I do remember the days of Indy in Vancouver. That wasn't exactly instant seating. Set up for the stands started weeks in advance of the races.Belize City Lion wrote:A major missed opportunity by the Lions. David mentioned brand. That was the opportunity, to enhance the brand. IMO, Kamloops should have been the site for this game. Sure there is little permanent seating but temporary bleachers could have been brought in. Remember the days of Indy Vancouver? In a matter of days seating for 100,000 people was set up on the streets of the city. Certainly the people running the facility in Kamloops could have had seating for 10-15,000 set up in no time.
A pre-season game in Kamloops would have been an EVENT. The Lions had all of training camp to push ticket sales in that community. Even from a strictly logistical point of view it would have allowed the team to remain in Kamloops and not break camp until AFTER the final exhibition game, effectively giving them an extra day of training camp.
This game at Thunderbird is an inconvenience no matter how (badly) the Lions marketing team tries to spin it. Fans in the interior would have been thrilled to get a game in their backyard compared to lower mainland fans who will find the Thunderbird experience substandard.
It would be a challenge to add 2000 seats in Kamloops and absolutely impossible to add 10000 unless somebody was willing to spend ridiculous money for a 3 hour game. There is very little real estate to work with. The football playing surface is surrounded by a track. Putting anything with weight like bleachers with several tons of humanity on the track in Kamloops type weather could permanently damage the track surface. The TRU playing surface and track is bordered on 3 sides by immovable objects. On the north end is the scoreboard and a permanent fence. On the west side are the permanent stands. On the south end is the TRU Conference Centre. This leaves a wedge shaped piece of concrete on the other side of the field from the permanent stands and it has some challenges. field. There is a light standard for field lighting at the 55 yard line beside the track. There are 2 storage buildings towards the south goal line that effectively make the 15 yard line the boundary there. The pointy end of the wedge reaches into the north endzone. Once you come out to the 15 you have 40' to work with between the track and the permanent fence that separates stadium facility from an embankment that drops down to the road below. That expands to about 100' at midfield between the light tower and the back fence. Realistically there's about 75 yards of "sideline frontage" on the east side to work with for adding temporary seating. You'd need to put in about 50 rows of seats to add 8000 fannies.
As for the training camp extension idea the CFLPA would be all over that like an offensive lineman on a 32 oz rib-eye. Training camp officially starts on the first day veterans are required to attend a meeting or practice other than the day prior to camp when medicals are conducted. For BC this year that was May 31st. Per the CBA training camp ends on the 18th day from and including the day it began. For the Lions training camp officially ended yesterday per the CBA. Teams are now In what the CBA calls "Out of Camp Period". For purposes of practice they are now in regular season mode with all the practice do's and don'ts applying. That means one contact practice per week.