Monday, November 8, 2010

Comparison of 2009 and 2010 Ticat Attendance

Two 9 and 9 seasons back to back make it a bit more convenient to compare attendance for this year and last year. Here's the 2010 regular season attendance game by game with the opponent:

2010
Calgary 25,248
Winnipeg 21,408
Winnipeg 23,653
Toronto 30,319
Montreal 23,452
Saskatchewan 23,108
Edmonton 20,791
Montreal 23,118
BC 23,931
Total 215,028 (23,892 Average)

Besides the Labour Day, the next biggest was the Calgary game with 25,248. Strangely the game against BC last weekend was third with 23,931 attending. It didn't look like a bad crowd but it didn't look like a great crowd either so I'm wondering if this number is a bit suspect. I did see more BC fans than I expected including some at the Prince Edward Tavern following the game.

The Edmonton game at 20,791 was the low point, but Edmonton was relatively weak at that point in the season. No sub 20,000 games this year. The Rider game was weaker than last year. I blame this on the fact the Riders played back to back in Toronto and Hamilton this year. Spreading out the games would probably maximize Southern Ontario Rider fan attendance. Plus Saskatchewan is the richest team in the league, so don't bother trying to save them money by doing Hamilton and Toronto on one road trip.

2009
Toronto 23,211
Winnipeg 24,292
BC 20,103
Edmonton 19,206
Toronto 30,293
Calgary 19,448
Montreal 22,083
Winnipeg 19,562
Saskatchewan 24,586
Total 202,784 (22,532 Average)
Compared to the 2010 opener, the 2009 was significantly smaller and had an ostensibly better opponent in Toronto. Hopefully the Cats can build on this and make the opener their second Labour Day. Three sub 20,000 games in 2009 were a big difference from 2009. In terms of teams, BC and Calgary were up significantly from 2009.

Overall the attendance was up by a healthy 6% in 2010. It will probably be difficult in getting as large a percentage bump in 2011 since the 2009 team was significantly improved over the 2008 version which likely showed up in higher ticket sales for 2010. A 3% increase is probably a realistic goal.

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