Montreal vs. Toronto

[Gooch]

I have a question for all of you Canadian baseball fans. Generally speaking, why did Montreal fail to support a major league baseball club, while it has flourished in Toronto? Is it simply a matter of Toronto having a larger population?

[runningshoes]

Le Canadiens

[Ragu]

My guess would be that Montreal didn't win or even come close to winning a world series title, even when they had the team in the mid-90s to potentially be able to do it.

Toronto on the other hand has delivered 2 world series championships and multiple playoff appearences to their fans.

[eurobaser]

I think the answer is that French speaking Montreal never really got the Expos. The Canadiens, "Les Habs" are the one and only true sporting love of French Montreal and do not forget that MTL is essentially a francophone city.

[wilkerson_rulz-06]

LIsten, I live in Montreal, I went to their games. I am also a Canadiens fan. Let me tell you why Montreal failed. They failed because MLB was not loyal, there were so many scandals bechind the Expos franchise. After the 1994 season, it fell apart. Fans no longer went to their games, the stars were all shipped away. Then when JEFFREY LORIA took over, he drove a loved franchise from the trees to the ground. That's the reason why. Bud Selig drove it from the ground through the mud.

I hope everyone will read this so they know that Montreal has fans, and we miss them, and we are tired of always being insulted! People say that Quebec has no respect for the great american pastime. THEY DONT BECAUSE SOME STUPID PERSON (Bud SELIG AND JEFFREY LORIA!) ELIMINATED MONTREAL!

That is why the HABS do not respect this game!

LISTEN TO ME!!!!

Read my signature!!!!!!!!!

[RedSox2004]

Don't discount that a large number of Expos fans relocated to Toronto in the early 80's when the Parti Québécois scared most english speaking residents out of Quebec. The Expos never marketed the French population well and their orginal fanbase was found in what is known as the West Island.

Montreal was a good baseball town but the city ignored the Expos until the end of the hockey season. Throw in the fact that nobody in Quebec wanted to spend a night indoors in the short summer and the team had problems.

But for anyone who ever heard a full Stade Olympique crowd sing the Happy Wanderer knew that the fans did care until the strike. After that their hearts were broken.

[wilkerson_rulz-06]

Don't discount that a large number of Expos fans relocated to Toronto in the early 80's when the Parti Québécois scared most english speaking residents out of Quebec. The Expos never marketed the French population well and their orginal fanbase was found in what is known as the West Island.

Montreal was a good baseball town but the city ignored the Expos until the end of the hockey season. Throw in the fact that nobody in Quebec wanted to spend a night indoors in the short summer and the team had problems.

But for anyone who ever heard a full Stade Olympique crowd sing the Happy Wanderer knew that the fans did care until the strike. After that their hearts were broken.

Thank you for feeling my pain RedSox. At least you still have your team!
:waving

[runningshoes]

I could have swung a dead cat and hit nothing but empty seats at every Expo game I ever attended. The Expos had some great teams and some great players. I'll never understand why they couldn't put more fans in the seats.

[wilkerson_rulz-06]

I could have swung a dead cat and hit nothing but empty seats at every Expo game I ever attended. The Expos had some great teams and some great players. I'll never understand why they couldn't put more fans in the seats.

Maybe what I had written could answer some of your questions :

LIsten, I live in Montreal, I went to their games. I am also a Canadiens fan. Let me tell you why Montreal failed. They failed because MLB was not loyal, there were so many scandals bechind the Expos franchise. After the 1994 season, it fell apart. Fans no longer went to their games, the stars were all shipped away. Then when JEFFREY LORIA took over, he drove a loved franchise from the trees to the ground. That's the reason why. Bud Selig drove it from the ground through the mud.

I hope everyone will read this so they know that Montreal has fans, and we miss them, and we are tired of always being insulted! People say that Quebec has no respect for the great american pastime. THEY DONT BECAUSE SOME STUPID PERSON (Bud SELIG AND JEFFREY LORIA!) ELIMINATED MONTREAL!

That is why the HABS do not respect this game!

LISTEN TO ME!!!!

Read my signature!!!!!!!!!:ughh

[runningshoes]

I started going to Montreal in the early 80's. I've been to approximately 30 games and I remember the largest announced attendance was around 7,000. I remember one series against the Cubs with a total attendance of around 10,000. I don't doubt some were trying to get that team out of there, but I don't think the average fan was aware of this. It must have been tough on some of those players trying to get excited in a consistantly empty stadium.

[runningshoes]

I hope everyone will read this so they know that Montreal has fans, and we miss them, and we are tired of always being insulted! People say that Quebec has no respect for the great american pastime. THEY DONT BECAUSE SOME STUPID PERSON (Bud SELIG AND JEFFREY LORIA!) ELIMINATED MONTREAL!

I've never heard anyone say there was no respect for baseball. I just think the Expos, for whatever reason, never generated the interest among the Quebecois. I know there was a hard core base of great fans, but unfortunatey that doesn't fill seats.

[wilkerson_rulz-06]

I've never heard anyone say there was no respect for baseball. I just think the Expos, for whatever reason, never generated the interest among the Quebecois. I know there was a hard core base of great fans, but unfortunatey that doesn't fill seats.

I live in Quebec. Some people tell me they have no respect for baseball. And I've read and hear and saw people who say: ''The quebecois have no respect for our pastime''

[runningshoes]

Those people obviously don't know what they're talking about. I think liking and respecting and even undersatnding are totally different things.

The game simply never caught on there, and if the owners and the province had really ever understood baseball fans, they would never have moved the Expos into that stadium.

Think back to when the Royals were popular. They played in an intimate amosphere where the fans were close to the game. You can't say the same about Olympic Stadium. It was a horrible place to watch a game. It was ok for guys like you and me who would sit in **** if meant seeing a game, but the average fan never really got the feel for the game.

[westsidegrounds]

From 1979 through 1983 the Expos topped 2 million fans four times, while the NL average never reached 1.8 million.

In 1983 2,320,651 fans turned up at Stade Olympique compared to a league average of 1,795,774.

Total nosedive the next season: 1,606,531 Montrealers compared to the NL avg of 1,731,786. The Expos had below-league-average attendances from then on.

What happened in 1984?

[KingJ]

From 1979 through 1983 the Expos topped 2 million fans four times, while the NL average never reached 1.8 million.

In 1983 2,320,651 fans turned up at Stade Olympique compared to a league average of 1,795,774.

Total nosedive the next season: 1,606,531 Montrealers compared to the NL avg of 1,731,786. The Expos had below-league-average attendances from then on.

What happened in 1984?

They lost their playoff edge.

[eurobaser]

I live in Quebec. Some people tell me they have no respect for baseball. And I've read and hear and saw people who say: ''The quebecois have no respect for our pastime''

Wilkerson can I ask are you english or french speaking. I ask cos on my admittedly very few visits to see the Expos I was struck by how little French I heard in the stadium compared to outside. I respect your feel for the game but the french point remains.

[wilkerson_rulz-06]

Wilkerson can I ask are you english or french speaking. I ask cos on my admittedly very few visits to see the Expos I was struck by how little French I heard in the stadium compared to outside. I respect your feel for the game but the french point remains.

I am English speaking and have nothing against my fellow citizens. The point is that more English speaking people went to see the Expos than french. Most french people just waited outside, maybe in a bar or sports restaurant.

I hope this answers your question

[runningshoes]

You have to wonder how 14% of Quebecers whose mother tongue is English living in Montreal can support a baseball team in a province of only 7 million people.

[Captain Cold Nose]

From 1979 through 1983 the Expos topped 2 million fans four times, while the NL average never reached 1.8 million.

In 1983 2,320,651 fans turned up at Stade Olympique compared to a league average of 1,795,774.

Total nosedive the next season: 1,606,531 Montrealers compared to the NL avg of 1,731,786. The Expos had below-league-average attendances from then on.

What happened in 1984?
They traded Gary Carter. Andre Dawson would be gone a couple years later. Seeing the exodus of these big name players, even though they were replaced with some good young players through the farm system, had to have been hurtful to the bottom line.

[westsidegrounds]

They traded Gary Carter. Andre Dawson would be gone a couple years later. Seeing the exodus of these big name players, even though they were replaced with some good young players through the farm system, had to have been hurtful to the bottom line.


Well ..... you can't only go to the ballpark when the team is contending. If fans won't support a team that's aging, or rebuilding, or whatever, simply out of loyalty to that team, then the ownership is entitled to question how much they owe those fans.

[125osprey]

It's a damn shame. Montreal is, of course, a hockey town, but it does have an impressive baseball history. This was the town where the Dodgers sent their prospects. This is the town that seasoned Jackie Robinson before he broke the colour barrier.

It's too bad the Expos had to play their home games in that atrocious money-pit known as Olympic Stadium.

[bostonredsox1975]

A new stadium would have helped for a few years, but how can the city gain interest in a team that consistantly put teams on the field that don't make the postseason? Sure they had sum over .500 teams, but they just couldn't make the big step to the postseason.

[Cubsfan97]

I've always viewed Montreal as mainly Canadian sports, not American sports. They just could'nt get enough fans to wanna watch them. BTW, Boston, can't you put 2004 World Series Champs as your sig?

[Last of the Indian fans]

id have to see it as two places who are hockey towns... going to a very american like town toronto, and trying to learn quebec dialect of french... i would have to in my opinion say it is a combination of no real word for baseball, the braves, and the english speaking of ontario... basketball failed miserably in vancouver, montreal baseball fails, but toronto, prolly the most americanized city in canada accepts it... prolly the amount of americans that pour into ontario vs. british columbia and quebec are prolly a huge reason...

[OK BLUEJAYS]

I think Montreal moved mainly because of competition from other sports but also because of the lack of investment in the stadium and team and an unstable fan base. Baseball is bigger in the english speaking population and recent separation woes have not helped lure new french speaking fans. Recent Eurpoean immigrants to Canada don't like baseball and minor baseball has been replaced by soccer in Canada as a result. Like it says on the Quebec licence plates "Je Me Souviens"-"I Remember". Baseball in Quebec is but a memory.
I remember as a kid growing up in Toronto, during the pre-Blue Jays era, Montreal was never very popular among my group of peers. We hated thier Hockey team so much, it would have been disloyal to our Leafs to cheer on the Expos (even if they were the only Canadian baseball team in the Majors). My favourite team back then was the Cincinnati Reds. Mainly because of Manager Sparky Anderson, who played in Toronto briefly for the old Toronto Maple Leaf ball club.

[bluejaysfan]

I think the fire sale in 1994 really left a bitter taste in people's mouths. Olympic Stadium is a big concrete tomb that should never have hosted a baseball team. Montreal made the mistake of not renovating the stadium like Atlanta did with Turner Field. The area where the stadium is in isn't very nice, not to mention that it isn't anywhere near downtown.

The Jays just haven't had an incident such as the 1995 firesale after such a promising season that alienated so much of the fanbase that it sent the franchise down. I don't know alot about how the Francophone/Anglophone demographics affect the demise of the Expos although as many posters have pointed out the attendance started going south in the mid 1980's, which is around the time that the 1st Anglophone exodus began.

[Gjm130]

I'm another one of these hardcore Montreal baseball fans, and I really think, baseball collapsed here after the 94 strike......
We were averaging 28 000 a game before
And then, we only averaged 12 000 a game....
Look at the differance....

And RedSox2004 is right, most Anglopones and big companies left Montreal in the early 80's because they were scared Quebec was going to be an independant province.

Although, baseball WILL work in Montreal in the next 10 to 15 years as demographic professionals predict the coming of lots of anglophones to the beaUtiful city.