Argos still struggling to draw fans
Bob Nicholson, president of the Toronto Argonauts, hopes for the day when his team’s home opener has the same festive boom that a Major League Baseball team brings to its city on opening day.
After starting with three road games – salvaging one win and battling offensive woes – the Argos come home for the first game of the season at the Rogers Centre on Saturday, where they averaged 22,237 fans per game last year, the worst home attendance among CFL teams.
The Argos have taken many steps to increase fan interest this year. They are coming off an improved 9-9 season where stars like Cory Boyd and Chad Owens flourished en route to the East final. They have a new radio home, a documentary running on TSN, and an ad campaign that heralds priority access to 100th Grey Cup tickets for Argos season ticket subscribers.
But will those efforts bring more fans to the stadium this season, starting Saturday versus the Winnipeg Blue Bombers? Nicholson conservatively predicts a crowd of more than 20,000 for the home opener, where the team will hold events directly outside the Rogers Centre, and the roof is expected to be open in sizzling temperatures.
“I don’t think there is another market that is as competitive and cluttered as the Toronto market, and for us to break through and get noticed, it’s much more costly and challenging to get our message across,” Nicholson said. “There is a clear understanding across the league that the CFL needs to succeed in this marketplace.”
Creating a party atmosphere around a stadium is tricky when most nearby open spaces have been swallowed by condo developments. Filling a stadium that seats more than 42,000 would be tough for many of the most popular CFL teams, not to mention the Toronto Blue Jays, who have averaged just 23,342 fans per game there this year. So the CFL has put more research and resources into helping the Southern Ontario team build interest.
“In Toronto, there are just so many sports options, it’s a very complex market, and the Argos get a small piece of the pie,” said Marc McConnell, a managing partner at the Toronto sports marketing firm Flow Experience Inc. “CFL players are like curlers in Canada – the marketing lies in fans relating to them as people, because they are not millionaires like other athletes.”
The Argos are focused this season on making their players more identifiable.
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