2019 Canadian Premier League Attendance

[narduch]

7 minutes ago, The Real Marc said:

Does York 9 even need seating for fans?  

I know this is supposed to be a joke, but ya. At least for a couple of thousand.

TFC II will be lucky to have fans in the 10s. That won't change if they join the CPL.

Edited May 24, 2019 by narduch

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

The MLS vs CanPL arguments don't seem to happen much when you move away from this forum given most soccer fans would either be happy to see Canadian teams succeed no matter what league they are in or would be equally dismissive of them in a eurosnob sort of way. York 9 got off to a weak start on crowds with this Canadian Championship game. OK, the opposition was a PLSQ team, but it's still their first ever official home game, so if there really were fewer than 1000 there that's really not good. Give it another month or so and we should have a reasonably clear picture of the shape of things to come in the short to medium term where York 9 are concerned. Regardless of what happens in the GTA, if Halifax turns out to be the poster child for the type of market that works well for this league, there is plenty of scope for expansion.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[narduch]

40 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

The MLS vs CanPL arguments don't seem to happen much when you move away from this forum given most soccer 

I'm not sure what you are rambling on about here. 

You seem to be the only person lobbying to add MLS reserves teams to the CPL. That would be a colossal mistake for the league at this point. 

Those teams were all failures in the USL. What makes you think they would fare better in the CPL

MLS reserve teams would devalue the CPL. 

I'm happy they aren't in the league

Edited May 24, 2019 by narduch

[Ansem]

2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

The MLS vs CanPL arguments don't seem to happen much when you move away from this forum given most soccer fans would either be happy to see Canadian teams succeed no matter what league they are in or would be equally dismissive of them in a eurosnob sort of way.

Advocating for MLS Affiliate is the ultimate CPL vs MLS argument, you know full well the damage of such a scenario would do to the league... no MediaPro, no wealthy owners, not that level of sponsors and certainly no CSB.

You like acting dumb but you're effectively advocating for that scenario which makes you exactly what you're trying to accuse others of doing... Very hypocritical of you
 

Edited May 24, 2019 by Ansem

[to70]

1 hour ago, narduch said:

I'm not sure what you are rambling on about here. 

You seem to be the only person lobbying to add MLS reserves teams to the CPL. That would be a colossal mistake for the league at this point. 

Those teams were all failures in the USL. What makes you think they would fare better in the CPL

MLS reserve teams would devalue the CPL. 

I'm happy they aren't in the league

I'm not sure where all this reserve team is still coming from. The only MLS team that has is TFC and they've gone down a level. I can see them putting reserve teams in CPL 2 if it comes to fruitation down the road.

[Ansem]

8 minutes ago, to70 said:

I'm not sure where all this reserve team is still coming from. The only MLS team that has is TFC and they've gone down a level. I can see them putting reserve teams in CPL 2 if it comes to fruitation down the road.

It's not happening. The league has been clear and consistently refused it.

Don't mind the one or two individuals dreaming of such shortsighted scenario

[Ams1984]

8 hours ago, MM3/MM2/MM said:

C'mon man, nobody is folding after the first season.  I would say it would be at least  3 years before any team folds.  There are some imperfections but the league seems to be built on a strong base. i see a strong 10-12 team league for a long time.  Failure is not an option.

I really don’t get some of the odd negativity coming from a couple of commenters. Based on the repeated line they have uttered, seemingly obsessed with baseless speculation (created by them) that York 9 will fold. It’s almost as if they’ve got an agenda.

[Ams1984]

6 hours ago, Gopherbashi said:

It seems completely off for me, having gone to the game.

The permanent stands have about 3000 seats.  The east GA stands were closed down.  The SG section and the corner suites aren't going to add much more to that.

There's no way that the stands were more than half-full.  It couldn't be turnstile.

All it means is that Y9 has roughly 1700 season tickets sold, aside from the ~25 Blainville supporters who showed up to the game.

Not my impression at all. I was there, 1700 present is accurate. Nobody ever calculates attendance based on season tickets sold. It’s the ticket scanners, and it’s an auto generated number. 

[to70]

10 minutes ago, Ams1984 said:

I really don’t get some of the odd negativity coming from a couple of commenters. Based on the repeated line they have uttered, seemingly obsessed with baseless speculation (created by them) that York 9 will fold. It’s almost as if they’ve got an agenda.

Agree with you totally. Pretty sure the owners of York 9 are in it for a long haul. They wouldn't invest this kind of money just to bail out quickly. Greenpark Homes has been a supporter of soccer for a long time. I've been involved with a couple of soccer organizations that have benefitted from their generosity.

Edited May 24, 2019 by to70

[Ams1984]

1 minute ago, Lofty said:

Yeah, the mere fact the league is up and running is a FANTASTIC win. It will take time for the league to establish itself and it seems as though CSB is forging (no pun intended) deals that will buy that time. There were bound to be some clubs starting at unsustainable levels of attendance but that does not matter in the least at this early stage: it is the ablility of the LEAGUE to establish itself that matters.

It may very well be that some of the original 7 will eventually fall by the wayside, but so long as the league has in the meantime added a bunch of viable clubs, we are golden.

So I'm just tuning out the griping about smaller crowds and focusing instead on the optimism surrounding possible additions.

Agreed. Also, these commenters were speculating about York 9 folding before the Blainville match was even played. It’s trolling or something. 1700 attendance for a Wednesday cup match in shit weather isn’t bad at all. If they can average 3k in league games, they won’t be losing money, so why would they fold? I honestly don’t believe that any of these clubs will fold. Certainly none before the WC in Canada as their business plans likely expect to not be profitable in the short term, and I expect that by then they’ll all be at least breaking even. 

[to70]

You can't base an opinion on season long attendance a midweek Cup game against an unknown to most people amateur side. I'm not sure even TFC or the Whitecaps would get much better numbers against Blainville if it wasn't part of theST package

[Bison44]

20 minutes ago, to70 said:

You can't base an opinion on season long attendance a midweek Cup game against an unknown to most people amateur side. I'm not sure even TFC or the Whitecaps would get much better numbers against Blainville if it wasn't part of theST package

No but you can give backhanded compliments (which are really put downs) and post links to negative stories all day long.  Silly me I thought things were going pretty good but there are always guys that will jump on every little thing.  Stay strong to70!! Its going to be a long season.

[grasshopper1917]

32 minutes ago, Ams1984 said:

Not my impression at all. I was there, 1700 present is accurate. Nobody ever calculates attendance based on season tickets sold. It’s the ticket scanners, and it’s an auto generated number. 

Actually in 99% of professional matches the announced attendance is actually *paid* attendance. There is sometimes a fair discrepancy in the paid attendance and actual people in the seats. This may account for the 1700 number in York's match. Maybe 1000 people there and 700 season ticket holder who never made it - or some similar scenario.

[CDNFootballer]

1 hour ago, grasshopper1917 said:

Actually in 99% of professional matches the announced attendance is actually *paid* attendance. There is sometimes a fair discrepancy in the paid attendance and actual people in the seats. This may account for the 1700 number in York's match. Maybe 1000 people there and 700 season ticket holder who never made it - or some similar scenario.

Virtually all Pro leagues announce tickets distributed as the standard in Canada/USA which includes tickets sold and comped (free).

Turnstile numbers are kept internally.

 

[CDNFootballer]

15 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Interesting how the goalposts shift on here now that reality is replacing aspiration. I was on the receiving end of all kinds of ridicule and at times vile personal abuse on this forum for suggesting that the league should assume attendance of around 3000 initially and that talk of 6000-8000 being the norm was overly optimistic. As things stand at the moment that's looking not too far off now that the initial excitement with home openers is wearing off.

It would be surprising if any franchise at or above that sort of number would throw in the towel unless the investors involved were completely blind to what tends to happen in lower budget pro soccer leagues in North America. The concern would be with any that are significantly under it. As long as there is a net gain in numbers terms on expansion vs departing or relocating strugglers the show goes on and in a worst case scenario they could still relent where having MLS affiliates is concerned, so I'd be very surprised if this league folds any time soon based on what we have seen so far.  

The league is averaging close to 5700 per game after a mere 14 games played so far, only two clubs having sub 3000 announced attendances (2 for Pacific and 1 for Cavs) in those matches and they are slightly above 3000 for their average. Cavs have had pretty bad luck with the weather which has also partially affected Forge and Valour for games.

Typically in other pro soccer leagues in NA the early season games have some poor attendances, we'll have to see how things play out over the season but CPL is not going to be any different in that respect IMHO.

[Gopherbashi]

3 hours ago, Ams1984 said:

Not my impression at all. I was there, 1700 present is accurate. Nobody ever calculates attendance based on season tickets sold. It’s the ticket scanners, and it’s an auto generated number. 

We must have different ideas of what 1700 people look like.

Edited May 25, 2019 by Gopherbashi

[Gopherbashi]

And just to clarify - I'm not saying that York is going to fold after one cup game.

What I'm trying to say is that we should recognise that some teams may fold, and that poor attendance numbers may indicate that certain teams could eventually be headed down that path.

So yes - next to no attendance at a midweek, poorly-advertised, poor-weather game against an amateur side is not necessarily a nail in the coffin.  But it's not a sign of great health either.

Edited May 25, 2019 by Gopherbashi

[Cheeta]

51 minutes ago, CDNFootballer said:

Virtually all Pro leagues announce tickets distributed as the standard in Canada/USA which includes tickets sold and comped (free).

Turnstile numbers are kept internally.

 

Be interesting to see where the frontiers exist between the catagories you've mentioned.  I know it will vary from market to market, and date to date within that market, but I think the impression that there are discrepenacies between turnstile numbers and distributed numbers is getting somewhat exaggerated around here.

If CPL clubs are devaluing their ticktes by flocking them for free this perception has to have a greater chance of being true, but aside from the CPL kickoff match in Hamilton I haven't heard of any club practicing this.  

It's certainly not happening in Winnipeg,  On the worst night possible I couldn't imagine 10-15% of paid tickets going unused.  Not in this town.  Unused corporate tickets I could see inflating the no-show numbers but I'm not sure a significant number of those have been sold to effect the overal percentages to any great extent.  In other markets corporate tickets could be quite a bit larger and good or bad, will reflect that.   Don't know.

[red card]

From Rocket Robin's pics posted in the Voyageurs Cup forum, TD is a presenting sponsor for York 9. Other than Forge and Cavalry having Westjet, I don't recall know of any other clubs garnering a major sponsor. 

 

[grasshopper1917]

1 hour ago, Gopherbashi said:

We must have different ideas of what 1700 people look like.

Honestly if you have that many people in your stands (Home opener aside) on any occasion. It is not unreasonable to question if this is viable. I dont think anyone said they are gonna fold year one. However if we are being reasonable this is a massive red flag. I have seen more people then this at local little league baseball games. There are 300-400 people there - no professional league can have that.

[CDNFootballer]

27 minutes ago, grasshopper1917 said:

Honestly if you have that many people in your stands (Home opener aside) on any occasion. It is not unreasonable to question if this is viable. I dont think anyone said they are gonna fold year one. However if we are being reasonable this is a massive red flag. I have seen more people then this at local little league baseball games. There are 300-400 people there - no professional league can have that.

US open cup games in some US MLS markets have drawn similarily with near empty stadiums. Wouldn't worry about last Wednesdays York9 match.

There's more examples of this but for example, Houston vs NTX Rayados Usoc, in a stadium 4-5 times larger than York Lions :

And another :

Edited May 25, 2019 by CDNFootballer

[Ansem]

25 minutes ago, grasshopper1917 said:

Honestly if you have that many people in your stands (Home opener aside) on any occasion. It is not unreasonable to question if this is viable. I dont think anyone said they are gonna fold year one. However if we are being reasonable this is a massive red flag. I have seen more people then this at local little league baseball games. There are 300-400 people there - no professional league can have that.

It was likely "paid" tickets.

7pm game, midweek, North York... not downtown...is just asking for people to no show.

They should consider Thursdays around 8 instead. Just my opinion. 

[grasshopper1917]

19 minutes ago, Ansem said:

It was likely "paid" tickets.

7pm game, midweek, North York... not downtown...is just asking for people to no show.

They should consider Thursdays around 8 instead. Just my opinion. 

Yea we had the same thing happen in Halifax. Mid week matchup, 6pm Start - people had to rush from work. Was cold as hell, wind blowing like hell. Stands were jammed with 5500 people supporting our Wanderers. Either your club has support or it doesn't. York 9 clearly doesn't. I'll leave it at that. If millionaire owners keep it going that's fine - however the club has no support.

 

[Ansem]

22 minutes ago, grasshopper1917 said:

Yea we had the same thing happen in Halifax. Mid week matchup, 6pm Start - people had to rush from work. Was cold as hell, wind blowing like hell. Stands were jammed with 5500 people supporting our Wanderers. Either your club has support or it doesn't. York 9 clearly doesn't. I'll leave it at that. If millionaire owners keep it going that's fine - however the club has no support.

 

This is Toronto, not Halifax and I mean that the most respectful way. 

The club marketed itself in York Region but aren't playing in York. If you work downtown Toronto and live in Vaughan, you either go straight to the stadium (odds are you won't make it on time) or you go home, change and get to York University, you definately won't make it.

York 9 has done little to no marketing in North York and that's on them. Are they stupid or don't want to poke the TFC bear...I don't know. But North Yorkers like myself are the most likely to get to the stadium on time right after work as I also work in North York. North Yorker working downtown could take the subway to the stadium then go home after...(its somewhat on the way for some or not too far from home after)

There's the problem here... Out of 672k North Yorker, I'd say at least 90% of them don't even know that York 9 exists...so they can't go to an event they don't know is happening.

I don't get why the team is just promoting in York Region but they will have to live with the consequences. They will draw decent on the weekends and mid week will be crap unless they let North York know that they exist.

If not, they will draw once their stadium is built in Vaughan. But hey...if ownership wants it that way...who sm I to judge how they burn their cash

Edited May 25, 2019 by Ansem

[Unnamed Trialist]

6 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

Virtually all Pro leagues announce tickets distributed as the standard in Canada/USA which includes tickets sold and comped (free).

Turnstile numbers are kept internally.

I am not sure but I believe that law requires you to state turnstile in Spain, and perhaps all over Europe. 

Maybe this has to do with knowing how many people and even who is at the game for security reasons.

Official sell-back systems whereby clubs can ensure seats are filled the team is supported, merchandise continues to turn over and the revenue streams stay strong are essential; if some of the CPL clubs with weak attendance from higher-end STHs can roll those empty seats over to occasional fans (Cavalry centre stands, for eg), it benefits all around.