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Will a blackout produce a near sellout?
It was going be the largest crowd of the season in the CFL pretty much when the schedule came out.
But ticket sales were reported at 48,000-plus Friday morning for today’s 5 p.m. game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Edmonton Eskimos, indicating a likely advance sale of 50,000 by mid-afternoon plus walk-up sales at the stadium.
It’s expected this will be the one game this season the team uses its option to have the blackout in effect.
Under the current deal with TSN, each team is allowed to black out one game per season.
That might have something to do with the forecast and chances for a strong walk-up crowd.
“We got a big break with the forecast,” said Eskimos’ marketing manager Dave Jamieson of the forecast, which was adjusted to 11 C, sunny with clouds and only a 30% chance of rain.
The green-and-gold tarps which covered two sections of seats on the upper-deck wings of the stadium were removed Friday but the endzone advertising tarps will remain, depending on the late sales and walk-up crowd.
