2021 Canadian Premier League Attendance

[JamboAl]

Before we stop or start throwing stones, many on this same board were at the game on Friday night and didn’t go yesterday (for an assortment of reasons).  If I wasn’t a soccer junkie and had a chance to see and talk to long time Vs at the game, I may not have gone either.  

[Aird25]

4 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

I think Ted has covered why the FCE home crowd was always likely to be small for this one but the apparent disinterest from most hardcore soccer fans and officials in town for the CMNT games is more difficult to explain away. Why wouldn't you go see FCE vs Forge under those circumstances? 

The problem CanPL has is that there is next to no link between the emergence of the league and the recent success of the national team and the hardcore fans know that. L1O has played more of a tangible role but I doubt a CMNT triumph will suddenly inspire people to go watch their local L1O team regularly who wouldn't have anyway.

Maybe what's most important is that 2026 (and hopefully 2022) should make CSB a bit of a cash cow at least temporarily.

Sure, he only made the bench, but Pantemis was an every day starter in CPL just last season. Others will follow soon given time. I'm surprised Waterman hasn't been getting any calls 

[shermanator]

What you saw in Edmonton yesterday is the result of 11 years of poor game day experiences, a losing team on the pitch, supporters group infighting, a league move, and now an owner who's running the club on a shoestring budget. Don't go blame the national team supporters for Edmonton's inability to put a professional product out there. 

That being said, people in town for the national team Friday did show up yesterday at Clarke. We had a bunch of Foot Soldiers at the game, Forge had a handful of supporters, Wanderers brought some, some Curva Collective guys were there, etc. 

I said this earlier in the year but FC Edmonton as a club is in big trouble. They have an opportunity to recover given that they can actually market the product in the offseason, but there is no way the ownership group puts more money into the product. The only way that they get out of this mess is to have a new ownership group come in and treat FC Edmonton like a professional soccer team. 

[jonovision]

This particular Edmonton match, rescheduled to a week after the match weekend that was meant to end the CPL season, due to Forge's other commitments, with FCE's season having been competitively over for a month or more, would always be a tough sell. Other than out of town Vs maybe looking to kill some time on a Saturday, I can't see any reason for any sort of spillover effect from the MNT matches.

[narduch]

Just now, jonovision said:

This particular Edmonton match, rescheduled to a week after the match weekend that was meant to end the CPL season, due to Forge's other commitments, with FCE's season having been competitively over for a month or more, would always be a tough sell. Other than out of town Vs maybe looking to kill some time on a Saturday, I can't see any reason for any sort of spillover effect from the MNT matches.

I personally think they should just cancel Forge v Cavalry coming up on Tuesday 

[jonovision]

In a season not as compressed at this one, one would hope the league would be more firm with its own schedule, at least to the point that the regular season ends on time. You can understand the need to be flexible to accommodate CCL ambitions, but they should not bend over backwards.

[Cheeta]

Couple 'o thoughts.

Nobody should use 2021 as a gauge for anything.  And local circumstances form too much into each team's marketability to provide a league wide template for success or failure.  Just my opinion.

As has been mentioned, and I think this CAN BE applied league wide successfully, is using the match schedule to best effect.  Efforts at cost saving through travel reductions hurts gates.  I firmly believe that's a truth CanPL HQ already knows.  Four home fixtures in 14 days is not helping attendance.  It's that simple.

Again, hoping we'll see more of a normal, balanced league calender in 2022 and expect that will help.  Home this week away next. Getting to 3 matches in a week and a half feel like work.  I'm still going but that's me.

[Watchmen]

7 hours ago, shermanator said:

What you saw in Edmonton yesterday is the result of 11 years of poor game day experiences, a losing team on the pitch, supporters group infighting, a league move, and now an owner who's running the club on a shoestring budget. Don't go blame the national team supporters for Edmonton's inability to put a professional product out there. 

That being said, people in town for the national team Friday did show up yesterday at Clarke. We had a bunch of Foot Soldiers at the game, Forge had a handful of supporters, Wanderers brought some, some Curva Collective guys were there, etc. 

I said this earlier in the year but FC Edmonton as a club is in big trouble. They have an opportunity to recover given that they can actually market the product in the offseason, but there is no way the ownership group puts more money into the product. The only way that they get out of this mess is to have a new ownership group come in and treat FC Edmonton like a professional soccer team. 

Setting aside yesterday's FCE game, was there any promotion at the CMNT game about next year for them? Something like "secure your seats now for 2022"? Because to go back to someone's question on "what can the CPL do?" - that's my big thing - cross promote the CPL in the city with the biggest soccer crowd they'll get in years. Hell, the CPL probably should have done it themselves if FCE wasn't going to.

[CDNFootballer]

FC Edmonton did send out emails on Friday pitching the season tickets and packs for next year.

Hopefully they were just seeing this 2021 pandemic season organized at the last minute as a stopgap year and will plan for a more normal regular season next year, though I don't see them increasing marketing much as they have always been minimal in that area except for one of the earlier years in NASL.

The Eddies will be around as long as the Fath's are interested in them, which could be awhile, but new ownership is needed for the club to grow imo.

[shermanator]

On 11/14/2021 at 5:15 PM, CDNFootballer said:

FC Edmonton did send out emails on Friday pitching the season tickets and packs for next year.

Hopefully they were just seeing this 2021 pandemic season organized at the last minute as a stopgap year and will plan for a more normal regular season next year, though I don't see them increasing marketing much as they have always been minimal in that area except for one of the earlier years in NASL.

The Eddies will be around as long as the Fath's are interested in them, which could be awhile, but new ownership is needed for the club to grow imo.

And some of their supporters are bitching that they did so. Whereas going into this year the supporters bitched that they couldn't renew season tickets a few months before the season was due to start. Meanwhile in Calgary, they sent out season ticket renewals in early November and we just bought them without questioning it.

This is part of the problem in Edmonton. The majority of the people left who support the team are completely miserable to be around. Making games even less attractive than they would be elsewhere.

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by shermanator

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

2104 announced for Forge vs Cavalry:

https://canpl.ca/matchcentre/bmu0e2youzujrv20atd0w3ms4/highlights

[Pottsy3]

11 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

2104 announced for Forge vs Cavalry:

https://canpl.ca/matchcentre/bmu0e2youzujrv20atd0w3ms4/highlights

I'm surprised it was this low, my section was definitely missing a lot of the usual suspects but the rest of the stadium seemed to be somewhat normal. I would've thought about 3500.

I'd attribute the low attendance to the early 6pm start time (which perfectly allowed everyone to get home in time for the Canada match) and the meaninglessness with the standings already being set.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

[ted]

Holy crap, Halifax only had 5 home games all season!?! I guess that helped make the games they did play at home special but come on. 

[narduch]

1 minute ago, ted said:

Holy crap, Halifax only had 5 home games all season!?! I guess that helped make the games they did play at home special but come on. 

That doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't they have had 10?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

13 minutes ago, ted said:

Holy crap, Halifax only had 5 home games all season!?! I guess that helped make the games they did play at home special but come on. 

...only 5 with known attendance numbers.

[ted]

20 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

...only 5 with known attendance numbers.

The perhaps that should be noted on the table. LOL

[Pottsy3]

Do we have numbers from the cup matches? At least for Forge, the last CONCACAF League Match and the CF Montreal match were definitely two of the higher attended this season.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

I've been posting those on here in this thread but the guy who did that graphic hasn't been including them in those averages.

[grasshopper1917]

Hopefully the playoff matches have some good draws. There is much talk about York and Edmonton however frankly Calgary for a top level team has drawn flies. Besides their supporters section the mains stand is usually more then 50% empty. Surely anything less then a mostly full stadium would be a disappointment? No?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Not looking good so far on ticketmaster for the Cavalry game having an above average crowd. Still seats available at both ends, which are normally the ones that go quickly, but maybe there will be a late rush of interest on the day of the game. Think it probably needs to be the final before the game starts to attract significant extra interest. 

Beyond that the league needs to adjust its business model to the actual level of interest in its product at this point or its unlikely to have a long term future. We are into mundane reality now so all the fantasy scenarios being peddled a few years ago about 6500 being the norm across the league are no longer applicable in terms of setting expectations outside of Halifax.

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[ted]

10 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

We are into mundane reality now so all the fantasy scenarios being peddled a few years ago about 6500 being the norm across the league are no longer applicable in terms of setting expectations outside of Halifax.

 

That was and is a target and no sane commentator ever suggested that would be league-wide in the first three - five years, especially after COVID which set things back by at least two years.

Of course you know this as we have had this very discussion before so repeating this lie certainly doesn't support your assertion you are an honest critic of this league.

[longlugan]

Ozzie dishonest? Well I never...

[grasshopper1917]

what was that???

[CDNFootballer]

Most realized when the season and this thread started that this is not a year to judge much of anything attendance wise going forward because it was being played in a pandemic and the uncertainty/lateness of the season's organization.

Of course the parrot reads into it what he delusionally wants to hear to support his ludicrous low level bus league type fantasy for CPL as usual.