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Originally Posted by Notorious Honey Badger
I agree with some of cecil and some of sherm. I agree that the Riders fan base has, in general, not been good at attending games when the team sucked. But in their defense, and cecil is right to bring it up, the team hasn't enjoyed much success in the 80's and 90's. this has lead to the teams fans acting a little over the top when they showed up in 3 of 4 grey cups.
the real enemy isnt rider fans its tsn drooling all over them. the province literally has nothing else to cheer for at a professional level. most people in ssk dont live in a major centre, they're spread out all over the province and 2 of the larger cities. its a natural rallying point. nothing special. but if you listened to TSN rider fans were showing up selling out the barn when the team was dismal. not the case.
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The other thing, and I'll be the first to admit, is that the Riders had a bit of that Boston Red Sox attitude. Once their franchise started to win they went from lovable losers to that fanbase that everyone hates pretty quickly. When the Riders got 10k fans here in Calgary in the late 90s it was fine because no one else in the CFL cared or felt threatened by the Riders and their fans were pretty good at being modest (and really what did we ever have to boast about?).
All of a sudden the Riders become the place to be on a Friday or Sat night in Sask and an infusion of young fans coupled with a little bit of team success and Rider fans aren't very popular in these parts anymore.
Remind you of anyone? Perhaps a certain franchise here in Calgary that was terrible for a while, not nearly as long as the Riders though, and attendence was dropping. All of a sudden a deep run in 04 and all of those seats at the dome got filled pretty quickly with people might call "fairweather fans" or "bandwagon jumpers". And just like with the Riders a lot of those fans don't care much when the team starts to lose and often made the dome pretty rowdy because the Flames were a reason to party, not because they loved hockey. But for every fairweather fan that the Flames got they probably hooked another hardcore hockey fan who just didn't cheer for the team up until that point. I don't think the Riders are any different.
And yes TSN does pat Sask fans on the back an awful lot. Who could blame opposing fanbases if it bothers them, regardless of the amount of truth in TSN's pro-Rider stance? It is in their best interest to promote the CFL and if that means promoting the Riders then so be it. But again, I can see why other fans don't like it.
Also I think fans tend to judge the popularity of a team too heavily on attendence alone. The Riders have always had a very deep seeded fanbase in Saskatchewan and diehard loyalty from all their fans who moved to other cities in Canada. At the end of the day though, what fan base has ever had great attendence during a 40 or 50 year lull? We're not talking a few bad seasons. I wasn't lying earlier, I've been a fan of the Riders since I was born and I don't think I saw a winning season until about 2006 or 2007. Can many other franchises boast such a dismal record? It's surprising the Riders have any fans left after the way that franchise was run in the last 50 years.
I get that the teams are rivals and just like the Canucks and Oilers hate CP isn't going to be a good place for rational or intelligent discussion on their rivals. The bias and hate are too strong. And that is the real shame in all this. Fans are being driven away from the game because the level of distaste between franchises seems to be at an all time high but all that seems to result in is an ever escalating level of abuse between fans. I remember when CFL fans all felt a certain amount of kinship because it was almost considered a fringe sport and was constantly crapped on by NFL or other fans who called it bush league.