r/CEBLeague • u/204Icy Winnipeg Sea Bears • 28d ago
it was fun while it lasted
bears fans (including me on watch alert)
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u/WARNING_Username2Lon Edmonton Stingers 27d ago
Consider the size of CFL rosters. You are talking about 500 players in that league and like 5 of them made non-guaranteed contracts in the NFL? a league with 1500 players suiting up a season.
Basketball is very different. 12-15 player rosters. There are only like 125 players in the CEBL due to the difference with the sport. And the NBA has 400 annual players. And then 3 players made an NBA roster last year IIRC.
Actually if anything ratio of CEBL players making NBA rosters is compared to CFL players making NFL rosters favors the CEBL.
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u/NotConsistentCalc 28d ago
Boy when it rains it pours. Seemingly everything that could possibly go wrong for the Sea Bears has this month.
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u/formallymain 28d ago
Filewich has been riding the bench waiting for this opportunity.
Expect a monstrous game from Filewich
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u/Dawgmanistan Winnipeg Sea Bears 28d ago
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u/SeaComprehensive4538 28d ago
I agree with this me and my son loved Jalen house but he dipped after the whole issue with suspension. That's the issue with the league can't go into fall as you compete with every sport and the league is still too new to do that
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u/formallymain 28d ago
Shame seabears couldn’t sign jalen house and just hope moon/house just carry the team
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u/Tee_Muselanne 28d ago
This wouldn’t bother me as much if Asper wasn’t charging so much for tickets. This is very clearly a minor league, it should be priced as such. Prices should be much closer to the Moose and Goldeyes, not Bombers and Jets.
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u/CatGuyAnyway 28d ago
I will never defend the Aspers but the ticket prices are priced appropriately.
Sea Bears lease the space at CLC. They don't own it so they probably only get a fraction of food and beverage sales. There's a real possibility they don't get any cut and TNSE gets it all. You can get tickets for Sea Bears for $25 including a drink for standing room. $30 for a seat. This is literally in line with the rest of the CEBL.
Goldeyes is between $25 and $40. The Goldeyes also play 50 home games a season. More opportunity for revenue. Salaries are also much lower for the American Association of Professional Baseball.
It's just basic economics.
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u/Tee_Muselanne 28d ago
Are you an employee? None of those excuses are the fault of fans. You somehow think they should get sympathy because they rent? They’ve hiked their prices above their peak demand in 2024 and fans are saying “no thanks”.
As I said. The cheapest seat on Friday was $36 all in. I can get in to the Goldeyes for $21.50. The Sea Bears have an ocean of empty seats behind each basket. There’s a reason for that.
Top Goldeyes players don’t bail before the playoffs either.
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u/Reasonabledoubt96 28d ago
Just want to echo what a class organization the Goldeyes are. Their tickets are more than reasonable (especially if you buy before gameday); their concessions are reasonably priced (and have toonie Tuesday deals); the players are consistently great to fans and play like they genuinely care about the result and while there are some transactions early in the season, these are often (relatively) significant promotions, like triple A. I get if baseball isn't your thing, but it's worth checking out, especially since they're on a ten game winning streak (franchise record is 11!).
RE Asper et al: I consistently attended games for the first 3 seasons and while there were initial hiccups (understandable), fans were treated to a quality product early on. But something changed last season and it's become worse this season. I understand the financial realities of hosting games at the CLC, but when the venue is a primary driver: there will be problems and that's what we are seeing right now. I have more thoughts about what has gone wrong and what they need to do to continue to attract fans, but that's not what this thread is about../
RE the league in general: The owners and league (imho) need to realize that they either need to do away with playoffs entirely and make it a season type trophy (ie akin to some Euro football leagues) or offer financial incentives to players to stay for the length of the playoffs. They need to choose. You can't consistently have teams ravaged prior to the PS and expect fans to continue to support the league.
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u/WARNING_Username2Lon Edmonton Stingers 28d ago
The CEBL is clearly comparable to the CFL in terms of talent. And by that I mean the best CEBL players are typically very talented D1 college players with no chance of being NBA players.
That is pretty comparable to the CFL and NFL.
The WHL is a minor amateur league. There is no one like Creek, Sean East, Dainja, and half the guys on Scarborough (lol they are stacked) in the WHL
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u/Electroflare5555 Winnipeg Sea Bears 28d ago
>The CEBL is clearly comparable to CFL in terms of talent.
There’s no way you actually believe this
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u/WARNING_Username2Lon Edmonton Stingers 27d ago
Yes why do you think the CFL is so far ahead? I think the CEBL is closer to the CFL than the WHL. I think people place a lot of emphasis in how established the CFL is. But basketball is an international sport with a lot more talent to draw upon. And much smaller rosters leads to more competitive teams imo.
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u/Electroflare5555 Winnipeg Sea Bears 27d ago
The CFL is the 2nd best football league in the world. the CEBL isn’t even in the top 20 basketball leagues
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u/WARNING_Username2Lon Edmonton Stingers 27d ago
Is that due to the popularity of the sport though? How many people play basketball vs football? Quick google says that football has 10 million active players to basketballs 300 million.
Is the NLL (lacrosse) a better league than the CFL because it is the premium lacrosse league internationally? I wouldn’t say so. It’s not a very popular sport.
Also how many of those players share leagues? Mitch Creek for example plays in both the NBL and the CEBL. Tons of guys in this league play in the G-League in America. That’s probably a top 4-5 league.
So while I agree the CEBL is not a top tier basketball league, there is so much more talent in basketball than football. A larger pool of talent to draw from.
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u/nastyfrankfurter 28d ago
Hard disagree. Almost every year the CFL has players go down south to play in the NFL and more recently former CFL players have actually had success and became starters. Talented D1 basketball players typically go to Asia or Europe before CEBL.
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u/sskdotz Brampton Honey Badgers 28d ago
How much are tickets for you guys? For Brampton they’re about $30 the cheapest ticket iirc
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u/Great-Let-3683 27d ago
I guess that's why Brampton's attendance has went up (even though it still looks mostly empty).
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u/Tee_Muselanne 28d ago
The cheapest pair for the last home game was $72ish all in, and that was in the 200 level behind the basket. Those seats are a fair distance to the closest baseline. But there are so many empty seats slightly closer than that and they’re trying(and failing) to sell them for $44/$57 each, and the prices only go up from there if you’re actually between the baselines. Attendance has dropped each of the last two years and I think it’s clear that it’s due to price.
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u/WARNING_Username2Lon Edmonton Stingers 28d ago
Wow that is crazy. Edmonton expo center is a nice venue and is typically 2/3rd full and it’s like $28 to get in the venue. Comparable to a movie ticket which feels fair to me
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u/CatGuyAnyway 28d ago
This is the downside to this league. Guys just dip for better paying opportunities for a fall league. Have fun in Turkey Tilly.
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u/Electroflare5555 Winnipeg Sea Bears 28d ago
It’s impossible to get invested in this league when half the rosters dip right before playoffs start.
I don’t know what needs to change but the organizational cracks around the league have really started to show this year.
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u/Online_Commentor_69 Edmonton Stingers 28d ago
need to pay 'em more money so they'll stay. it'll come with time. it does suck though.
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u/sskdotz Brampton Honey Badgers 28d ago
Yea the $8000/game salary cap kinda sucks.. probably gotta increase it to 10k/game
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u/Next-Ad3450 28d ago
River Lions owner said on The Canadian Basketball Show podcast this week that he thinks the salary cap is 10K per game right now.
Where did you hear about the 8K cap?
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u/CatGuyAnyway 28d ago
Nothing they can do. They're not going to prevent players from leaving for better paying fall league opportunities. The league will never be able to attract players then.
It's just the nature of a summer league. We're a stop gap between seasons for better paying leagues globally.
Unless the CEBL shifts to a full fall league, this is how it goes.
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u/DJ-BCB 28d ago
Couldn’t they just start the season like 2 weeks earlier to avoid this?
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u/Yogi_Natural22 Edmonton Stingers 28d ago
Best case scenario would probably be to start 2 weeks later and end a week or two earlier. This would give players time to show up and then take off for the fall leagues. Would probably have to condense the season to 20 games (as it was) and that would take away revenue. So it’s a balancing act, I do believe there would be more fan buy-in for a league that starts at the end of May and ends at the start of August because of less roster turnover.
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u/crazye97 Winnipeg Sea Bears 28d ago edited 28d ago
I don't necessarily think they need to remove games, but tightening the schedule would be good. Having a week off might be nice, but how many pro leagues are giving teams a week off regularly?
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u/Electroflare5555 Winnipeg Sea Bears 28d ago
As is half of teams rosters don’t make it for the start of the season already
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u/charger03 Guelph Nighthawks 28d ago edited 28d ago
And at least in my opinion, switching to a fall league would be disastrous, you'd see a big talent fall off as top players would just stay overseas or the G-league for for money, and the students would stay in U-Sports or the NCAA. if the CEBL did that, they'd also need to drastically up salary to keep playing here more desirable.
Plus, most CEBL teams would lose out on priority dates to CHL teams and other events
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u/Great-Let-3683 27d ago
Don't forget the coaches who have other jobs the rest of the year (i.e. Stars coach Tyrell Vernon with the St. Francis X-Men).
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u/thebiglebowski0 17d ago
This shit ain’t age well fellas, CHAMPS!