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comment_101753

The idea that folks with kids only live in the Burbs is so quaintly prairies.  Vancouver's stadium and Arena are both right downtown as are lots of young families.

 

Good point, BC would also draw better if the stadium was located in the vicinity of Abbotsford.  Tons of people don't want to bother with a weekly trip to the "big city" and all that it entails, especially seniors and people with kids.

 

When I refer to suburbs of Toronto I'm encompassing the area from Owen Sound to North Bay to Kingston.  A stadium in the vicinity of Markham or New Market would make for easy access for aprox. 5 million and the 5,000 or so from Toronto who now attend Argos games would still have direct rail access.

comment_101755

Abbotsford would be ridiculous.  It's an hour away from Vancouver on a good day and there's no Skytrain to get to it.  In big cities, the stadium needs to be central and you need to be able to get there easily through rapid transit.  You can't put your stadium an hour or more away from half of your fans and that's exactly what would happen if you put it in any outlying quadrant of Toronto or Vancouver for that matter.  A smaller, newer stadium might help in TO.

comment_101772

 

Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal is the only big cities in the CFL. You want to compare Toronto to Winnipeg?

You know ... as a real estate professional, I thought you'd be a lot better at using the proper variables in this conversation.

It's not strictly size that has to be looked at.

 

Your right, it's not strictly size.  It's location, location, location.  Downtown works for the Leafs, the Raptors, the Blue Jays and the FC.  All venues are within 15 minutes of each other.  It's not where the stadium is that hurts the Argos and building a new CFL only stadium elsewhere in the city makes almost no sense.

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comment_101773

Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal is the only big cities in the CFL. You want to compare Toronto to Winnipeg?

You know ... as a real estate professional, I thought you'd be a lot better at using the proper variables in this conversation.

It's not strictly size that has to be looked at.

Your right, it's not strictly size. It's location, location, location. Downtown works for the Leafs, the Raptors, the Blue Jays and the FC. All venues are within 15 minutes of each other. It's not where the stadium is that hurts the Argos and building a new CFL only stadium elsewhere in the city makes almost no sense.

If the Raptors and the Leafs are tying up the downtown dollars, attack another portion of what is a huge sports market. Leafs get the corporate dollar, that much is a given. Don't compete with the Raptors for the family or individual dollar, identify and target another area within the GTA.

It makes sense.

comment_101778

There's no such thing as 'Downtown Dollars'.  The downtown area draws from the GTA.  The Raptors and the Leafs don't often play at the same time as the Argo's so they are only in competition on game day a few times a year.  As for competition for the sports dollar in general, that doesn't change no matter where you put a stadium in the city.

 

The venues are close together so that businesses around them can survive and thrive.  10 dates at a CFL stadium isn't enough to support restaurants and bars around the venue.  Stadiums on university campuses help businesses 10 times a year, but it's the students who make them viable, not the stadium.  

 

The best idea is to share the BMO field with the FC and the CFL has been actively trying to accomplish that for a couple (few?) years.

comment_101789

Problem with BMO Field is that's its owned by Rogers, which also owns Sportsnet. Argos/CFL games are broadcast on TSN, obviously a major competitor. That's why getting MLSE to buy the Argos is a bit of a challenge, or at least one of the challenges.

BMO Field is owned by the City and managed by MLSE. MLSE did have plans to renovate BMO Field to include a CFL-size field but they wanted more government funding and then it got caught in politics. I don't know the current status of those plans. Would be nice if Bluto was around to give an update.

comment_101927

We need Bluto's take here on the Argo fan demographics. I believe that he hates going to Argo games at Rogers Centre downtown weeknights. 

He's said many times that the Argo fan base is a suburban one. Downtown arenas might work for things like the Leafs where the support is all corporate and so many games are on week days. The crowd in Toronto for the leafs is a lot of suits, That's not the Argos demographic. 

 

Trying to compare Vancouver and Toronto is just silly. There's no mountains and oceans influencing how sprawled out the GTA can be. Now from what I can tell Toronto has a lot of commuting from the burbs going on, and considering that the downtown is on the lake anyway does that not make downtown the least centralized place? A city like Calgary or Winnipeg has expanded outwards in all directions from downtown, Toronto can't go outward in one direction, it goes outward from the lake, putting a stadium outside downtown would be more centralized. 

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