When the Hell is this team going to be sold?!?!

[footballtom]

A winning team and better atmosphere may help attendance bounce back some but, barring major social changes, the days of Lions sellouts are gone forever. TV/streaming is too convenient, and the world financial and environmental outlook is too uncertain. The Canucks are more resistant to these pressures, but will be affected as well. Too bad the Lions are stuck in a facility built ina completely different social and economic environment. BC Place is a dinosaur. The province was crazy to sink so much money into it when they did.

I agree what a waist of money when the city could have built a outdoor facility ( real outdoor facility) like bmo field for way less money and still had all the great events we have had in this city . Something in the range of 35,000 seats were you could add seats in for grey cups , women's world cup etc.

WHAT A WAIST.

[The_Pauser]

A winning team and better atmosphere may help attendance bounce back some but, barring major social changes, the days of Lions sellouts are gone forever. TV/streaming is too convenient, and the world financial and environmental outlook is too uncertain. The Canucks are more resistant to these pressures, but will be affected as well. Too bad the Lions are stuck in a facility built ina completely different social and economic environment. BC Place is a dinosaur. The province was crazy to sink so much money into it when they did.

I agree what a waist of money when the city could have built a outdoor facility ( real outdoor facility) like bmo field for way less money and still had all the great events we have had in this city . Something in the range of 35,000 seats were you could add seats in for grey cups , women's world cup etc.

WHAT A WAIST.

I'm sure a diet could help the waist problem, but then we would be wasting all those pizza's and burgers. We wouldn't want to waste any food would we?

[cromartie]

I don't think David Braley is the problem as much as Dennis Skulsky.

Bingo.

A couple of things.

First, television money now more or less assures that no club is so close to the end of its rope financially that sustained poor gate attendance would leave it moribund. The same things that keep people from stadiums drive them to their televisions and other forms of social media. DS is right on one front, which is that television, not gate revenue is now driving the bus and weeknight games in the summer are conducive to television packaging, particularly tapping into a US market where international sports, for some reason, are now a thing, especially with ESPN in need of low cost programming over the summer months.

Second, as with Toronto, downtown stadiums with limited parking/tailgating are a great inconvenience for out of towners to get to on a weeknight. This will impact attendance during the summer but, as several of you have noted, weekend attendance after Labor Day does tend to improve. So let's reserve judgement on how bad things are until later in the year.

Third, attendance, in general, is a reactive indicator of a team's place in the market, not a proactive one. Historically, attendance goes up the year after a team's performance improves, or the year after they win a championship. There's a cause and effect, for multiple reasons. First, teams that win generate more revenue, which means they have more revenue to invest in marketing, second, everyone likes a winner and so they're more likely to spend disposable income on a product that is a winner.

Fourth, interest in the CFL isn't declining, television ratings are up 13% over last year after two weeks. Saturday games, in particular, top 550k viewers. These are good summer numbers. In a world of declining television ratings as people increasingly cut the cord, having that many eyeballs in one place is an accomplishment nowadays.

Now, having been the optimist in the thread, I do believe the franchise in general could use a shot in the arm in the form of an ownership change. I'm not, however, a big fan of consortium ownership. Too many cook spoil almost any broth.

[footballtom]

A winning team and better atmosphere may help attendance bounce back some but, barring major social changes, the days of Lions sellouts are gone forever. TV/streaming is too convenient, and the world financial and environmental outlook is too uncertain. The Canucks are more resistant to these pressures, but will be affected as well. Too bad the Lions are stuck in a facility built ina completely different social and economic environment. BC Place is a dinosaur. The province was crazy to sink so much money into it when they did.

I agree what a waist of money when the city could have built a outdoor facility ( real outdoor facility) like bmo field for way less money and still had all the great events we have had in this city . Something in the range of 35,000 seats were you could add seats in for grey cups , women's world cup etc.

WHAT A WAIST.

I'm sure a diet could help the waist problem, but then we would be wasting all those pizza's and burgers. We wouldn't want to waste any food would we?

Your a jerk

[jcalhoun]

We have multiple infractions on the play.

Offence: illegal usage: Waist/Waste. 10 yard penalty.
Defence: incorrect usage of an apostrophe: pizza's. 10 yard penalty.
Defence: Major foul: making an error when correcting someone else's error. 15 yard penalty.
Offence: Illegal usage: Your/You're. 10 yard penalty.
Offence: Name calling. 5 yard penalty.

The penalties offset. The ball will be placed on the original line of scrimmage. Timer, set the clock to five minutes before this exchange. First down.

[Hambone]

A winning team and better atmosphere may help attendance bounce back some but, barring major social changes, the days of Lions sellouts are gone forever. TV/streaming is too convenient, and the world financial and environmental outlook is too uncertain. The Canucks are more resistant to these pressures, but will be affected as well. Too bad the Lions are stuck in a facility built ina completely different social and economic environment. BC Place is a dinosaur. The province was crazy to sink so much money into it when they did.

I agree what a waist of money when the city could have built a outdoor facility ( real outdoor facility) like bmo field for way less money and still had all the great events we have had in this city . Something in the range of 35,000 seats were you could add seats in for grey cups , women's world cup etc.

WHAT A WAIST.

You're dismissing the fact that BC Place is first and foremost an all purpose facility used for much, much more than just sporting events. While the Lions and now Whitecaps have been anchor tenants the real bread and butter comes from being able to attract trade shows and other events to the city. I don't have recent numbers but prior to the retrofit of the retractable roof Lions' games accounted for less than 5% of BC Place usage.

[maxlion]

You're dismissing the fact that BC Place is first and foremost an all purpose facility used for much, much more than just sporting events. While the Lions and now Whitecaps have been anchor tenants the real bread and butter comes from being able to attract trade shows and other events to the city. I don't have recent numbers but prior to the retrofit of the retractable roof Lions' games accounted for less than 5% of BC Place usage.

I am indeed entirely ignorant about these other uses, and my comments were only about BC Place's suitability for football/soccer. It may very well be that the province is getting it's money worth. If I had to guess, though, I would guess that it is as unsuitable for concerts, trade shows and other events as it is for football and soccer. How many events need 50,000+ seats?

Here's an article in the Tyee from 2014 entitled Six Reasons BC Place Is Growing into a Giant Lemon: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/09/04/BC ... ant-Lemon/

"So has the project been worth the investment? On the face of it, no. But we can't yet offer a definitive yea or nay because we're still trying to find out whether the government did due diligence and considered the risks. The government refuses to release via Freedom of Information the entire business case for the renovation. It will only provide a heavily censored copy."

And from the NDP: http://bcndpcaucus.ca/news/reality-chec ... novations/

Spencer Chandra Herbert, New Democrat arts, culture and gaming critic and MLA for Vancouver West-End:

“The Liberals have been desperately trying to distract from their start-to-finish mismanagement of the B.C. Place renovations. It’s time for them to be up front with British Columbians and show us that they have a plan to pay for this massively over budget project. Their claim that the stadium roof will be paid for through 'surplus money' from their wildly over budget convention centre just doesn’t hold water.”

[TheLionKing]

We have multiple infractions on the play.

Offence: illegal usage: Waist/Waste. 10 yard penalty.
Defence: incorrect usage of an apostrophe: pizza's. 10 yard penalty.
Defence: Major foul: making an error when correcting someone else's error. 15 yard penalty.
Offence: Illegal usage: Your/You're. 10 yard penalty.
Offence: Name calling. 5 yard penalty.

The penalties offset. The ball will be placed on the original line of scrimmage. Timer, set the clock to five minutes before this exchange. First down.

Well done !

[Hambone]

I am indeed entirely ignorant about these other uses, and my comments were only about BC Place's suitability for football/soccer. It may very well be that the province is getting it's money worth. If I had to guess, though, I would guess that it is as unsuitable for concerts, trade shows and other events as it is for football and soccer. How many events need 50,000+ seats?

Didn't seem very unsuitable when I was there with 50000 others for AC/DC last fall or Roger Waters the year before.

[Alputt]

I agree new ownership is needed to shake things up a bit. They tried with the complete uniform redesign, and last year closing the upper bowl (to create an exciting atmosphere! Lol), but this teams marketing and promotions are weak. Yes the buck stops with Braley however I am not a Skulsky fan and become less and less of one as time goes by. He might mean well but he is ineffectual and out of touch, I have come to believe any early success he had was a result of riding Ackles' coattails. He should have stuck to shilling for the BC Libs in the Sun...

I have no easy answers, on field performance would certainly help as the slide in the standings since 2011 has gone hand in hand with declining attendance.

I also agree with those that cite high prices. $90 to sit on the 20 yard line is not a good value, and hence nobody pays it! They have been seemingly adamant about pricing out younger folks and families since the move to the revamped BC Place. End zones should be $20, $40 for corner/red, $60 for a gold zone around the 20 yard line and centre-field primo seats for $80 for the die-hards. I am talking all in with the rip-off ticketmaster fee. That will build a fan base again, value for money and a winning team.

They should also have some real pride in Lions tradition and stick with the primary logo / paw instead of merely paying lip service and coming out with the creamsicle chess piece as the symbol of the franchise... As a "Millennial" who knows BS when I smell it, I lay this unfortunate misstep squarely at the feet of Skulsky, who had final say.

Blackouts are not the answer, preventing people from watching the Lions just turns them off the team and the CFL generally. Blacking out won't motivate someone who can't make it or can't afford it to come down to a game, just lose track of the Lions and then not care to follow the team at all...

Lastly those that are dissing BC Place I could not disagree more. For better or worse our province has paid millions (and millions!) to revamp this facility in to the nicest in Canada and gotta be up there with a lot of the NFL stadiums. It is also downtown, in one of the most expensive property markets in the world, near multiple transit and highway routes converging in the city from east, north and south.

There are tons of bars and other activities (Casino, Science World, Stanley Park, etc. etc.) around for fans to make a day (or night) of it. This is a blessing. Instead you want a remake of Empire, moved to Abottsford or somewhere, so you can drink beer in a parking lot in the rain and that will fix everything? Give me a break... Canucks have plenty of weekday games with bad traffic and bike lanes etc. lets not make excuses.

[Alputt]

I suppose I may be seen as cynical or even negative, but look at Ottawa. 2 years ago we were all biting our nails, "will they make it?", now they sell out every game. We don't need a smaller stadium (the lower bowl is fine), we need committed ownership that connects with the community to build engagement and an exciting product on the field to get people stoked and feeling some hometown pride.

It's not about BC Place, but if you build it they will come.

ROAR!

[maxlion]

I am indeed entirely ignorant about these other uses, and my comments were only about BC Place's suitability for football/soccer. It may very well be that the province is getting it's money worth. If I had to guess, though, I would guess that it is as unsuitable for concerts, trade shows and other events as it is for football and soccer. How many events need 50,000+ seats?

Didn't seem very unsuitable when I was there with 50000 others for AC/DC last fall or Roger Waters the year before.

"PavCo anticipates $87.05 million in operational losses at BC Place through 2015-16." (https://www.biv.com/article/2013/5/gm-o ... -coo-role/)

It can't be that great a venue if it loses large amounts of money continuously.

Fact is, you could fit Lions AND Whitecaps gameday fans in there at the same time, and it still wouldn't be a sell-out. There is no realistic prospect of attendance increasing in any sustainable way...ever. The building is nice enough, but totally unsuitable to the place and the times. But it is here now, so might as well enjoy it.

[CardiacKid]

I have added a post to the 2016 Marketing and Promotion thread that I won't repeat here but apparently the Lions have now decided to boycott the BCLions Den podcast. Apparently they will no longer allow players to participate in the podcast due to their dislike to critical comments made in regards to the Lions marketing efforts.

A nerve has been struck perhaps? IMO certainly seems symptomatic of an organization that needs a transfusion of ideas and perhaps attitude. How one cultivates and maintains a fan base by lashing out at fans who really want the team to excel, is beyond me.

[Hambone]

It can't be that great a venue if it loses large amounts of money continuously.

Fact is, you could fit Lions AND Whitecaps gameday fans in there at the same time, and it still wouldn't be a sell-out. There is no realistic prospect of attendance increasing in any sustainable way...ever. The building is nice enough, but totally unsuitable to the place and the times. But it is here now, so might as well enjoy it.

The part of that which I'd be interested to find out would be how much revenue is generated for both the Provincial and Municipal governments annually in terms of economic activity generated by the events held there. The stadium itself may lose money but the government recovers things like liquor taxes, PST on goods and services bought in conjunction with events not only in the stadium itself but in hotels and restaurants in the surrounding area, income taxes paid by BCP employees and others in the service and hospitality industry surrounding the area. I'm not going to suggest they get every dime back but one cannot target the PAVCO losses at BCP without considering that there is considerable government revenue generated thanks to its existence; revenue that doesn't show on PAVCO's books.

[DanoT]

It can't be that great a venue if it loses large amounts of money continuously.

Fact is, you could fit Lions AND Whitecaps gameday fans in there at the same time, and it still wouldn't be a sell-out. There is no realistic prospect of attendance increasing in any sustainable way...ever. The building is nice enough, but totally unsuitable to the place and the times. But it is here now, so might as well enjoy it.

The part of that which I'd be interested to find out would be how much revenue is generated for both the Provincial and Municipal governments annually in terms of economic activity generated by the events held there. The stadium itself may lose money but the government recovers things like liquor taxes, PST on goods and services bought in conjunction with events not only in the stadium itself but in hotels and restaurants in the surrounding area, income taxes paid by BCP employees and others in the service and hospitality industry surrounding the area. I'm not going to suggest they get every dime back but one cannot target the PAVCO losses at BCP without considering that there is considerable government revenue generated thanks to its existence; revenue that doesn't show on PAVCO's books.

To add to the above, businesses that display their products at RV shows, home shows, sportsman shows etc. do so expecting to generate sales beyond the show itself and likely do so or they wouldn't continue to incur the expense of showing up each year. So there is additional sales tax revenue even after an event is over, that makes its way to government.

OTOH I have always thought that it was a mistake and an unnecessary extravagance to replace all the seats in BCP especially the end zone which even in the best scenario wouldn't get utilized very much and produces less revenue than seats between the goal lines.