GREY CUP REMAINS A PIVOTAL MOMENT FOR CANADIAN TV
CFL’s big game still a draw, but there are underlying problems in three key markets
BULLS OF THE WEEK
It is no longer the country’s biggest single-day television event, but the annual Grey Cup game still matters to the business of sport in this country.
It certainly matters to the CFL, which has been crowning Grey Cup champions for 104 years and is going to be celebrating a 105th titleholder Sunday evening after the dust settles between the West Division’s Calgary Stampeders and the East Division’s Toronto Argonauts. After ruling the airwaves — and then cable — for generations as the most-watched television show in Canada, the Grey Cup has settled for status as secondbiggest annual Canadian sport TV event in the seven years since 2010, when the NFL’s Super Bowl took over that mantelpiece.
This weekend’s showdown between the country’s No. 1 media market of Toronto and No. 4 Calgary will be considered a success if it draws a combined average national audience of more than four million in English on TSN and French on RDS. That’s about half of the clout the Super Bowl has commanded on CTV, TSN and RDS in recent years, but is still much bigger than Canadian audiences for the deciding games of the biggest showcases of each of the other major North American leagues.
Even the NHL’s Stanley Cup final games don’t surpass the Grey Cup except in years when a Canadian team is involved, and that hasn’t happened since the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins drew highs of eight million viewers in 2011.
Above and beyond five hours of lead-in TV coverage on game day, the Grey Cup merits a 24-station radio network built around TSN Radio’s broadcast. Much of the power of the Grey Cup is history and heritage, including the tradition of east versus west.
That east-west rivalry was in jeopardy until the Argonauts defeated the Saskatchewan Roughriders — the West Division crossover playoff team — last Sunday before an average audience of 1.5 million Canadians.
It’s almost as if Lord Grey’s mug itself won’t have it any other way than the east-west axis that is as old as the CP logos that the Stampeders and Argos will wear one final time this weekend. CP’s CFL jersey patch sponsorship expires this season and the spot beside Sun Life Financial will need to be replaced by the start of the 2018 season next June.
It’s almost as if Lord Grey’s mug itself won’t have it any other way than the eastwest axis
BEARS OF THE WEEK
The retention of east versus west in the Grey Cup is something to be celebrated this weekend. Yet it doesn’t mask the bearish challenge the CFL is facing in its three biggest markets.
The Argos will receive a big shot in the arm — win or lose
— by simply being in the championship game, but there’s much work to be done in Toronto to rebuild a season ticket base and give the Boatmen the boost that comes with having a telecom (Bell) as its majority owner.
Urban Canada has to be among the biggest priorities for first-year commissioner Randy Ambrosie, especially when your three weakest average regularseason game attendances are in your three biggest markets of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and the average there (17,764) is just over half of the average of 30,064 in the CFL’s heartland — the bread-basket corridor of Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg.
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