CPL 2023 Season Attendance

[Kingston]

4 hours ago, johnyb said:

Had to be a case of announcing tickets sold instead of actual fans in attendance.

Which I'm okay with.  Ticket sales are what drives revenue which is what really matters.  And if the ticket is sold but the person can't make it, it's not like the team can find someone else to come.

[BearcatSA]

5 hours ago, Kingston said:

Which I'm okay with.  Ticket sales are what drives revenue which is what really matters.

This.

And what matters even more at the end of the day is what investors/ownership thinks.  And with that, I am often reminded of Kevin O'Leary's regular line to entrepeneurs on the Dragon's Den:  "Sure, it looks like a good idea, but how do I make money?" 

How much are you willing to possibly lose in the relatively shorter term?

[Bison44]

6 hours ago, Kingston said:

Which I'm okay with.  Ticket sales are what drives revenue which is what really matters.  

Yeah but what if your real purpose is just to slag the league because its set up isnt the way you thought it should be in 2017, or the way some people told you it might be in 2015?? The world is full of people who cant wait for something to fail so they can tell you "i told you so".  

[narduch]

13 hours ago, Aird25 said:

I'm hearing 10k+ already sold for the final

Nice.

They are advertising that tickets start at $29. So they will make some decent revenue. 

[Watchmen]

3 minutes ago, narduch said:

Nice.

They are advertising that tickets start at $29. So they will make some decent revenue. 

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the revenue for the final goes to the host club or if the league technically controls the final (which is the case with MLS)?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

11 hours ago, Kingston said:

Which I'm okay with.  Ticket sales are what drives revenue which is what really matters.  And if the ticket is sold but the person can't make it, it's not like the team can find someone else to come.

It isn't always a safe assumption that tickets distributed = tickets bought and paid for. I would rather spend two hours watching paint dry than watch the CFL because of the level of malevolence towards soccer I encountered from people linked to that sport back in the day but I'd be wary of using their official attendance stats to try to prove the validity of any trend that people linked to that sport are using as a talking point.

There's a guy on here who posts obsessively about the CFL while appearing to have little or no interest in our sport. I sometimes see his posts in the side panel waxing lyrical about alleged improved attendance for the BC Lions and Argos etc. Then out of morbid curiosity I'll check a few recent highlight clips...

 

 

[MtlMario]

I do not know how many people there are but I love both soccer (CPL) and the CFL.

[Stryker911]

Based on what I know of the stadium and how many tickets have been made available. They are probably at around 8000 right now. I expect they will release another section today, as well as hopefully an away section in section 108, directly across from the Barton Street Batallion like they did for the inaugural game.

Forge is also promoting a fan fest to start at 330 around the stadium.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Stryker911

[chalms04]

3 hours ago, Stryker911 said:

Based on what I know of the stadium and how many tickets have been made available. They are probably at around 8000 right now. I expect they will release another section today, as well as hopefully an away section in section 108, directly across from the Barton Street Batallion like they did for the inaugural game.

Away section for the FInal is 107.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by chalms04

[jonovision]

5 hours ago, MtlMario said:

I do not know how many people there are but I love both soccer (CPL) and the CFL.

As I've repeated many times, the CFL is the only Canadian pro sports league with any history of success. It has its issues, but perhaps with some humility soccer people might take some lessons as well.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Soccer was deliberately supressed and actively othered as a non-Canadian sport so the CFL could be a success. That mentality isn't as strong as it used to be but it hasn't completely gone away. There's also the NHL and CHL that lessons could be drawn from but they are not the lessons that people like Victor Montagliani wanted to take.

[SpursFlu]

I'm all for opinions and banter and all that but I shake my head at people who pit these sports and fans against each other. I'm not a hard-core CFL fan or football fan but I like it and support it. I call out football fans that put down soccer and vice versa. I hate the whole you're a bunch of pussies thing and I hate the you're just a bunch of unsophisticated rednecks thing. It's all so lame and ignorant l. it's about sport, your community and bringing people together for a bit of fun. What's even worse is NFL College Football fan who disses the CFL. That dudes the absolute worse

Edited October 23, 2023 by SpursFlu

[CDNFootballer]

19 hours ago, Watchmen said:

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the revenue for the final goes to the host club or if the league technically controls the final (which is the case with MLS)?

Since CPL is not a single entity league like MLS it wouldn't be going to the league.

[Watchmen]

11 minutes ago, CDNFootballer said:

Since CPL is not a single entity league like MLS it wouldn't be going to the league.

The MLS final isn't controlled by the league because it's single entity. It's controlled by the league because it used to be in a neutral venue like the Super Bowl, but being infinitely smaller than the Super Bowl it makes more sense to host it in a city of one of the two teams.

[Kent]

I've got attendance for all games other than an October 1st York United game, and obviously the upcoming final. Here is the week by week comparison of 2022 and 2023

2023 lead 2022 in 22 weeks, and trailed in 5 regular season weeks, and the 1 set of 4 playoff games was lead by 2022 (5638 in 2022 vs 4371 this year). 1 week hasn't yet been confirmed due to the missing York game, it's going to be close. Last year's final drew 14,992 fans, so that's the mark Hamilton has in front of it (and it's why the blue line shoots up through the top of the graph on the last week, because it is it's own data point, not averaged with other games).

[K Edgar]

https://canpl.ca/article/canadian-premier-league-attendance-soars-in-historic-fifth-season

[Kent]

25 minutes ago, K Edgar said:

https://canpl.ca/article/canadian-premier-league-attendance-soars-in-historic-fifth-season

From that article. "In addition to attendance increases, CPL has seen a record uptick in all over key revenue categories over the course of the 2023 season, which will be released following the CPL Final. "

[Colonel Green]

On 10/23/2023 at 2:46 PM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Soccer was deliberately supressed and actively othered as a non-Canadian sport so the CFL could be a success.

Or maybe Canadian football was a homegrown sport that had always had a much bigger footprint?

On 10/23/2023 at 2:46 PM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

There's also the NHL and CHL that lessons could be drawn from but they are not the lessons that people like Victor Montagliani wanted to take.

The CHL is not a professional league, it’s a junior league whose model works because its players basically work for free, and also receives support from the NHL.

Every starter league would obviously like to become the NHL, but I’m not sure what their lessons would be for the CPL.

[shermanator]

Attendance: 📈

Revenue growth: 📈

Potential of "I told you so": 📉

[Kent]

3 minutes ago, shermanator said:

Attendance: 📈

Revenue growth: 📈

Potential of "I told you so": 📉

And yet people will tell us...

Attendance: Fake numbers

Revenue growth: Robbing from the national teams

I told you so.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Have attendances been soaring for York United? Some people are so determined to push a particular narrative on here you have to wonder who they think they are kidding.

Some things went a bit better for CanPL this season in certain markets but on the flip side Prairieland and LSSE lost interest in expansion in Saskatoon and other groups don't exactly seem to be falling over themselves to invest where a Quebec club is concerned, etc

There's a long way to go until CanPL will enjoy the sort of stability the CHL has enjoyed from coast to coast for decades on end with similar crowd levels but there are really no lessons to be learned there?

[SoccMan]

1 hour ago, Colonel Green said:

Or maybe Canadian football was a homegrown sport that had always had a much bigger footprint?

The CHL is not a professional league, it’s a junior league whose model works because its players basically work for free, and also receives support from the NHL.

Every starter league would obviously like to become the NHL, but I’m not sure what their lessons would be for the CPL.

If you think soccer in this country didn’t face this type of suppression and still faces it until this day  in some way what can I say , I’ve lived it and have seen it and experienced it in all my years involved with this sport in this country. I believe we would be far more ahead if that wasn’t the case . Remember, we had a Canada only pro soccer league for a few years that wasn’t really given a chance to survive , imagine if that league had survived the state this game would probably be in right now . Probably rivalling the good old CFL in attendance, but IMO the powers at be didn’t like that another national league in that sport played by immigrants could threaten the CFL oh no . But in reality it was never a threat just another sport and league that could have coexisted and thrived side by side with the CFL, but here we are in 2023 still trying to make a national soccer league exist and grow when this could have and should have happened back when the old CSL was started back in the late 1980,s .

Edited October 25, 2023 by SoccMan

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Maybe some of these guys are too young to remember the sort of grief you could get back in the 80s for daring to be a soccer player. Sexuality being questioned by bigoted rednecks, told to **** off back to where you came from for not being sufficiently Canadian just because you wanted to do something in your spare time that you enjoyed, constant ignorant and snide comments about soccer hooligans. Our sport got suppressed like that because these people knew that on a level playing field soccer could win out in interest terms. Their worst nightmare is stuff like TFC eclipsing the Argos.

[Kent]

46 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Have attendances been soaring for York United? Some people are so determined to push a particular narrative on here you have to wonder who they think they are kidding.

Some things went a bit better for CanPL this season in certain markets but on the flip side Prairieland and LSSE lost interest in expansion in Saskatoon and other groups don't exactly seem to be falling over themselves to invest where a Quebec club is concerned, etc

There's a long way to go until CanPL will enjoy the sort of stability the CHL has enjoyed from coast to coast for decades on end with similar crowd levels but there are really no lessons to be learned there?

Have attendances been soaring for York United? No. But that doesn't mean that the victories the league has had can't be celebrated. Your response is kind of like this.

Mother: "Look, the baby is taking it's first steps!!!"
Father: "Pfft. He's terrible at walking. So unsteady, and yup, fell already just a couple steps into his walk."

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

That's absurd and very patronising. My posts have consistently pointed out ways CanPL could adjust their economic model so they can succeed by emulating some of the things the CHL does right. Instead of York United and tilting at windmills where TFC are concerned they would be better off having a team in Kitchener or London.