Photo courtesy: Jaclyn McKee/B.C. Lions

A new poll from Probe Research may have focused on the CFL’s incoming rule changes, but it indicated two encouraging demographic trends in the process.

A poll from the Angus Reid Institute in 2023 showed some troubling figures in the age demographics of Canadians who follow the CFL “very closely or closely.” Only 11 percent of respondents age 18-34 answered positively, compared to 15 percent of respondents age 35-54 and 20 percent of respondents age 55-plus.

In other words, according to the data, young Canadians were only about half as likely to be CFL fans as old Canadians. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why that would be a serious long-term problem for the league.

In this recent poll, however, the data looks much better.

Among those age 18-34, 14 percent of respondents indicated they were engaged CFL fans — defined as those who attend games and regularly watch them on television — which was the highest of any age demographic. Only seven percent of respondents age 35-54 indicated they were engaged fans, while 12 percent of respondents age 55-plus reported the same.

This is a poll about the Canadian Football League. Few if any would have predicted the age demographic to respond the most positively regarding their hardcore fandom to be the youngest one.

Among casual or intermittent fans, defined as those who occasionally watch games on television and check scores online, the data is much more even across age groups — 27 percent in the youngest age bracket, 30 percent in the middle age bracket, and 30 percent in the oldest age bracket.

In total, 41 percent of young Canadians are CFL fans of some type, followed by 37 percent of middle-aged Canadians and 42 percent of old Canadians. Those demographics aren’t perfect — optimally, they’d skew even younger — but they’re far from the disaster illustrated by previous polling.

There’s still plenty of capacity for CFL fandom to grow, of course. A poll from The Strategic Counsel earlier this year indicated that 58 percent of Canadians are fans of the NHL. The same survey found that 32 percent of Canadians were CFL fans behind the NFL (37 percent) and MLB (34 percent) and ahead of the NBA (29 percent).

Looking at a handful of similar polls that have been conducted in the United States regarding the NFL, around 60 percent of respondents report being at least casual fans.

It doesn’t seem realistic to expect the CFL to become more popular than the NHL is in Canada or the NFL is in the United States. As such, it stands to reason it’s likely impossible for the league to breach the established fandom threshold of around 60 percent.

However, if the league currently has somewhere between 32 to 40 percent of Canadians as fans of some degree, that means there’s hypothetically an additional 20 percent capacity to grow CFL fandom.

Arguably just as encouraging as the age demographics in this latest poll are the cultural demographics.

Among the 78 percent of respondents born in Canada, 11 percent are engaged CFL fans and 30 percent are casual CFL fans. Among the 22 percent of respondents not born in Canada, 12 percent are engaged fans and 29 percent are casual CFL fans.

In other words, according to this poll, it makes no difference if Canadians were born in this country or not — they are equally likely to be fans of the CFL.

This seems like fantastic news for the league. If people who immigrate to Canada don’t care about the CFL, it will inevitably suffer and potentially die. If people who immigrate to Canada support the league, it should remain sustainable — and perhaps even grow.

Multiple CFL teams have offered radio broadcasts in languages other than English and French and that seems to be paying dividends along with other cultural initiatives.

There are plenty of challenges facing the CFL — it appears attendance will be essentially flat year-over-year, while television ratings remain a mystery — but these two pieces of data from Probe Research are certainly encouraging regarding the demographics of the league’s fans.