Quote Originally Posted by AngeloV View Post
I'd like to test that theory. How much more does the attendance go up when the Riders come to town as opposed to how much does it go down when the Lions and Bombers come to town. I would be willing to bet that if they came to town every 2nd year, the spike for that game would be much higher.
Quite possible. But what would the alternative schedule be? One game against each western team and 13 against the other teams in the East? I'd get very sick of seeing the same opponents over and over. Or totally unbalanced, i.e. two against some western teams and one against others? Then we'd end up with strength-of-schedule issues, one area that the CFL is better than the NFL IMO. Everyone plays the same schedule as everyone else, more or less.

The old unbalanced schedule worked when the East played 14 games and the West played 16 -- each team played one game against teams outside the division and three games against teams inside the division. But the 18-game schedule in a nine-team league pretty well requires home-and-home, with two extra intradivision games thrown in. Even if the league had a 10th team in the East, going to 13+5 would mean playing one team four times a season. Too many IMO.