable niche for CFL broadcasts — as well as more doubleheaders on Friday nights, when TSN attracts huge numbers for football.

But what’s great for TV isn’t necessarily great at the ticket window and the result, suggested CEO Wade Miller, is every now and then the Bombers have to take one for the league.

“It’s all about making a schedule that works for everybody,” Miller said Monday, “And that means there has to be some give and take on everything.

“Yes, we had to work around that game against Montreal. And we knew going into our schedule that was going to be a difficult game for us to sell… But our fans showed up and we’re very happy with our numbers.”

The Bombers averaged 30,637 fans per game during their inaugural season in Investors Group Field and saw that number drop — as they expected it would once the novelty of the new place wore off — to 28,294 in 2014.

The club has some work to do if its going to equal last year’s average attendance. Through two home dates this season — the crowd at IGF for a loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on July 2 was 27,279 — the Bombers have averaged 26,442.

That’s about the same as Winnipeg averaged through its first two home dates last season and things got better last year after that slow start — but that was thanks in large part to two well-attended home dates versus the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The Bombers have only one home date against the Riders this year.

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Still, with season-ticket sales this year almost identical to last year’s — 21,337 in 2015 compared to 21,311 in 2014 — Miller said he sees no reason why the Bombers still cannot equal last year’s attendance numbers.

“We’re very happy with where we are so far,” he said.

The Bombers are a profitable team when averaging ticket sales in the mid-to-high 20,000s. The club recorded an operating profit of $3.9 million in 2014.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek