Argos come to BMO

Discussion in 'Toronto FC' started by TOFC/ARSENAL, Jan 2, 2015.

  1. ArteEtLabore

    ArteEtLabore Member

    Dec 16, 2006
    Club:
    Toronto FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Canada
    They could also fill in the corners and make it a more rounded stadium. We're talking about 8 years from now so who knows what will happen. The attendance numbers for TFC/Argos could be completely different than now.
     
  2. nfitz

    nfitz Member

    Aug 20, 2007
    Toronto
    #102 nfitz, Jun 23, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2018
    Attendance was 40,818. And the Associated Press report from the day commented that "It wasn't an entirely full house at BMO with scattered empty seats among the 40,818 in attendance". So presumably capacity was over 41,000. Even without trying to fill the corners, or do something about the older and lower west stand, I don't think it would be difficult to completely redo those temporary north stands in a steeper configuration that would add only 3,000 to 3,500 more!
     
  3. nfitz

    nfitz Member

    Aug 20, 2007
    Toronto
    Here's the trends in Argos (blue) and TFC (red) attendance since 2005.

    If the Argos trend continues, they won't even be filling 5,000 Varsity Stadium by 2026 - where they used to play from the 1890s to 1958 (though capacity at Varsity was over 20,000 in 1958).



    upload_2018-6-23_13-22-15.png
     
  4. whitbytfcfan

    whitbytfcfan Member

    Apr 9, 2016
    Club:
    Toronto FC
    It's as if people forgot they exist when they moved to BMO. I went to an Argos game last night for the first time in about 5 years or so. The atmosphere is far superior than at the SkyDome, I don't understand it at all. The crowd that was there got into it as much as can be done with a sparse gathering and the team losing by 40 points as can possibly be done I think. Beer was only $5 (the smaller size that TFC does pre-game but for the whole game). Announced attendance was just over 16,000. They actually close off the upper bowl on the east side entirely but it is open on the west side. The "temporary" north stand isn't open but the band is there. It really is an enjoyable atmosphere.

    Ticket prices have dropped this year so I suspect over-pricing when they first moved there may have played a factor but this is really shocking how low their attendance has become.
     
  5. Kingston

    Kingston Member+

    Oct 6, 2005
    Having followed the Argos for about 25 years, I think their hard core support is somewhere in the mid teen thousands. So, at the moment, they are down to pretty much that hard core support. (If nfitz had run his graph back farther, there was another period a few years previously where they also frequently had crowds in the 16 000 range.)

    I was really surprised to see what happened when the moved to BMO Field. I had expected the move to the much more suitable venue to solidify their attendance in the 25 000 range, not to cause a drop.

    I do believe that now that MLSE owns them we will see far more effective promotion of the team. I expect their attendance to rise as a result over the next two or three years at least to the point where they are drawing 25 000 or more each game.
     
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  6. nfitz

    nfitz Member

    Aug 20, 2007
    Toronto
    The plot came out of a discussion last year about the relative attendance and trends of the two teams.

    But I do have that earlier data. Yes, there were some poor years between 1994 and 2003. I don't know enough Argos history to know what that was about. Or at least what happened in 2004 - perhaps that's when they started the infamous large-scale papering?

    In reality it looks to me like it's been in decline since 1976.

    Obviously a simple linear fit, doesn't fit well, with long-term increasing and decreasing trends over the years. But I'm surprised at how well the 1959 to 1966 data, 1994 to 2003 data, and 2015 to 2017 data, all seem have the same slope as the long-term trend - albeit lower!

    upload_2018-6-25_23-25-49.png
     
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  7. Kingston

    Kingston Member+

    Oct 6, 2005
    Going way back, the Argos were the summer sport in Toronto. They were well established and culturally relevant.

    In 1977 the Jays arrived and offered an alternative for summer sports fans. Concurrently, the NFL really began to separate itself from the CFL in terms of quality so a fraction of football fans started following the NFL instead of the CFL. (People forget that it wasn't that long ago in big picture terms that the money in the two leagues was similar. It was really the era of huge TV revenue that let the NFL completely pull away and become what it is today.)

    By the mid-1980s the Jays had supplanted the Argos as Toronto's number one summer team and the Argos were suffering through very incompetent ownership. The team completely failed to capture fans in a demographically shifting city (i.e. immigrants who didn't know football). There was a blip when McNall, Gretzky, and Candy bought the team and injected some top flight feel but that vanished when the ownership group did and the team continued sliding in the stands.

    The numbers came up again in the mid-2000s when the entire CFL experienced a period of being cool but then crashed with bad ownership and bad on field performance. (Even when the Argos won it felt like a fluke instead of a plan.)

    Now they are down to their hard core support but have a good ownership group that seems intent on making the team both relevant and successful. If they follow the TFC model, I think they can accomplish those goals. I certainly don't expect the Argos to become the number one summer team in the city but a successfully run team should get back to the 25 000 or 30 000 type crowds where they start to sell out BMO Field regularly.
     
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  8. TFCREDMENACE

    TFCREDMENACE Member

    Toronto FC
    Brazil
    Feb 4, 2019
    Ontario
    Argos and cfl suck ..u have the superior nfl within driving distance at buffalo.detroit..philadelphia and pittsburgh..who would really pay to watch the garbage the cfl produces
     
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