Have Jays fans abandoned ship?

Summer ratings, especially ones involving a holiday weekend, are seldom significant. But it's looking as if the Blue Jays Nation has thrown in the towel on the 2009 season -- just about the same time the Jays themselves threw it in.

Yes, Friday's game was at 10 p.m. Eastern and most sports fans were probably frolicking at the lake or working on their melanomas at the beach. But in 11 years of doing this job, I can't remember a three-game series that drew such low ratings. The Jays' top weekend audience -- 176,000 for afternoon games -- was about half what the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Toronto Argonauts drew for truly one of the most dreadful football games in some time.

On the other hand, Friday's Lions-Ticats game topped half a million viewers. I can't recall the last time that many people tuned in to watch the Ticats do anything.

Here are the top English-language sports ratings from the holiday weekend, as always courtesey of the folks and machines at BBM Nielsen Media Research:

1. Football, Lions at Ticats, Friday, TSN: 519,000

2. Football, Roughriders at Stampeders, Saturday, TSN: 411,000

3. Football, Blue Bombers at Argonauts, Saturday, TSN: 337,000

4. Auto racing, NASCAR Pennsylvania 500, Monday, TSN: 236,000

5. Baseball, Blue Jays at A's, Saturday, Sportsnet: 176,000

6. Baseball, Blue Jays at A's, Sunday, Sportsnet: 176,000

7. Baseball, Blue Jays at A's, Friday, Sportsnet: 110,000

Comments

[JoeKnowsIt]

Is there any question now that the CFL is the number two sports property in Canada? And if they could find some way to add Quebec City and a maritime team, along with Ottawa, this league could challenge the NHL for TV supremecy in this country.

[LionsFan]

That is a pretty impressive CFL rating at this time of year, over 500,000, especially for Hamilton which is not a big draw...or so we thought?

[Mike]

Not that surprised. It's a west coast series against a truly terrible team in a bad ballpark. The team is basically out of it already while the GM just made a mockery of trying to trading Halladay and sent one of the few bright spots this season to Cincinnati for Edwin E5.
Also, the game starts at 10 pm on a Friday and it's an 8-1 blowout by 11:30. Not sure there's anyone who'll want to stick around for that.

[Jim]

Yeah, I don't think this is really indicative of any turning point for the fans. Jays TV ratings this year have been very good overall - especially considering the bad season.

I'd imagine it's just a combo of bad opponent, boring games, late start times and August doldrums.