While football fans tune in The 110th Gray Cup is on November 19There probably will be Fewer of them are watching than it was in the past. While the Gray Cup and Canadian Football were once considered important national institutions, part of their appeal appears to have faded over the years.
Canadian football evolved from British rugby and has been played for over 150 years. The creation of Canadian football was a direct expression of national identity that promoted pride and patriotism, and was a means of distinguishing Canada from Britain and the United States.
However, the fact that two soccer codes emerged in North America means that Canadian soccer, like Canadian culture, will always be compared to American soccer.
The birth of the gray cup
after The inaugural Gray Cup game was played in 1909The popularity of this sport quickly grew. In 1910, Special train cars It was added from Toronto to transport more than 5,000 soccer fans to Hamilton. More than 12,000 fans attended the match, which greatly exceeded the stadium’s capacity, and fans who were eager to get in lowered the gates.
As the match ended, fans rushed onto the field and prevented its completion. The following year, at the Gray Cup in Toronto, fans lined up to get tickets two days before they went on sale. In 1913, a team from Hamilton traveled west on the first national tour of Canadian football, raising the standard of the game even further. By 1929, 29 teams in seven leagues across the country were competing for the Gray Cup.
The first victory by a Western team in 1935 helped turn the Gray Cup into a national spectacle, leading to increased interest in the game. In 1948, Calgary Stampeders fans turned a Gray Cup football game into a celebration of national unity and identity. Hundreds of Calgarians boarded trains and planes and streamed into Toronto to support their team.
In the 1950s, the popularity of Canadian football was boosted by the new medium of television. 1952 Gray Cup Game It became the most watched program in the short history of television in Canada. In 1954, 92 television stations and 75 radio stations across North America broadcast the Gray Cup game.
The Canadian Press/Cole Burston
According to records held by Library and Archives Canada, Canadian television ratings in 1961 showed that CFL games attracted four times as many viewers as NFL games. A survey of Canadians revealed that 92 per cent preferred the CFL over the NFL, and 84 per cent thought the CFL was more exciting.
The decline of Canadian football
Today the situation has reversed. It is now common for NFL games to have more Canadian viewers than CFL games. Recent polls show that more Canadians follow American football than follow Canadian football. At one time, Canadians bought pool tickets at the Gray Cup and attended Gray Cup parties, but recent polls show that Canadian soccer fans today prefer to watch the Super Bowl over the Gray Cup. In Canada, media coverage of the NFL dwarfs that of the Canadian Football League The Canadian media focus is often negative. Across Canada, it is more common to see people wearing NFL team merchandise rather than CFL merchandise.
Attendance has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. When watching a match on television, one often sees more empty seats than full ones. In 2012, CFL attendance averaged 29,190 but dropped to 21,744 by 2022. As national institutions, the Gray Cup and CFL appear to be in decline.
Large new stadiums opened in the 1970s and 1980s, creating the illusion that the league was in good shape. However, The Montreal Alouettes ceased operations in 1982, resurfaced and folded again in 1987. The CFL expanded into American locations in search of life-saving revenue, but every US-based team folded. Montreal began operations again in 1996, but the Ottawa franchise was discontinued.
Two RCMP officers wearing red uniforms holding a large silver cup walk past a sign that says: Gray Cup Saskatchewan
The reasons for this shift are many. Canada in 2023 is a lot different than it was in the 1960s. It is a multicultural country and has opportunities to follow many international sports, including football, cricket and rugby. Today, Canadian football competes with many other forms of entertainment.
The political economy of football also conspires against the CFL. The NFL has teams in larger metropolitan areas that generate more media coverage and revenue from advertising and sponsorships.
In addition, a sporting culture has developed in North America that includes Canadian teams in professional baseball, football, and basketball leagues in the United States. In a globalized world, consumers want access to “world-class” entertainment, which some believe is more likely to feature bands from Los Angeles or New York.
The desirable younger demographic is less likely to care about place and more likely to care about status. The NFL can make that case. despite of A 2014 poll showed that most Canadians I feel that the Gray Cup is an important aspect of Canadian culture and identity, and for some, the century-old tradition of the cup seems outdated and less appealing.
