What will it take for Toronto to love the Argos?

[rdavies]

MLS does not get great TV ratings (yet), but international soccer is firmly entrenched on Canadian TV, and the interest is only going to grow IMO. We get tons of English Premier League games and virtually every Champions League game on TSN and/or Sportsnet, not to mention World Cup, Euro etc. I see growing interest in this stuff among younger people in particular. Eventually some of that interest will extend to MLS, which is arguably higher than the 10th-best league in the world. Its schedule is a problem that can never be solved (being unable to play in winter), but it is growing in international stature and has a number of very successful revenue-generating franchises.

MLS isn't even the best soccer league in North America, Liga MX is. It's been ten years of MLS/TFC and ratings have actually gotten worse since they debuted on CBC. When there were comparative sports ratings from a few years ago they couldn't even crack the top 20 list (100k). When MLS did crack that, the Caps always out-rated TFC. They averaged a low of 38k before the championship season to the point their TV contract was in jeopardy. During the championship season they went to a whopping 98k season average (across Canada) If the CFL had that the death watch would be in full bloom.

[paulwoods13]

MLS isn't even the best soccer league in North America, Liga MX is. It's been ten years of MLS/TFC and ratings have actually gotten worse since they debuted on CBC. When there were comparative sports ratings from a few years ago they couldn't even crack the top 20 list (100k). When MLS did crack that, the Caps always out-rated TFC. They averaged a low of 38k before the championship season to the point their TV contract was in jeopardy. During the championship season they went to a whopping 98k season average (across Canada) If the CFL had that the death watch would be in full bloom.

So you agreed with the first eight words of my post, and ignored the rest. OK.

[rdavies]

So you agreed with the first eight words of my post, and ignored the rest. OK.

What would you like me to say? You want me to prove/disprove something? If there was anything worth responding to there I would have. Sorry if I didn't hold your post worthy of being on stone tablets.

[paulwoods13]

What would you like me to say? You want me to prove/disprove something? If there was anything worth responding to there I would have. Sorry if I didn't hold your post worthy of being on stone tablets.

Hey, if you aren't prepared to respond to points rebutting your post, that's your call.

[rdavies]

Hey, if you aren't prepared to respond to points rebutting your post, that's your call.

You had numbers? Specifics? The only thing you had was your opinion and you wouldn't agree with anything I'd say just on principle so sorry if I don't have the facility to debate ghost posts. I'll never be able to get to your level of irrelevant condescension but next time, for you, I'll give it the ol' college try. : )

[paulwoods13]

You had numbers? Specifics? The only thing you had was your opinion and you wouldn't agree with anything I'd say just on principle so sorry if I don't have the facility to debate ghost posts. I'll never be able to get to your level of irrelevant condescension but next time, for you, I'll give it the ol' college try. : )

You might be surprised.

[rdavies]

You might be surprised.

Surprise me, I'm more than happy to hear the truth. What I have a problem with is certain posters posting only the triumphs of TFC and only the failures of the Argos, the very definition of the dreaded T word.

[Shatto]

The discussion here, seems to be about the popularity of the Argos/CFL as reflected through TV numbers as against the popularity of TFC/MLS, again as reflected through TV numbers. What we do know is the Argo/Sask game and the Ti-Cat/Stamps game both had an average audience of approximately 2/3 of a million. We can probably all agree those are pretty good numbers. I haven't seen the TV numbers for the last couple of TFC games (maybe somebody has those numbers) but based on last year's figures, somewhere between 40 thousand and 90 thousand could be expected. So we can safely agree that the two CFL games mentioned above, probably drew something like 10 times the number of the TFC audience.

As for streaming numbers, I have seen no evidence that the numbers are higher for TFC/MLS than Argos /CFL or visa versa. Until someone is able to provide those numbers, the discussion is really all conjecture. Personally, the young folks I know would stream Argo games not TFC games but that is because they follow Argos/CFL not TFC/MLS. That is very subjective and until there is firm objective evidence of the numbers being streamed we are all providing our own subjective opinions.