The attendance figures tell Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president and CEO Tim Leiweke and Toronto FC general manager Tim Bezbatchenko that their soccer team is averaging more than 104 percent capacity at BMO Field and that Toronto FC showed an 18 percent increase in announced attendance just before Major League Soccer took its World Cup break.
It’s not the 110 percent we like our athletes to give, but what the heck: when it comes to attendance, well, it’s tough to improve on 104 percent.
Still, that doesn’t mean that Leiweke and Bezbatchenko are not without a means of determining whether or not the World Cup that was a ratings hit in North America has coat-tails for MLS — both here and in the U.S.
Indeed, while it might seem hard to quantify exactly what it will mean to the sport on this continent, let alone the MLS, that a CONCACAF team (Costa Rica) made it to the quarter-finals or that the U.S. team advanced from the Group of Death or that the Mexican national team seemed to stop being a train wreck for three weeks – can you put a dollar figure on prestige?
Bezbatchenko knows where to start.
“One of the barometers for us will be our television numbers these next few months and years,” Bezbatchenko said. “We’re near capacity in our stadium … now, let’s see how our games do on television each week.”
Toronto FC play the Vancouver Whitecaps at BMO Field Wednesday and MLS has already started an advertising campaign that reminds Americans that if they liked the World Cup then, hey, why not check out MLS? That was one reason an MLS game was scheduled for the Sunday night following the conclusion of Brazil 2014.
Mercifully, we in Canada are spared much of the silliness that defines the debate over soccer’s place in the U.S – no thanks to our invisible men’s national team, which hasn’t been a threat to be part of the sport’s dialogue in Canada for some time. The fact that nothing threatens hockey’s status in Canada has allowed for an element of maturity to the debate; more than ever, this World Cup was about soccer fans flying their flags and enjoying footy without caring about whether their neighbour was becoming a convert.
This was, in short, the World Cup in which Canadian soccer fans stopped apologizing.
That poses the question: beyond Toronto FC’s TV numbers or those of its MLS brethren Montreal Impact and the Whitecaps, how will we get an accurate assessment of this World Cup’s impact on Canada? The easy answer may appear this August, when FIFA’s Under-20 women’s World Cup is played in Canada as an appetizer to the 2015 Women’s World Cup, which will see games played in every Canadian city of consequence that isn’t wasting its time hosting the Pan-Am Games (cue: gratuitous shot).
But really, how much of a read will that give us? Newsflash: kids are playing soccer all over the country. Adults, too. More of us play soccer than play hockey. Add in the fact that the Canadian women are still (rightfully) dining out on that Olympic bronze medal from London 2012 and there is a danger in using the tournament as a barometer of the sports success in Canada. Those women stole our hearts; they haven’t given them back. Supporting Canada’s women’s soccer team is an issue of motherhood or, yeah, fatherhood. Their narrative transcends soccer or soccer fans.
How will we know if the World Cup has coat-tails in Canada? In some ways, it seems we are destined to picking up scraps from the U.S.; to ride their coat-tails and maybe pluck out the odd real or imagined dual citizen to play for our national teams and quietly maneuver into a position to play a role in a U.S.-based relief effort, should Qatar 2022 collapse.
Pulling off successful women’s events these next two summers would open some eyes. Asked what would happen if TV numbers in the U.S. create a critical mass that forces FIFA to look at pulling out of the disaster that will be Qatar, Bezbatchenko says simply: “I’ll be bold enough to say that it would be the biggest event in the history of world sports, bigger than the last time it was in the U.S because our stadiums are bigger.”
Could there maybe be a crumb for Canada? Honduras vs Korea in Toronto, anyone?
This is all blue skies, of course, and the sad fact is that there will be a “wandering through the desert” aspect for Canadian soccer fans until the men’s team presents some sort of tangible evidence of its existence.
Until that happens, the sport, like announced attendance at TFC matches, will be 104 percent full. Yet empty at the same time, without anywhere to go.