The Toronto Argonauts have a lot to changes to make on the field this season, coming off a year in which they didn’t win a game after Labour Day.
And their precipitous 2008 downslide appears to have raised the challenge at the box office as well, where the CFL team is entering this season behind the pace of a year ago, in terms of ticket sales and sponsorship.
“Season-ticket renewals are slightly behind last year, but we seem to be making up for that in groups,” team president Bob Nicholson said. “On the season-ticket and corporate front, we’re seeing a bit of a wait-and-see attitude from some fans after last year, to see what the team looks like coming out of training camp.”
The wait-and-see attitude is understandable, given how poorly the Argonauts played in the second half of last season. In many games, they weren’t close. The last home team to win a football game at Toronto’s Rogers Centre was the Buffalo Bills, who defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in an NFL preseason game last Aug. 14.
An additional reason for the Argos’ business being a little slow to this point is the struggling economy, as the team tends to draw from a base of working-class fans whose cash flow may have taken a hit over the past 12 months.
“I’m looking forward to assessing the different initiatives and trying some things to build interest in football towards 2010,” said Nicholson, who returned to the president’s job in early May.
This is Nicholson’s second stint with the Argos, having held the same role in the mid-1990s, when the team won back-to-back Grey Cup titles. But he notes much has changed in what was already a competitive marketplace.
“First and foremost, is the amount of competition,” Nicholson said. “When I left the Argos, [basketball's Toronto] Raptors had been here four or five years, but now you have [soccer's] Toronto FC and the whole situation with the Air Canada Centre opening. … It relaunched the [Toronto] Maple Leafs brand and gave the Raptors credibility.”
“And it continues to be an increasingly diverse city with a number of festival and cultural events that continue the vast array of things to do. It does make it a bigger challenge.”
Nicholson said he will continue the Argonauts’ recent strategy of positioning themselves as a community-oriented team whose price point and involvement in the city makes them the most accessible in the marketplace.
“We’re out there in the schools, doing things to help kids get fit,” he said. “And we’re continuing to help reduce violence in schools through our mentoring program.”
Nicholson was a consultant last season for the Bills NFL series in Toronto, which runs through 2012. Though the Argos have had some harsh words for series organizer (and former CFL sponsor) Rogers Communications, Nicholson said he has taken initial steps to explore whether the two might work together.
“I’ve taken the initial step with Adrian Montgomery with the Bills in Toronto series and Dan Quinn of NFL Canada to say, I don’t know what the answer is but I’d like to explore it. Let’s take some time to look at it,” Nicholson said. “We’re both selling football in a competitive marketplace. Let’s look at options where we can continue to develop football interest.”
