Wayne D's Blog

MLSE doesn't really care about the Argos and it shows. With half the gates at BMO field closed to prepare the site for the World Cup they did nothing to alleviate the crowding at the the remaining gates. It was business as usual resulting in long lines to get into the games. At the last game of the season where they sold extra tickets there was a long line of fans trying to enter the stadium at game time. Were there any extra staff there to help manage the lines? No. It's unconscionable to charge $7.25 for a bottle of water when half of the stadium is in full sun. The water fountains that are available at BMO field are grossly inadequate for the size of the venue and don't even have water bottle fill capabilities which makes those who do line up to use them wait even longer. At least one of the water fountains also dispenses warm water and has such a weak flow that it's practically unusable. The public address system on the east side of the stadium is unintelligible, wasn't this bad last year but this year you couldn't understand anything the referee or on-field hosts were saying.

6 home games next year, first game at BMO field sometime in August. MLSE has relabelled 3 away games as home games only one of which is within driving distance of Toronto. I'm certainly not going to Hamilton for one of our "home games". BC managed to put their rescheduled games into venues which allow their fans to attend without flying half way across the country and also put the games into stadiums in places where they might attract new fans. MLSE seems to have picked the easiest and cheapest options for them and for TSN. How about a game in Kingston, Guelph, Waterloo or London? You grow the fan base by taking the game to them and getting them in the stands.

The owners don't care about the fans. The fiddling with the rules and making the game more like the NFL will do nothing to attract new fans. It's also an incredibly tone deaf thing to do when there is so much anti-American sentiment in Canada at the current time. All the CFL has managed to do is alienate their most loyal fans. They talk glowingly about expansion but who is going to want to join a league when 7 out of the 9 teams are losing money, the owners don't want to spend any money promoting the game. You want me to pony up money for season's tickets when I don't know where any of the sections are going to be based on the new layout, no thanks.

TSN doesn't care about the fans in the seats, the CFL commissioner made a big point of saying the changes to the shot clock will speed up the game, do you know what slows the game down more than anything else? TV commercial timeouts, I understand that the CFL needs TV money to survive but calling a TV timeout in the middle of the series, second and 6 for example is irritating. They also like to call a commercial break when the momentum in the game switches. It's almost like the TSN producers are doing their best to interrupt the flow of the game. How about we start by only calling a TV commercial timeout when possession changes.

Getting to BMO field is a huge trial. This season there were games where the GO train wasn't running or skipped BMO field. If you live north of the city transit isn't really an option especially if you have limited mobility, and/or it's a weeknight game.I'm not giving up on going to games but I'll see how things go next season.

That's all I can come up with for now, I may add more later or add a second part later.