Scoring Big

Published in Bar & Beverage, Fall 2008:

Grey Cup Sunday is always a touchdown for The Wayland Bar & Grill in the south end of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

While no annual event is bigger than The Wayland’s Halloween party, which always has people lining up to get in, the Grey Cup is the blue-collar establishment’s second-biggest event of autumn and third-biggest of the year (behind the Super Bowl).
“The NFL is bigger around here, for some reason – maybe because we don’t have a CFL team around here,” manager Stephanie Henderson says.

A bit of friendly wagering adds to the atmosphere. Patrons organize a Grey Cup pool, which always has a winner’s purse in the hundreds of dollars.

“I always put on a free half-time meal, featuring beef on a bun,” adds Henderson. “People really seem to enjoy that.”

She puts aside promotional items from suppliers throughout the year, and then uses them as prizes on Grey Cup day, with a big prize added on. Last year, that primo perquisite was a flat-screen TV.

“Everybody walks out of here with a prize,” she declares. “I think that’s the big thing. People like getting stuff for free.”

Atmosphere is important, so the bar is festooned with football paraphernalia – but Henderson adds that the Wayland won’t go as far as some sports bars in the atmosphere department.

“We don’t dress our waitresses as cheerleaders or anything like that. This is a family bar, and we want to keep our female customers comfortable.”

Grey Cup is part of a busy fall in sports spectacles that include the World Series, American football, mixed martial arts, NBA basketball and, of course, the Oct. 4 start of the National Hockey League season.

Rogers Sportsnet’s four regional channels will keep you well-supplied with NHL games, spokesperson Daniel Zaiontz says from Toronto.

“We’re regional broadcasters for five different Canadian teams. Those are our biggest properties, bar none.

“Without a doubt in Canada, the biggest sport is hockey, and we’ve certainly got live hockey covered.”

One of the most exciting new things for Sportsnet this fall is that Hockey Central and Soccer Central are now in high-def.

Knowing what the next hot event is, and how to plan for it, is a crucial part of any sports bar manager’s job. Star Choice, one of Canada’s leading satellite TV providers, can help you out on that with the monthly Sports Planner available for download and printout at the business section of its website.

The NHL and National Football League packages are hot sellers for Star Choice at this time of year, says Nadia Routhier, the company’s national manager of major account sales.

Star Choice offers more HD channels for free than any other satellite or cable provider, Routhier says from her Calgary office.

Star Choice has a dedicated commercial team that’s available by e-mail or phone 12 hours a day, five days a week. And, of course, there’s a system in place for response to issues that might arise during off-hours.

Star Choice is offering incentives for new commercial customers to come on board, Routhier adds.

Asked what the hottest selling brand in pay-per-view is, she replies without hesitation: “UFC, definitely.” Its popularity has been growing every year for several years now, and it likely will be even more popular next year.

Boogies Diner and Sports Lounge in Winnipeg is jam-packed for every UFC card, reports owner Derek Campbell.

“We were the first bar in Winnipeg to have UFC,” he adds. “It caught on and now it’s available in a lot of places.”

Campbell says UFC posts its events three or four months in advance, so planning for them is easy.

The lounge seats 110 and has three 60-inch plasma screens, plus several smaller TV sets. The diner also seats 110 has a few TVs too. Boogies has a 65-seat patio as well.
Campbell has the place set up with six receivers from its satellite TV service, so up to six events can be playing simultaneously.

To promote the bar, Boogies sponsors local boxing cards. Campbell himself is a former pugilist.

At Boogies, Grey Cup day “is traditionally big, depending on who is in the game,” he says. “If it’s Toronto versus B.C., the crowd’s not so big. Last year, when it was Winnipeg-Saskatchewan – now that was a big day for us!”

A few kilometres away, Doug Romanik is looking forward to a busy Grey Cup day. He owns Bleachers, a 100-seat sports pub in downtown Winnipeg.

There are just a few special-event days annually at Bleachers, he says. Otherwise, it’s just whatever patrons are asking for. “My bartender loves golf. I gotta caution him that it’s not his TV.”

Bleachers doesn’t display pay-per-view events as the pub’s size makes it difficult to host such events profitably, Romanik says.

Keeping up with the NHL, UFC, NBA, NFL, CFL, NASCAR and all the rest of the alphabet soup of sports organizations is important, but it can also pay off to keep an eye on the local scene. Like how The Wayland responded to customers’ interest in a local soccer team.

The Thunder Bay Chill went for all the marbles in the Premier Development League championship tourney late July in Texas, and T Bay soccer fans were clamouring for a chance to follow the action in a social setting.

“I was surprised at how many (patrons) were asking us if we would have it,” Wayland owner Joanne Kushnier remarks.

She put the action, broadcast by Fox Sports, up on the big screen and had a packed house watching the Chill blank the Kalamazoo Outrage 4-0 in the final.