Toronto biggest target of CFL marketing blitz

The keyword to the CFL’s aggressive off-season marketing push is “engagement.”

Whether it’s fans engaging with the league, the CFL engaging with new fans, or sponsors using the game to engage with customers, the league hopes the 2016 season — which kicks off when the Argos host the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Thursday night — is the one you and their brand become engaged.

And all these new engagements have implications for the league’s long-running marriage with Toronto. The Argos posted the CFL’s weakest attendance figures last season, but both parties look at the club’s regular-season debut at BMO Field as a renewal of vows between a team and a league mutually dependent on the other’s success.

While the CFL’s marketing campaign had a national scope and helped boost pre-season TV viewership numbers, both the team and the league acknowledge success means moving the needle in the CFL’s biggest and most apathetic market.

“I was at the league for five years and on every single one of my strategic plans . . . year-in and year-out, was Toronto,” says Sara Moore, the Argos senior vice-president of business operations. “To increase the relevance of the Argos and of the league, because the fortunes are very tied to each other. It’s critical.”

Last year’s Grey Cup attracted 4.3 million TV viewers, down significantly from 2012, when more than five million Canadians watched the Argos defeat, but up slightly from 2014.

Hoping to extend that momentum, the CFL embarked on a series of initiatives this off-season aimed at energizing new fans without tuning out incumbents.

In mid-May, the league unveiled new uniforms and casual wear as part of its deal with Adidas, and two weeks ago the league partnered with You Can Play to produce Gay Pridethemed apparel for each of its nine teams.

Monday, the league announced a partnership with Draft Kings that will see the U.S.-based fantasy sports giant add the CFL to its offerings.

“It’s incumbent upon us to provide access to the CFL on as many different platforms as possible.”

JEFFERY ORRIDGE CFL COMMISSIONER

Early results are encouraging for the CFL, which says nationally televised pre-season games averaged 484,333 viewers, compared with a 444,000 for last year’s most-watched pre-season game.

Commissioner Jeffery Orridge says those moves, along with expanded content on the CFL’s website, target audiences the CFL needs but hasn’t necessarily connected with in the past.

“We understand that the younger generation is consuming sport in many different ways,” Orridge says. “It’s incumbent upon us to provide access to the CFL on as many different platforms as possible.”

George Brown College sports marketing professor Peter Widdis locates the genesis of the CFL’s current rebrand, the “This Is Our Game” drive the league undertook under former commissioner Mark Cohon.

He says the current push, which started with the “What We’re Made Of” commercials that debuted Grey Cup week, moves the old campaign forward while tailoring it to each CFL market.

“The CFL did it in six months with nine different team brands . . . that’s a lot of work,” Widdis says.

“It’s pretty hard to do that. And to have buy-in from every owner? Not easy.”

Last season, attendance at CFL games averaged 24,737, down from 25,285 in 2014.

While winning fans back has involved broad-based publicity initiatives like the CFL’s and Argos’ TV ads, it has also meant micro-marketing. Last month a group of Argos and a few CFL staffers showed up at Local, a Liberty Village bar near BMO Field, and spent an hour buying drinks for everyone present.

“We went into our new neighbourhood and introduced ourselves,” Moore says. “It’s the simplest of concepts, but it went a long way.”