"Say What?" <hello DeleteThis @goodbye.com> wrote in message
news:v404m056a3r54ot8alk3fca3p9jc9ojet4@4ax.com...
>I guess. But the CBL was still baseball, and it died. And I guess the
> Edmonton Trappers and Vancouver Canadians had great support at one
> time. But they've both folded. And the OTtaw Lynx may be gone as early
> as this winter, or after next season, because of poor attendance.
> Good baseball or not, like hockey in Alabamie, Canadians do just not
> care about this sport anymore.
You asked why the CBL failed and I told you. I could add that the travel
expenses of sending a team from Kelowna to Montreal or Saskatoon to London
Ontario was a real killer. The fact is that you weren't getting good
quality ball and in Saskatoon at least (where we had a team) promotion was
literally non-existent. How are you supposed to go to a game if you don't
know that there's a game on? But all of that falls into the area of
administration -- the couldn't organize an orgy in a brothel statement
applies. Oh, and by the way, while hockey might not be in Alabama it is
apparently popular in Louisiana -- the New Orleans Brass averages about
4,500 per game in the ECHL (which has teams in Lafayette Louisiana, Beaumont
Texas, Biloxi Mississippi as well as nine teams in Florida, Georgia and the
Carolinas), and only folded when they couldn't agree with the city on the
arena lease. I know of Junior A teams in Canada which regularly draw less
than that.
The Vancouver Canadians team that I mentioned are still in operation. With
minor league teams it is frequently less about attendance and more about who
is willing to put up the money to buy the team. If attendance were the only
thing, then the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (average attendance 3,576) and the
Tuscon Sidewinders (average attendance 4,020) would have moved before the
Trappers (average attendance 4,209) and the Las Vegas 51s (average
attendance 4,318) and the Portland Beavers (average attendance 4,403) would
also be looking for new cities because no one can make me believe that
getting 109 or 194 more people in the seats was the difference between
making money and not making money. There are other factors involved (mostly
involving tax situations -- the same tax situations that mean that the only
cities that should have NHL teams are Toronto, Montreal and possibly
Vancouver). Ottawa is a different story -- their attendance has been going
down since 1994 when they drew 8,929 and has been stable (at about 2,700)
since around 1999. Curiously this mirrors the era of instability with the
ownership of their major league affiliate in this period ... the Montreal
Expos. (It's also interesting that Trapper's attendance went down when
_they_ became the Tripple A affiliate of the Expos. One wonders if this
will affect the New Orleans Zephyrs who are the affiliate of the now
ex-Expos.)
--
Brent McKee
To reply by email, please remove the capital letters (S and N) from
the email address
"If we cease to judge this world, we may find ourselves, very quickly,
in one which is infinitely worse."
- Margaret Atwood
"Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more
constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of
openness to novelty. "
- Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
> On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:14:50 GMT, "Brent McKee" <bSmckee DeleteThis @shaw.caN>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Say What?" <hello DeleteThis @goodbye.com> wrote in message
>>news:kv0nl0hjlfhff2q48sntk1glv2gqb716mb@4ax.com...
>>> We did have an all Canadian baseball league like the CFL. It was
>>> called the CBL. And it folded after half a season.
>>> Isn't it obvious by now that the people of Canada do not like
>>> baseball?
>>
>>What we don't care about is thinly disguised sub-Class A baseball run by
>>people who couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel, which just about
>>describes the people who "ran" the CBL to a tee. Canadians will support
>>quality baseball if given half a chance, witness the Winnipeg Goldeyes of
>>the Northern League, Ottawa Lynx, Edmonton Trappers. The Vancouver
>>Canadans
>>drew an average of 3,685 for a Class A team in the Northwest League
>>(second
>>in the league behind Spokane).
>
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