The Argonauts and Blue Jays went head-to-head in Week 3 which was a bold move by the CFL schedule makers.
On Saturday, August 21, Canada’s only Major League Baseball team hosted the Detroit Tigers while the reigning Grey Cup champion Winnipeg Blue Bombers visited Toronto.
First pitch at the Rogers Centre went just after 3 p.m. ET. Randal Grichuk hit a two-run home run, ace starting pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu tossed seven scoreless innings and Marcus Semien recorded a solo homer in a 3-0 win. That ball game took over three hours from start to finish.
Down the street at BMO Field following a 4 p.m. ET kick-off, Argos quarterback Nick Arbuckle completed 71.9 percent of his passes for 310 yards with one touchdown and zero interceptions plus one major along the ground. The men wearing true double blue showed explosive ability on offence in a 30-23 upset over the Bombers.
Both pro teams based in The Six won their respective games that day, but it was the Jays who bested the Argos in terms of television viewers. The Blue Birds average audience was 586,900 compared to the boatmen’s 429,000, a decided win for the city’s MLB franchise. In the 25 to 54 age demographic, 152,600 watched the Blue Jays while 123,800 chose the Argos.
Despite the age-old joke about the Argonauts poor fan attendance numbers, the double blue do draw on television. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the CFL’s TV kings, but the Argos are not the worst in the league for producing game consumption numbers. In recent years, Toronto has been better than you think in the television viewership category.
For three straight weeks to begin the 2021 CFL season, TSN has seen an average viewership of over 540,000. That’s certainly a positive for the three-down league returning to football following a cancelled campaign in 2020.
Week 3 TV ratings:
Thursday
Edmonton at B.C.: 499,900
Friday
Montreal at Calgary: 544,000
Saturday
Winnipeg at Toronto: 429,000
Ottawa at Saskatchewan: 628,700
Total Week 3 average: 525,400
