Why don't more people in Toronto know about the Grey Cup?

There's only a few weeks to go before the Grey Cup championship game, but on a recent night in downtown Toronto, only two of about 20people CBC News spoke to knew it was going to be played in their city.

When asked, 23-year-old Torontonian Tyler Humphrey said he had "no idea" where the football game was going to be held.

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Not only did Ahmad Daour not know where it is, he didn't know what it is. "The Grey Cup, no, no, not a clue, man," he said.

Portia Biswas seemed confident she knew a little more about it. "I know what it is... hockey," she said, and then added, "I have no idea where it is."

Grey Cup? What Grey Cup?

8 years ago

Duration 0:47

Does Toronto know that Canada's football classic is coming to their town Nov. 27? Doesn't sound like it. So prices are being slashed.

Toronto Argonauts senior vice-president of business operations Sara Moore admits the Canadian Football League's showcasegame scheduled for BMO Field on Nov. 27 has been somewhat overshadowed in recent weeks.

"I think that through a lot of this fall, The Blue Jays were quite rightly an area of focus and excitement and support for Toronto sports fans," she said.

Tough season forArgos

A difficult year for the Argos hasn't helped. With just five wins this season, they aren't headed for the playoffs and have no shot at playing in the Grey Cup.

"It is absolutely disappointing that the Argos aren't going to be in that game," Moore said.

All of this has resulted in much slower ticket sales than the Argos had hoped for. When tickets originally went on sale earlier this season, they ranged in price from $169 to just under $900.

Last week, the Argos announced they had slashed some of their ticket prices in an effort to motivate fans.

"We recently announced that we repriced some of the tickets in some of our sections that weren't selling as well," Moore said. "I think that has spurred on more awareness and more interest."

There are now thousands of tickets for under $150, with the cheapest seats selling for $89.

Argos fan Andres Ramos wasn't planning on going, but said the cheaper seats were causing him to reconsider.

"Now that they brought the prices down, a little bit, yeah," he said.

Grey Cup advertising aimedat other CFL cities

A move to BMO Field from the Rogers Centre this pastyear failed to boost ticket sales to regular season Argos games.

The team'saverage attendance in 2016 waslisted at just over 16,000 per game, a little more than half of the capacity of the stadium.Some reporters who cover the team have suggested that even fewer actually showed up.

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It was a lack of attention to the CFL in Torontothat ledArgosdefensive end Ricky Foley to tweet last year that the citytreats itsfootball teamlike "poo."

Fortunately, the Argos don't have to rely on Toronto fans when it comes to the Grey Cup. Much of their advertising budget has been devoted to promoting the game in cities where teams are headed for the postseason.

"We've got great advertising and promotions going on with the teams and in those cities." Moore said. "We are running advertising on all sorts of different radio and TV stations."

Moore said she's confident all of the tickets will eventually sell, including the 8,000 additional seats they've added to BMO Field for the Grey Cup.

"I think the Grey Cup will go along way to showing what a beautiful, well-produced, exciting football game in beautiful BMO Field can be," she said.

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