Ottawa Titans general manager Martin Boyce says Ottawa is “unique” for the amount of sports going on in the city and one team’s success can only mean good things for others in the industry.
In fact, Boyce says there isn’t a better time to be in the sports sector in Ottawa than right now.
“There aren’t many cities that have (eight) professional sports teams and then a variety of amateur teams,” he told OBJ this week. “There’s a lot going on in the sports world in Ottawa. It’s a unique thing. I don’t think that all the different teams would see each other as competition. There’s room for everyone. The more each team succeeds, the better the industry does as a whole.”
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Sports fans have been looking for something to do since the pandemic, he added. “We see lots of fans from different teams that come to our games and when I attend other games, I see our fans there.”
The Titans and Boyce himself have a lot to celebrate at the end of the 2025 season. The team finished the season with 51 wins while last month Boyce received the 2025 Frontier League Executive of the Year award, “given to the team operator who does the best job of running their team throughout the year from a business, marketing and operations perspective as voted by the other clubs,” according to a press release.
“It means a lot to me,” Boyce told OBJ. “Baseball has had a rocky past in Ottawa and we’ve done everything we can to reverse course. This is a reflection of the rest of the league noticing Ottawa as a community and seeing the support that our fans have given us.”
The recognition comes as the Titans continue to grow. Since the team’s inaugural season in 2022, yearly attendance has increased by more than 50 per cent, with nearly 100,000 people attending in the 2025 season.
Boyce said it’s due to an effort to build customer confidence in Ottawa baseball.
“I think there was a lot of doubt before the Titans started and a lot of people who would have assumed that baseball was going to fail again or that it would be short-lived. For us, it was really important to build the confidence in the product that we offer and that goes beyond the baseball on the field.”
Over the past four seasons, Boyce said one key to success has been retaining a core group of employees.
“It’s huge to be able to have the same group of people work together multiple seasons in a row because everything gets easier with experience. We value keeping our staff around and keeping them engaged and committed,” he said.
Of course, there is always room for improvement.
“We still see quite a lot of potential. We think we’re just scratching the surface of what’s out there in terms of demand for entertainment in the city. In 2022, we were averaging less than 1,500 (attendants) a game and now we’re up to 2,100,” he said. “We expect to continue that growth, though it may not be linear.”
With 48 home games during the season, Boyce said it was hard to generate hype for each game. But with targeted promotion and marketing for a select few games, the team was able to bolster attendance numbers.
“We really focus on five to 10 games to highlight. We focus a higher percentage of our marketing efforts so we can really make the atmosphere at those games so much better than just the average game … Hopefully (it) will create such an experience that it will just naturally flow into the other games,” Boyce said, adding that the Titans’s home opener attracted more than 7,000 people. “This is what baseball in Ottawa can be and is.”
To help the team’s growth, Boyce said the franchise is looking to branch out and create more partnerships within Ottawa’s business community.
“The more organizations you partner with, the more people you’re engaging with … Baseball is a very social sport and it’s conducive to being able to host staff outings and networking events because it’s not loud like hockey and it’s not an aggressive atmosphere,” he said.
“Ottawa has a great business community and there’s a lot of potential there. There’s still lots we can do to be able to keep growing those partnerships.”
Perhaps the biggest partnership that the Titans are interested in securing is naming rights for the 10,000-plus seat venue currently known as Ottawa Stadium.
“It’s a very unique property in the city because of the location; (it’s) right on the highway. That’s one (partnership) that we would love to find the right partner because of how important the property is,” Boyce said.
Boyce said he sees the possibility of a sports arena at LeBreton Flats as an opportunity.
“I think the more things that are going on in the city, the better for everyone in every industry that relies on entertainment.”
As the Titans enter the first week of the off-season, the priorities are reviewing the past season and building up for the next one.
“In the fall, it’s really about reviewing thoroughly everything we did in the season to figure out what we should keep doing, what we shouldn’t keep doing and what we can change … Before you know it, it’s going to be 2026 and there’s going to be baseball players arriving in town and the fun begins,” he said.
