Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press:

The oldest pro football franchise in North America is wrapping up an off-season in which they traded for the reigning league MVP, added a former first-round NFL draft pick and changed coaches while bumping an icon upstairs.

And yet when the Toronto Argonauts held their ‘State of the Franchise’ media conference call on Thursday the focus of the questioning wasn’t about the efforts made to upgrade a squad that finished first in the East Division in 2007 — including the additions of Kerry Joseph and David Boston — but about the black cloud that hangs over the organization as ‘08 approaches: the invasion of the Buffalo Bills with eight games scheduled for Rogers Centre over the next five years and the blossoming popularity of the Toronto FC soccer team.

Welcome to the ongoing saga of the Argos’ attempts to sell the CFL in an already-saturated pro sports market.

“The status quo is not good enough for us,” said Pinball Clemons, who has moved upstairs from the sidelines as the Argos’ new CEO. “What our mission mandate is from this point over the next five years is to ensure the Toronto Argonauts are in the strongest position to grow our business. That’s our objective.”

To that end the Argos are attempting to tap into a younger generation by holding on to their current fan base with the theme ‘Pass it on’, which encourages parents to bring their kids to games, by aggressively pursing the ‘Generation A’ (A for Argo)’ younger demographic and by lowering capacity at Rogers Centre by closing the upper deck in an effort to create a demand for tickets.

“Everyone seems to want to market to that 18-to-30-year-old demographic and that’s a generation that’s very hard to convince to become an Argos fan,” said Brad Watters, the Argos’ chief operating officer. “From our standpoint, to get those people who remember the Exhibition Stadium or the earlier days of Rogers Centre to bring their families out is a more targeted market where we can have success.

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