Davis: There's a reason why Saskatchewan Roughriders' CFL crowds look smaller than announced
Saskatchewan Roughriders employees used to gather all the ticket stubs collected at Taylor Field's entry gates during each home game, put them on a scale and weigh them to calculate the size of their crowds.
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It was an archaic system and not completely accurate, but it did ballpark-estimate how many fans were in attendance.
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The Roughriders don't weigh tickets anymore in this computerized, scan-your-phone era. Nor do they announce how many fans are at eight-year-old Mosaic Stadium and actually paid for tickets, although those numbers are certainly in their data banks.
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Instead, they announce the number of 'tickets distributed.' Freebies included.
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'It's pretty standard across the industry where you announce distributed tickets,' said Roughriders president/CEO Craig Reynolds, during a media gathering earlier this week to discuss the community-owed franchise's $2.1 million profit from its 2024 operations. 'And yeah, of course there are some comps (free tickets) included in every organization's distributed tickets, some level of complimentary tickets.
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'We try to manage those, but obviously we want to support the community as well. We're a community-owned team, so we look to do that. The last game, the Thursday night game, we had an opportunity to do that with some of the folks that were displaced because of the northern fires. So that's where a lot of our complimentary tickets went for that game.'
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That helps explain why the Roughriders announced a crowd of 25,973 for their regular-season home opener June 5 against the Ottawa Redblacks.
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There clearly were far fewer butts in the seats. That game was played on a Thursday, an unpopular night for an audience that typically draws half its numbers from outside Regina. It's the only Riders game slated this season on a Thursday.
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Last season the Roughriders announced 24,875 tickets had been distributed for their home opener, which was played on a Sunday. Through nine regular-season games in 2024 the Roughriders' average announced crowd was 27,600, with only the Labour Day Classic selling out a stadium with an official capacity of 33,350, although the team sometimes alters the number of tickets available.
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According to Reynolds, the Roughriders are 7,000 ticket ahead of last year's sales pace as they prepare to host the B.C. Lions on Saturday.
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