The Grey Cup: Loved by Canadians, presented by Shaw Communications

[TVViewer]

The Grey Cup: Loved by Canadians, presented by Shaw Communications


Shaw becomes exclusive telecommunications partner of the CFL and presenting partner of the Grey Cup in historic partnership



CALGARY, May 8, 2015 — In a sweeping partnership agreement with the Canadian Football League (CFL) announced today, Shaw Communications Inc. has become the first ever presenting sponsor of the Grey Cup. This multi-year partnership names Shaw the official telecommunications partner of the CFL and includes several sponsorship components.

Shaw’s new sponsorship also includes prominent branding across CFL broadcasts on TSN, the official broadcaster of the CFL and the Grey Cup.

“Shaw, a great Canadian company, is the perfect match for the great Canadian tradition that is the Grey Cup,” said Jeffrey L. Orridge, the Commissioner of the Canadian Football League. “We all know the annual celebration of our championship game belongs to every Canadian. This partnership with Shaw will allow us to present it bigger and better than ever.”

“The CFL is Canada’s premier sporting event, reaching millions from coast-to-coast every week, and this partnership will provide Shaw with a historic national platform that allows us to connect with our customers and CFL fans in a meaningful way,” said Brad Shaw, CEO of Shaw Communications Inc. “We are proud to support such a profoundly Canadian institution as the CFL and are privileged to be the first ever presenting sponsor in the Grey Cup’s storied history.”

Shaw’s presenting partnership of the Grey Cup, the largest single day sporting event in the country, will be the culmination of a year round commitment to the CFL and its millions of fans. Leading up to the Grey Cup, Shaw will also be the title partner of the Shaw Player Awards and weekly player achievement program giving fans the opportunity to recognize amazing CFL talent.

Beginning after Labour Day weekend, Shaw will partner with the CFL and CFL ON TSN on an innovative content series called Shaw Road to the Grey Cup. Featured prominently during CFL game broadcasts, the series will also be prevalent on TSN and CFL digital properties.

“We are very excited to work with Shaw in such a significant and impactful way as we cover the journey to the Grey Cup, one of the biggest annual events on TSN,” said Stewart Johnston, President of TSN. “Our multi-platform broadcast partnership is the perfect match to amplify TSN’s comprehensive coverage of Canada’s greatest football celebration.”

Canadian Football League training camps open at the end of May. The regular season kicks off Thursday, June 25.

The 103rd Grey Cup presented by Shaw, broadcast exclusively on TSN, takes place at Investors Group Field in Winnipeg on Sunday, November 29th.

[PokerFace]

Congratulations to the CFL for getting Shaw on board. Bell broadcasts the games and Shaw can now pretend that it owns the league.

Hey, Shaw, do you wanna buy the Argos?

Rogers is perhaps now contemplating getting out of the Shomi endeavor to launch its own streaming service called BlowMe!

[InMontreal]

Nail to the coffin. Now it's clear the Grey Cup will NEVER air on CONVENTIONAL television (Global ain't allowed to air what they produce), eventho it's brings very good ratings every year, CTV prefers simulcasting US shows... but dumps those same shows on CTV Two whenever there's an award show to simulcast.

[PokerFace]

Even though the Grey Cup gets big ratings, I'm now quite comfortable with it being a TSN exclusive ... perhaps that's because I was only watching Montreal games while Anthony Calvillo was still playing QB. Without him, I simply don't care.

Of the top 50 players in the CFL, as rated by TSN, I only recognize 4 of them: Ricky Ray, Chad Owens, Henry Burris and Travis Lulay.

http://cfl.ca/article/best-of-the-be...fl-top-50-list
[Top 50 CFL players List for 2014]

[Donovan's Monkey]

Even though the Grey Cup gets big ratings, I'm now quite comfortable with it being a TSN exclusive ...

The CFL attracts TV sponsors like Humpty's Restaurants, Safeway, and Robin's Donuts. I know none of those exist in Toronto (or maybe anywhere east of Thunder Bay?), so no prize for guessing where most of the viewers are. Maybe obtaining the CFL TV rights might make sense for the more western-Canada oriented Shaw, although with no sports channel of their own I don't know if it could easily fit into Global's schedule without displacing other programming.

Grey Cup TV ratings are supposedly still substantial, but even CFL lackey Zelkovich acknowledges they've taken double digit drops each of the last two years,
http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/eh-...180806741.html

with their older audience dying off as they fail to attract many new younger fans.
http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Wi...556/story.html

And as I pointed out in the thread about BBM/Numeris, most of what we hear is manipulated alleged TV ratings information (or as Toronto Sports Media called it, "crap") that comes not from Numeris, but from publicity releases of someone tooting their own horn, in this case the CFL since Zelkovich has acknowledged that is who provides his alleged numbers. But the TV ratings for Grey Cup are made directly available by Numeris since it makes that National Top 30 list for that week, so they can't get away with the usual unverifiable b.s. or just hoping no one notices the big drop off.

Ironically, it's the team in Toronto of this league with the old fan base that has others yelling "Get Off My Lawn!" at them.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/blueja...rs-centre.html


CFL talk also makes me think of the "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" episode of South Park, which ended with them at a RoughRiders/RoughRiders game.
http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Terr...ithout_My_Anus

[ottawasnowdog]

Ottawa has the other issue to many young fans last year they had 17,000 season tickets sold out of that around 12,000 were bought by people under 45.

[PokerFace]

I will severely limit my NFL viewing time this year, thanks to the annoying rules (what do you mean Dez Bryant didn't catch the ball?), and the Grey Cup will be my only CFL sampling for this season.

I assume that I'll still end up watching some NCAA Football games this upcoming season, but that's only because I'm interested in the playoff system that creates plenty of controversy and confusion. The blown calls on the field are also annoying, but it's time for me to leave the NFL behind.

[Donovan's Monkey]

I will severely limit my NFL viewing time this year ...

Since just about everything is available to everyone today, I think most people who watch sports have one, two, or maybe at most three sports or teams they watch all they can or have time for, with no time to be a casual fan of anything else. If you're not particularly enthralled by some sport -- baseball, hockey, etc. -- you're probably going to completely ignore it nowadays, unlike once upon a time when you might watch something just because it happened to be on one of the few TV channels that were available. I think that's probably where the CFL has lost out (certainly in Toronto) in recent times, as it got increasingly left behind by those who may have casually watched it in that manner.

I suppose one drawback is that it makes it more difficult to have conversations with others at work or family gatherings if you all watch different things. I'm pretty sure I'd get nothing but blank looks if I tried to bring up the obscure sports car racing I spend my Saturday and Sunday mornings watching. But I definitely prefer being able to watch anything I want over having to rely on a few TV executives to be the gatekeepers deciding what is worthy of being seen by all the rest of us.

The NFL is the one "stick and ball" type of sport I watch over others, at least in part because it's on Sunday afternoons during the racing off-season.
BTW, the thing about having to maintain control of the ball after the receiver falls to the ground for it to be a complete pass had been called that way for a year or two. Even when seeing it (on TV) as it happened before the first replay, I thought that it would be ruled incomplete.

[PokerFace]

I'm not sure how golf still manages to find an audience on the OTA networks, but I'd also like it to be a cable exclusive.

If you enjoy watching golf, you should be able to watch anything ... except for darts, perhaps.

[Donovan's Monkey]

... with their older audience dying off as they fail to attract many new younger fans.
http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Wi...556/story.html
...

Ottawa has the other issue to many young fans last year they had 17,000 season tickets sold out of that around 12,000 were bought by people under 45.

I don't know about Ottawa or Hamilton, but this survey points out what everyone already thought -- that the Argos and CFL don't seem to have been attracting any new fans in Toronto for the last 30 years.
http://www.thestar.com/sports/2015/1...-to-argos.html

Forum Research polled 1,001 Ontarians about their favourite sports teams, only two per cent said they cheered primarily for the Toronto Argonauts compared with 28 per cent for the Blue Jays. And among the 18-34 demographic marketers covet ... not a single respondent identified themselves first and foremost as an Argos fan. Not one.

There seems to be plenty of overly optimistic thinking among some CFL types that moving to a different stadium will somehow result in a huge increase in the team's popularity. But if no one younger than middle-aged cares, I find it difficult to imagine it will have anything more than a marginal temporary increase in home attendance, and eventually illustrate that the stadium was not the problem. And now that I think about it, how many of their remaining fans over 45 (who are accustomed to the dome) are going to like sitting outside for three hours on a cold rainy Friday night in October or November?

[Mayhem]

I don't know about Ottawa or Hamilton, but this survey points out what everyone already thought -- that the Argos and CFL don't seem to have been attracting any new fans in Toronto for the last 30 years.

Yet they're in denial. They're blaming the Pan-Am games and the Jays good year for the the drop-off over the past 30 years.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/2015/1...-to-argos.htmlThere seems to be plenty of overly optimistic thinking among some CFL types that moving to a different stadium will somehow result in a huge increase in the team's popularity. But if no one younger than middle-aged cares, I find it difficult to imagine it will have anything more than a marginal temporary increase in home attendance, and eventually illustrate that the stadium was not the problem. And now that I think about it, how many of their remaining fans over 45 (who are accustomed to the dome) are going to like sitting outside for three hours on a cold rainy Friday night in October or November?

Their banking on the "tailgating experience" to draw spectators to the games since the CNE still has parking lot space in the downtown. Ignoring the fact that people in the GTA just don't care about the Argos to begin with.

[Donovan's Monkey]

... Their banking on the "tailgating experience" to draw spectators to the games since the CNE still has parking lot space in the downtown. Ignoring the fact that people in the GTA just don't care about the Argos to begin with.

I think the laws in Ontario generally don't allow drinking in parking lots anyway, if that's what the alleged attraction is supposed to be. I remember hearing cops were ticketing some people there before a soccer game if they saw them carrying open cans or bottles.

[Mayhem]

I think the laws in Ontario generally don't allow drinking in parking lots anyway, if that's what the alleged attraction is supposed to be. I remember hearing cops were ticketing some people there before a soccer game if they saw them carrying open cans or bottles.

The city is allow under law to permit the consumption of beer on city own properties if they city permits and can regulate where such person or persons can drink. So they can permit beer drinking if they wanted to, and with the Argos desperate to draw in new blood, I can see them permitting if they asked. But looking at some recent interviews with the team owner, looks like it's going to be more of a "corporate tailgate" party instead of a one you would expect.


As for the ticketing, BMO Field does sell beer, but unauthorized beer that wasn't purchased from BMO Field is illegal under the Liquor License Act as only licensed (aka sponsored) beer may be sold on the premise. It's basically don't bring outside food rule, except its law in this case.

[Donovan's Monkey]

... There seems to be plenty of overly optimistic thinking among some CFL types that moving to a different stadium will somehow result in a huge increase in the team's popularity... I find it difficult to imagine it will have anything more than a marginal temporary increase in home attendance, and eventually illustrate that the stadium was not the problem.

Yet they're in denial. They're blaming the Pan-Am games and the Jays good year for the the drop-off over the past 30 years.

I was wrong. I thought there might be a year or two before the novelty of the new stadium would wear off, but all those overly optimistic types are already expressing their disappointment after seeing the less than half-full BMO Field last night for the second (or third if you count the pre-season) home game.
And somehow, I suppose it was all Rogers' fault, eh guys?

[ottawasnowdog]

I was wrong. I thought there might be a year or two before the novelty of the new stadium would wear off, but all those overly optimistic types are already expressing their disappointment after seeing the less than half-full BMO Field last night for the second (or third if you count the pre-season) home game.
And somehow, I suppose it was all Rogers' fault, eh guys?

Those types your talking about thought they would avg 30,000 and there would be a waiting list for tickets reality the Argos will avg 20,000 do ok.

[Donovan's Monkey]

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/08/20...-eskimos-46-23

... there couldn't have been more than 5,000 people in the stands.

-- which was also about how many were showing up at SkyDome in the last couple of years, in spite of whatever fictional numbers they may have been announcing. Instead of spending more than $100 million to pointlessly expand the soccer stadium from 20,000 to 30,000 seats, they should have worked out something with the University Of Toronto to spend a fraction of that (for new turf, dressing rooms, TV camera stands, media facilities, etc.) to use the 5000 seat Varsity Stadium, which they had already been using for pre-season games.

[ottawasnowdog]

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/08/20...-eskimos-46-23 -- which was also about how many were showing up at SkyDome in the last couple of years, in spite of whatever fictional numbers they may have been announcing. Instead of spending more than $100 million to pointlessly expand the soccer stadium from 20,000 to 30,000 seats, they should have worked out something with the University Of Toronto to spend a fraction of that (for new turf, dressing rooms, TV camera stands, media facilities, etc.) to use the 5000 seat Varsity Stadium, which they had already been using for pre-season games.

That would not meet the leagues requirements for a full time home stadium it has to have min 20,000 seats.

[Donovan's Monkey]

That would not meet the leagues requirements for a full time home stadium it has to have min 20,000 seats.

Ha ha!
[sarcasm] Yeah, right. I'm sure the rest of the CFL would threaten to tell Bell/TSN to get lost, revoke their franchise and fold the team in the country's largest city, just to try to make sure they continued playing their home games in a mostly empty stadium that looks bad (for them and the league) on TV, instead of one the right size for the crowds they draw. [/sarcasm]

[ottawasnowdog]

A 5000 seat stadium in the largest city would be a big pr issue for the league now if it came down to it could they let them play in a 5000 stadium its possible but there would be conditions maybe it means no home games are broadcast and they woul;d not be allowed to host any Cfl event.

[Donovan's Monkey]

http://twitter.com/EmptySeatsPics/st...01186847444993
They've already closed off the upper level on the east side of the stadium, in a futile attempt to make the rest of the stadium look more full. Maybe they need to also close the upper level on the west side. And the lower level. And the end zone ones. Yeah, that might do it.
http://www.thebeaverton.com/2016/09/...ot-empty-seat/