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CFL Attendances for Week 1 Revealed – With 50 Cent’s BC Lions Concert Expected to Boost Week 2 Figures

AFI

Although the Canadian Football League is still a long way from its heyday of the 1970s in terms of attendance figures, the signs in 2023 were much more promising.

The 2023 season drew an average crowd of 22,393 – for context, that’s a higher average than the NBA, NHL, and the MLS, making CFL games the third-best attended in North America behind the NFL and MLB.

That was a 3% increase on the 2022 data – flying in the face of trends elsewhere, with the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL all saw lower average attendances in 2023 compared to their previous season.

The 2024 campaign has got off to a predictable start in terms of crowd numbers, and the hope is that a huge 50 Cent concert before the BC Lions’ game against the Stampeders in Week 2 will hit all the right notes.

Lions Roaring

Sportsbooks like Paddy Power are tapping into the good feeling around the BC Lions heading into the 2024 campaign.

A bet calculator reveals that a $10 wager on Amar Doman’s team to win the Grey Cup this season would yield a profit of $40. Looking at the odds, only the Montreal Alouettes (+300) and Winnipeg Blue Bombers (+330) are considered to have a higher probability of success.

That surge of positivity has been a chicken-and-egg scenario in British Columbia, with better performances on the pitch – such as that fine run to the West Final in 2023 – matched by enhanced attendances off it.

Indeed, the Lions’ average crowd of 23,208 last season was a 13.8% increase on 2022, while the attendance at their West Semi-Final clash with the Stampeders at BC Place was 30,149 – their highest individual turnout in many years.

It’s clear that officials in Vancouver are doing great things to promote the Lions and the CFL in general, with Week 2’s musical offering expecting to draw a total audience in excess of 50,000.

Whatever your thoughts on 50 Cent’s musical stylings, there’s no doubt he’s a huge grab for the Lions – it’s likely that their Week 2 attendance will be more than double that of the Elks, Stampeders and co.

But will they be able to turn that commercial success into silverware out on the pitch?

Crunching the Numbers

Anyone that doubts the connection between sporting success and public interest only needs to look at the fortunes of the Toronto Argonauts for proof positive.

Having clinched the 2022 Grey Cup in extraordinary fashion, the Argos witnessed an astonishing 20.5% attendance growth in 2023. That was aided by an incredible regular season, in which Ryan Dinwiddie’s men racked up a 16-2 record before going down in the East Final.

That heavy defeat to the Alouettes, which was something of an anti-climax given their regular season form, was a huge disappointment – and their Week 1 attendance in 2024 suffered accordingly, with just 12,767 fans heading to BMO Field.

There was further bad news for the Stampeders, whose average attendance fell to 21,698 in 2023 – in Week 1 of this campaign, that had fallen to 19,741.

But there were reasons to be cheerful for the Blue Bombers and the Elks, whose considerable audience gains in 2023 were, more or less, retained in Week 1 of 2024.

Although the league itself doesn’t always get the credit it deserves, there’s no doubt that – for the most part – there’s still a significant appetite to watch CFL action in person.

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