The Grey Cup game needs to leave Toronto.
Sure Toronto is the largest city and it is relatively central to the rest of the league but they have enough going on, especially these days.
The Blue Jays and Raptors both played in the conference championships this year, the soccer team Toronto FC are currently in the conference championships, the World Cup of Hockey was in Toronto in September, the World Juniors are in
Toronto in late December, early January, the Centennial Classic outdoor hockey game between the Leafs and Detroit Red Wings is in Toronto on New Year’s Day and the Maple Leafs are fun to watch again with all of their young players.
With all of that going on people are not going to have a whole lot of extra money to be spending on Grey Cup tickets.
Toronto has played host to the Grey Cup a total of 48 times, including the game held there on Nov. 27, which is three times as many as Vancouver who has hosted the second most times at 16.
To put that in perspective Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary and Edmonton have combined to host the Grey Cup just 15 times, despite being consistent football franchises for a combined 330 years, including every year since Edmonton became a franchise again in 1949.
The Grey Cup needs to move around, and in the last ten years the Canadian Football League has done a better job of doing that, but there have still been two franchises who have not hosted the Grey Cup in that span.
Ottawa, who admittedly is only in its third season of re-existence and gets to host next year, and Hamilton who has not played host to the big game since 1996, despite making back-to-back appearances in the final in 2013 and 2014.
As someone who is from Ontario, I can tell you that the Grey Cup is not really on a lot of people’s radar.
Ottawa has started to become a much bigger CFL city now that they have a team again selling past capacity for their home games, Hamilton also sold a decent amount of tickets, nearly averaging a sell out, but Toronto, with so much going on has other things to focus their time on struggled to sell tickets, finishing in last by approximately 4,000 tickets per game.
Meanwhile on the prairies, Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Calgary finished with the top three average ticket sales in the league respectively.
Why is the game being sent to a place that brings the league attendance average down by over 1,000 tickets and sells approximately 9,350 tickets fewer than the average of the other eight teams?
I asked one of my friends if he was excited for the Grey Cup and he responded by asking me what sport that was.
If you asked a person in Saskatchewan if they were excited for the Grey Cup most of the responses would not only be that they are but they could tell you what they were planning on doing for the game.
This despite the ‘Riders being the league’s worst team for each of the past two seasons, winning just eight of 36 games in that span.
It is a much different culture in Saskatchewan than it is in Ontario and as such the game needs to head to Riderville more often.
Now I do not know for sure but maybe part of the appeal of playing the game in Toronto is because the game’s television broadcaster is based in Toronto and it just makes it easier for them to broadcast from there.
Or maybe it is because it is usually colder on the prairies during November than it is in Toronto.
But this is the Canadian(!) Football League. If we cannot embrace the cold and bad weather for our own football league then what is the point of having it?
Sure it makes the game less fun for the fans, but as I am always told when I complain about the cold in Saskatchewan, dress for it and it is not bad.
The game needs to leave Toronto and what better place to play host than the prairies.
Besides, the ‘Riders have a brand new stadium that needs to be shown off to the rest of the country, just like the Argonauts did this year.
