Shaggy wrote:
Also, look at the Canucks....at one point there were far less games on TV.
Now, you can see most every game ( yes, I know some are PPV ) and the home games are all sellouts.
The home games have been selling out for several years now... and for probably the same reason, they've been able to sell more televised games to the various media outlets. There's a direct correlation, but it's not one to the other; it's of both to the same factors: a more successful and exciting product (most of the "latter day" attention grew from the "West Coast Express" line, just as it did from Pavel Bure in the early 90s), and good marketing.
LFITQ wrote:Ahh but which came first?
Were the games sellouts and then TV opened up or was it the other way around?
IIRC the games being on TV did not happen until after the seats were being sold.
If the Lions were having consistent sell outs (or near sell outs) I bet there wouldn't be any problem with having them on TV without a black out as well.
Even when the Canucks were stinking out the joint, though, they weren't blacking out games (at least not at home). Games that weren't televised, weren't televised simply because they didn't (or couldn't) sell them to anyone. Presumably the PPV option was instituted to make those games available, although it seems anymore that they're cherry-picking some games for PPV before offering them up to the networks.
Remember, too, that with the CFL and only 8 teams, it's much more of a "national" product, such that there's plenty of interest for the various networks to actually carry EVERY game, even if they're not allowed to show it in the home market. People will plan entire weekends around sitting down to watch ALL the teams play, not just their own. There are also far fewer games to broadcast in a season - 72 *total* regular-season games for the entire league, vs. 82 *per team* for the NHL - so if a broadcaster doesn't feel they'll have the audience for a couple of particular Canucks games (or has something else they think will bring a better audience), they just don't purchase the rights to that game, and oh well, there'll be another one in a couple of days.
Actually, it's been a major complaint for some Canucks fans living elsewhere in Canada that the games are blacked out in their regions. A friend who was living in Calgary a few years ago, for example, used to get all the SportsNet feeds on his satellite, but they blacked out most of the Canucks games that were on SportsNet Pacific, instead showing whatever was on SportsNet West at the time. Oddly enough, though he has the same problem now in Ottawa, it's not as bad as it was in Calgary. Presumably this is NHL edict to help promote the "local" teams in each region, but come on... if you're a Canucks fan in Calgary, are you really going to watch a Flames@Oilers game just because you can't get the Canucks game that's on at the same time? I don't know of a lot of fans of ANY NHL teams who will set aside time to watch any game that's on, other than their own teams.
But that's going off on a tangent...
hexx wrote:Neither. It was aggressive marketing and promotion, in every medium, everywhere, all the time, almost to the point of brainwashing. That's why half the province drools for a perenially inconsistent team that hasn't won anything and has no real prospect to either. Contrast with the Lions who have been the most dominant team in their league for several years now, and though they have made huge strides in rebuilding their fan base, are barely relevant in the mainstream culture of the area, because they largely rely on the product to sell itself.
That's what it all comes down to, really: marketing. Look at the success of NASCAR the past several years - good marketing with some really brilliant ads, and rather than selling the racing itself, they've sold the DRIVERS. They've turned the drivers into personalities and products in their own right, many with their own catch-phrases based on their own sponsorships. How many people know the phrase, "Drive the truck, Dale"? How many people know what it means? How many even know who "Dale" is? Most of them are WELL-DONE commercials that actually INVOLVE the driver... not just your basic product sell with a quick shot of the driver holding up the box, smiling and saying, "Hey, I use it!" at the end.
NASCAR Nextel Cup races pack out every race to capacity - 50,000 to 80,000 or more (depending on the track), many of whom probably don't know a wedge adjustment from a spoiler from a spark plug, but they come out to watch their favorite
driver personality turn left for four or five hours on a Sunday afternoon. And cities are almost BEGGING NASCAR to put races in their town, because they've worked so hard to build the demand FIRST.
:x 
