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How many Canadian professional sports teams play outdoors?
There are currently 34 Canadian professional sports teams that play outdoors. This includes nine football teams, one MLB baseball team, eight 1st division soccer teams, eight 2nd division soccer teams, three Canadian American League baseball teams, one rugby team, two national soccer teams, one national rugby team, and one minor league baseball team. A deeper dive of my findings is below.
Methodology
To find the number of Canadian professional sports teams that play outdoors, I first had to define "professional" in terms of athletics. From YourDictionary, I found the definition of a professional sport to be, "sport in which athletes receive payment for their performance." Therefore, I determined that any team in Canada that is made up of players who are receiving payment in exchange for their performance on the field to be professional. However, I excluded Team Canada baseball, softball, and soccer teams from this definition because while players do receive federally funded stipends and monetary rewards for gold, silver, and bronze medals, they do not receive a salary for play. Canada's national soccer and rugby teams; however, do receive salaries and are therefore included in the professional team count.
Once I had the definition of professional sports, I turned my attention to identifying team sports that are traditionally played outdoors. Using Topend Sports' Complete List of Sports from Around the World, I excluded all sports that are individual in nature since they would not be considered a team sport. Please note that I excluded sports like tennis, golf, track and field, auto racing, and horse racing because even though the individual athletes may be part of an overarching team, they still compete individually. Then, I excluded any sport that is obviously played indoors. For example, any sport that has "arena" in the title (like arena football) was automatically excluded because the title indicates that the sport is played at an indoor arena rather than at an outdoor stadium. I identified the following sports as "team oriented."
American Football
Association Football/Football/Futbol/Soccer
Australian Football/Rugby
Baseball
Canadian Football
Cricket
Fast Pitch Softball
Field Hockey
Field Lacrosse
Once I had the list of team sports that could be played outdoors, I searched for Canadian professional teams in each sport. I discovered that in terms of those that could potentially play outdoors, Canada has professional teams in soccer, rugby, baseball, and Canadian football. By 2019, there will be a second professional soccer league in Canada known as the Canadian Premier League, but teams have not yet been named. In addition, there are plans to establish a Canadian professional cricket league, but as of now it does not exist. Fast pitch softball and lacrosse have Team Canada Olympic teams, but no professional teams. The National Football League does not have an American football team in Canada.
After determining which sports have professional teams in Canada, I researched each team to determine which ones play their home games outdoors and which ones play inside. I learned that there are only three professional teams that play some of their games inside. The Montreal Alouettes, a Canadian football team plays some of their games at Olympic Stadium, which has a fixed roof, but they also play some of their home games at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium, which is an open air stadium. Therefore, this team is included in the count. The Vancouver BC Lions, another Canadian football team, and the Toronto Blue Jays, a Major League Baseball team, play in stadiums that have retractable roofs. Since they play with the roof open when weather permits, I included them on the list as well.
Finally, I searched for both men's and women's professional teams. Unfortunately, Canada does not have any professional women's sports teams that play outdoors other than the National Women's Soccer Team. Canada does have a professional women's hockey league and a women's national basketball team, but the teams all play indoors. Likewise, all Canadian men's professional ice hockey teams play inside as well.
Results
The 34 Canadian professional sports teams that play at least a portion of their home games outdoors are:
Canadian Football League
Givova Canadian Soccer League
First Division Clubs:
Second Division Clubs
Canadian American Baseball League
National soccer
National Rugby
National baseball league
Minor league baseball
Rugby football League
Conclusion
After examining the professional sports landscape in Canada, I have determined that 34 Canadian professional sports teams play at least a portion of their home games at outdoor venues.