0:03  
It seems each of the teams we're going to talk about the Jays Raptors, Toronto FC and the Leafs are all too good to leave out of trophy discussions at the end of their respective seasons. TFC just won MLS Cup last year after appearing in their second straight final. The young Maple Leafs have made the playoffs once again after losing last year to a stacked Washington Capitals team. The Raptors arguably have their strongest ever squad at their disposal this year for the playoffs, and the Jays are much stronger than most expected after losing big hitters, Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista in consecutive years. It's a great time to be a big four Toronto sports fan. Okay five if you include the Argos, but it wasn't always this way. For years, decades even, fans of those four teams suffered as their favorite teams toiled away at the infinite spiral staircase of mediocrity. Bad trades, a lack of competitive ambition and turning profits despite fueling average teams were the main talking points for these franchises in huge markets that just couldn't win. Recently, we've seen that change. And with Toronto's upturn in sporting fortunes, fans are once again proud to don their various Toronto jerseys all across the city. Have a look around right now. I bet you can't walk more than three blocks without seeing a Raptors jersey. I'm recording this episode on possibly the best sports night we'll ever see in Toronto. The Leafs, Raps, Jays, TFC and Marley's are all playing tonight. There's a cup final on the line for TFC, an elimination game for the Leafs against the Bruins, a win streak maker for the Jays and a mid round playoff game for the Marley's. The intersection of York and Bremner is going to be packed to the rafters with fans of all those teams willing them on to win. Before these games happened, I spoke with a diehard fan from each to learn a bit about them and their relationship with the team. Each fan will be a sort of champion per se for their respective teams fan base, and will be the basis for what I'll call our fanatic metrics to determine which fan base is the strongest. But we'll talk about that a bit later. First up is Zel Bocknick, a Leaf's fan who's had a season ticket since the 80s.

2:13  
From childhood, I was always listening to the Leafs. Saturday night hockey games over the radio was a standard procedure.

2:22  
Zell said he couldn't remember exactly who the broadcaster was at the time, but that the play callers voice was still burned into his memory to this day. Now to me, there's no more recognizable radio voice for the Maple Leafs than Joe Bowen

2:37  
Back to the point it comes to Morgan Riley. There's stuff on the far side for Bozak. Centering pass, scores! Scores! Tyler Bozak. Holy Mackinaw, the Leafs have won it. 

2:50  
Yep, that guy. The holy mackinaw guy. Joe Bowen has called over 3000 games for the Leafs. But it doesn't quite fit the timeline as bone started broadcasting in 1982. It's more likely that Zell grew up listening to Foster Hewitt and Peter Maher.

3:05  
Hello, Canada and hockey fans in the United States. We're at the eight minute mark and there's no score. 

3:13  
You might have heard this before. That's from a CBC Hockey Night in Canada intro and that's Foster Hewitt. I digress. Zell has kept season passes in original condition dating back all the way to 1984. Having tickets to 41 games in the mid 80s Maple Leafs wasn't as glamorous as you'd think, though. Their best player in that 84-85 season was Rick Vaive, but even he couldn't say them from the last place finishing their division with just 20 wins in 80 games. Pretty brutal. But okay, leafs fans have suffered enough. So I asked Zell what his best Leaf's memory was and he had two. One was watching the Leafs live in the early 50s with his dad. The leafs had Turk broda and goal and George Armstrong on the right wing. Those two play just one season together from 1951 to 1952. And Zell got to see them both. Now that's important because Armstrong and Baroda were both Hall of Famers, Leafs legends, who played a combined 33 years for the club. Zell is one lucky guy to have seen them play on the same sheet of ice at Maple Leaf Gardens, that's history. And now the Leafs are in the ACC Zell has a great seat. It's kind of like having the best of both worlds. He can see the entire ice from the blue line. It's kind of like a TV view. But he also gets to take in the live atmosphere of the ACC and just how loud it gets, especially in those playoff games.

4:34  
We got front row greens, just at the blue line.

4:39  
That's pretty good. You're not getting any beer spilled on you. No popcorn, nothing like that.

4:43  
That's right. Today to buy season tickets. It's about $8,000 for these two seats that I have.

4:50  
Wow. Now, I was prepared for a decent chunk of change, but $8,000 was more than I expected. Let's break that down a bit to get the average cost of a game day for Zell. Hint, hint, this is how we're going to attempt to compare fan bases. Is it biased? Yes. Is the data erratic? Yes. But these numbers won't mean everything. So Zell lives uptown, he drives about 30 minutes to the stadium. So let's be conservative by saying he spends four bucks and gas and 20 bucks on parking. He has two seats that cost $8,000 for the whole season, which gives him two tickets to each home game. So $8,000 divided by 41 Games is about $194 per game. If he wants to get a hotdog and a beer for himself, and whoever he takes to the game, that isn't cheap either. In 2013, Toronto life recommended the $8 butter chicken hotdog to eat at the game, which sounds delicious, and I've never tried it. And the last time I checked a beer at the ACC starts around 13 bucks. So for a game where it's his treat, Zell could spend about $250 per game without breaking a sweat. So I think it's completely fair to call Zell and others like him who hold season tickets, very, very, very, very, very loyal fans. So let's move on a bit. The Blue Jays are doing pretty well this year. They're just four games back from the Red Sox, and they're at a point 600 winning percentage so they can't complain. Despite losing two of their best players in consecutive seasons, of course, I'm talking about our two big sluggers from well, days of yonder, Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista. So I spoke with Elise Vecchiarelli. She's a really, really, really committed Jays fan, who has kind of a cool family tie to the club.

6:39  
As soon as I could speak my grandmother had me singing Let's Go Blue Jays with her as soon as I could say ball. So literally since I'm like eight months old I've been a Jays fan. 

6:53  
Elise's grandmother Angela had an uncle Victor Bagnato, part of the steering committee that saw the Blue Jays come to Toronto in 1977. Now excuse the pun, but baseball is a totally different ballgame compared to hockey. There are 162 games a year, 81 of which are home games. Keep in mind 82 total NHL games each season, 81 home games in one MLB season. So flex packs, you know tickets that are bought kind of in bulk, but are across spread across the season, they make more financial sense. So Elise goes to about 30 games a year. Her favorite place to sit is section 115. And like most things in baseball, the section has its quirks.

7:34  
If you're sitting on the right, it is cheaper because I guess you're slightly closer to the outfield. And if you are on the left, you're slightly closer to home plate and it is more expensive. Depending on the game and who's in town and the time of day and I'm sure the phases of the moon and whatever else they used to come up with the pricing. They're about $50 to like $75 I guess somewhere in that range.

8:00  
Okay, let's do a fanatic metric lightning round. So Elisa just set a ticket could be anywhere from 50 to $75. On average, let's take that and split it right down the middle 62.50. So 62.50 times 30 games puts you at $1875 off the bat. Then you got to factor in things like parking 20 bucks, let's say similar to Zell similar area. A couple bucks in gas, I'm going to double it and say $8 and let's say at least picks up a similar tab for food for her and a friend. So that's a total of about $4,000 for 30 games, or 132.50 per game. If we adjust that number to match Zell's number of games. So we increase Elise's game number from 30 to 41. That's about $5400 for her enjoyment of the season, about half of what Zell would pay for two season tickets. Now my next guest will be the only fan of interview who's never seen his team win at all. His name is Mitch Robson. He's a Ryerson student. He's 21 and he is a Toronto Raptors fan. So he's just about as old as the organization itself.

9:01  
I have been a Raptors fan, I guess you could say since birth, because my mom's been a diehard fan forever. But I really got into it started watching games when I was probably eight or nine years old.

9:12  
Mitch got his passion for basketball and subsequently the Raptors from his mom Melanie, who's played the game and coached all her life. Mitch's mom made the sound investment in 2011-2012, the lockout year in the NBA, to invest in some season tickets when the Raptors stock was low. It was a smart play on their part though, because just two seasons later, the Raptors made the playoffs and they haven't been out of it since. With Melanie commuting from St. Catharines as a coach at Brock and Mitch is a student downtown who's just recently graduated, sometimes they don't always get their schedule to jive. But that's okay because they benefit from being able to sell such a hot commodity. I'm going to pull back the broadcaster's curtain one last time and say that I began recording this episode on Wednesday before this mammoth sports game started, but now it's Thursday. It's Thursday morning and I know what happened in all the games and I hate to spoil it in case you haven't checked the scores yet. The Raptors are the only team that did well last night. The Jays lost, the Leafs got eliminated from the playoffs. TFC lost on penalties. I don't even know what the Marley's did because I was too busy crying into my pillow all night. Let's just say that Mitch should be the only Toronto sports fan out of all of my guests who are smiling today. That's kind of sad. The good thing is that we are doing extremely well against the Washington Wizards which you would expect as Toronto being the number one seed this year.

10:39  
If they can finish off the Wizards which they should. Cleveland had 22 point first quarter from LeBron and he finished with 40 the other night and they only ended up winning by three. So the Cavs really don't look good right now. I think Kevin Love heard his thumb in that one. So if he's he's there for maybe the Pacers can somehow pull it off. But if the Cavs do advance, they look kind of vulnerable as as vulnerable as a LeBron lead playoff team can be. But I like our chances.

11:07  
Now Mitch is a smart guy. He knows basketball and I'm really glad he does because I do not. Facing LeBron James in any like any situation at all does not fill me with delight. Mitch is my next math victim. Now Mitch doesn't know the cost of his two season seats and I couldn't get to Melanie in time. So I'll have to quote him based on new season seat holders. What they would pay for this season's tickets, having no prior history with the Raptors. So excluding the $20,000 courtside ticket, the average price you know right down the middle median price for a raptor season ticket is about $7500. So let's tally it up, $7500 divided by 41 home games gives you an average cost of $183 per game. Then at $3 and TTC fare to get to the game because michalos downtown, plus the standard beer and hotdog for Mitch and his mom which of course he'll pay for. That adds up to $228 per game, or about $9,350 for the pair this season in a decent lower bowl seat. Now lastly, and for most of its history, considered the least we have Toronto FC. And let me tell you, I couldn't have found a better interview subject if you let me in the locker room. It's Phil Tobin. Phil is the former president of the Red Patch Boys, one of Toronto FC his original and most ardent supporters groups. Phil in a way is kind of the master puppet of Toronto FC. There's a roof because Phil suggested it directly to Tim Liewiki. And the only reason he got in front of Tim Liewiki is because Tim came to talk to Phil. That's right, the former president of the club wants to talk to Phil about how to improve the team, during its worst years.

12:52  
Tim came and sat with me for the entire second half in 112. And nobody knew who he was. Tim came in and he asked me questions for the entire half about, basically about the product on the field. Why Real Salt Lake were better, right? And what our struggles were, he said, What would you do to the stadium? I said, well, we have a choice. When it comes to halftime, we can either go and go to the washroom or buy a beer. You can't do both, because both have a lineup. And I said I'd probably install more washrooms and get more services like that from a business standpoint. I said, and they said, okay, that's done. And then I and then he said, What else would you do? I said, I'd love to fill in the corners with seats. And he said, you know, make it feel like a real stadium because right now it is just a bunch of disjointed stands. And he said, we can work on that and he said, what else? I go, I want to roof.

13:52  
So So you are the master architect of the renovation of BMO Field. Did you realize it at the time?

13:59  
I had no clue. Now, I can't take credit for it. But I just looked back on that conversation and how stark it was in the middle of a July afternoon. And to know that Tim and I have gone on to have this ongoing relationship. I still talk to him to this day. We still talk I think last year that the first year we made the finals. While when we beat Montreal to go to the finals. Tim actually came to me and gave me a hug. And he whispered in my ear. He turned he said to me he says all this is because of my vision. He said this is why the team is doing well. He goes because you believed in them and everybody else in the league didn't. And he goes this is all your vision. He's like everything from the marketing from everything that's going on is to Toronto FC's credit. He told me bluntly, he said he thought that he was the genius for bringing in David Beckham in 2007. He goes, what changed the league was Toronto FC.

14:58  
I sat with Phil for hours chatting about TFC. There's simply no way to distill that conversation into something more digestible. You just had to be there. But I think that story about Phil's vision becoming a reality says all you need to know about how important he is to the club. Phil and all the others in the supporter section prefers to stand, sing, swear and set off smoke bombs. At the end of the stadium, it's the Southbank that you see on TV that looks like a tidal wave of red and white. Now, those tickets are extremely desirable come playoff time, but during the regular season, they're often resold for face value when a Red Patch Boy can't go. A season ticket in a supporter section can be bought from the club website. You have to go through a supporters group to get your hands on one and good luck. The median price for a ticket that's still available is about 1400 dollars. And that's not in the supporter section. It gets you 19 home games and two Cup games, that works out to about an average ticket price of $66 per game. Add a couple bucks for transit, let's say $7 on the go train many TFC fans transit mode of choice, a beer and a hotdog and you get a grand total of about $115 per game. Now let's adjust for the 41 game quota. If there were 41 home games to go to each season in MLS for TFC, your total cost compared to the other teams we talked about would be about $4,715 the lowest of them all by far. I'm glad you waited, because now I'll show you my secret formula to judge loyalty. All these teams are well attended, so I'll leave the attendance figures out. I'm going to present you with a figure I called dollars per drought years and it's as straightforward as it sounds. So we take the lump sum cost we calculated and divided by the amount of years each team has gone without winning major honors until today. So basically a playoff trophy. Coming in with the lowest figure at $200 per drought year, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Which makes sense because they haven't won anything in 51 years. Oh my God when something. Next, with $216 per drought year, the Toronto Blue Jays. With only 25 years since their last title, a World Series in 1993. In third, with $406 per drought year, the Toronto Raptors having never won anything in its 23 year history. And at a whopping $4,715 per drought year, it is Toronto FC. Now technically they should have zero dollars per drought year because they won the MLS Cup last year. But either way, it's justification for calling TFC fans Toronto's best fan base. I said it I'm calling it TFC are the best. Put it on CNN. They were the worst team in the world when they started that was their nickname. They made big blunderous bloody deals like with Jermaine Defoe. But the will of supporters like Phil to get in the faces of management to make change and reap the rewards of passion and commitment to bettering the organization in such a small amount of time means they're the best. Toronto's newest big sports team is also the city's most successful reaching back to back MLS Cup finals last year and the year prior. They built a home stadium that is a fortress almost impossible to travel to and win in. Their fans travel everywhere the team goes including Mexico yesterday in the CONCACAF Champions League Final. They lost by the way. Prices are low because fans made it so and people like Phil are woven directly into the club's fabric and history as a result of their drive to give the city a winning team. Even though they pay the least money per ticket and probably spend the least amount of time inside the ground. Because soccer is short at 90 minutes. From the start to finish, I crowned TFC fans the best because they help make this team successful in under 15 years since its inception. Thank you very much credits are at the bottom. Have a great day. Go TFC!