CFL proving naysayers wrong with attendance uptick in 2022

The Canadian Football League had a successful 2022.

It wasn’t a grand slam, to mix metaphors, but it was at least a double, maybe a triple.

I say that before Sunday’s Grey Cup game, which may further redeem the season and could deliver us the league’s best dynasty in 40 years if the Winnipeg Blue Bombers can defeat the Toronto Argonauts to win their third straight championship.

It was a good year mainly because of the success of the BC Lions and quarterback Nathan Rourke. The Lions pivot was named the league’s most outstanding Canadian player at the CFL Awards last night, and that was with just over a half-season of action.

A foot injury robbed us of Rourke’s pursuit of records, but he has established himself as the best Canadian signal-caller in 50 years, or since Russ Jackson.

The Lions rode Rourke and the fresh ideas of new owner Amar Doman to the West Division semi-final before a crowd of 30,000, and averaged more than 20,000 for the regular season.

According to a CFL attendance account on Twitter (@1CFLAtt), seven of the league’s 21 weeks averaged live audiences of more than 22,000.

CFL had 7 weeks of crowd's over 22,000 on AVG and had 14 weeks of 21,500 and lower crowds on avg

— CFL Attendances (@1CFLAtt) October 30, 2022

All teams but Montreal and Toronto averaged more than 20,000 per game. The Ottawa Redblacks failed to win a home game, and still averaged 20,175. The Edmonton Elks also failed to win before the paying public, and they averaged nearly 24,000 fans per game.

Television ratings sagged some, reflecting the medium’s across-the-board decline due to cord-cutters. It seems only the Saskatchewan Roughriders can break through the 700,000 barrier for average audience, and the semi-finals were down 27%, according to 3 Down Nation.

The Lions may lose Rourke to the NFL this offseason, and that’s part of a greater concern for the league at-large about attracting and keeping quality quarterbacks.

But when you consider the CFL went dark in 2020 because of the pandemic, then returned late in 2021 to play a 14-game season, there were a lot of naysayers swearing this league dead.

It’s nowhere close to that.

There is still a Toronto problem and the Alouettes need solid ownership, but given where it’s been this decade, the grand old game has rebounded nicely.

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