The was lots of anticipation prior to Calgary and Saskatchewan getting together in Regina.

Even though Bo Levi Mitchell watched from the sidelines many people were curious how the Stamps would fair with Nick Arbuckle in the starting role. Conversely, Cody Fajardo had just led the Riders to a convincing win in his second career start.

All the hype led to a massive regular season number of 722,000, the largest single-game rating for the CFL in 2019. The Canada Day matchup between Toronto and Saskatchewan had an overall average of 633,700 – it was split into two parts due to a lengthy weather delay.

It’s the first time through 15 games any three-down tilt has cracked the 700,000 mark for average viewers during an entire uninterrupted contest. An early season shot of momentum TSN and the CFL could use because the average viewership compared to 2017 (498,312) and 2018 (524,462) are down. Total average through four weeks: 493,362. Year-over-year that’s nearly a six per cent drop.

Saskatchewan is always going to produce large TV numbers, it’s markets such as Vancouver and Toronto that need to improve.

Week 4 TV ratings:

Thursday

Hamilton at Montreal: 399,000

Friday

Winnipeg at Ottawa: 545,200

Saturday

B.C. at Toronto: 378,500

Calgary at Saskatchewan: 722,000

Total Week 4 average: 511,175