Apparently the 70 year Canadian Football League has approached the Canada government with hat in hand, claiming they probably will have to cancel the 2020 season which will all but force them to fold the circuit for good.
From what I can gather, the loss of Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders, Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers (after winning their first Grey Cup since 1990) would be devastating to their fans. Toronto could care less about the Argos, and Montreal and Vancouver could take or leave their teams. It would be a shame for Ottawa to lose their franchise after their recent success. I don’t know about Hamilton.
With this mixed fanbase loyalty, would it overall be an embarrassment for Canada to lose the CFL and the Grey Cup?
If the government refuses, could a new CFL reform after the crisis is over, I’m guessing with a handful of the teams? I have a feeling there would be enough of a sentiment from at least 4-5 of the team fanbases to try again.
Could the NFL step up as an angel investor, with the criteria that the NFL can build a stadium and place a team in Toronto, in oppositions of the NFL’s “hands off CFL” policy?
It’s a good question. The CFL is very popular in western Canada. It’s not too popular in Toronto because they also have NHL, MLB, and NBL teams.
There have been discussions about a new team in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but so far the east only goes as far as Montreal. I believe the Montreal Alouettes are doing fine.
Ottawa has lost franchises due to mismanagement and a shitty stadium, but both of those issues have been resolved and the latest incarnation, with the unfortunate name of the Redblacks, has also been doing fine.
There have been talks about an NFL franchise in Toronto, and Toronto would totally embrace the concept, but obviously the Toronto Argonauts CFL team opposes this, and Buffalo isn’t too thrilled about the idea either. Although the Roger’s Centre (Skydome) can be reconfigured for football, it’s not the greatest venue.
Anyway…some Canadians are big on the CFL and some are luke warm. I don’t really watch it, but I have friends in Ottawa who attended many games. Halifax would really embrace a new team. Apart from semi-pro hockey they have nothing else.
I would support a government bail out: too much tradition to walk away from.
And here I thought this was about some affinity for the compact fluorescent lightbulb, perhaps something against switching to LED’s. They have american football in Canada,who would have known.
My father-in-law, who lives in The West, is a great fan of his local team, can tell you all sorts of trivia about the various players, and happily accepts replica items from the team as gifts. He loves that stuff.
Leaffan covers the Ottawa situation. I’ll say I’ve been aware of them, but haven’t seen a game. On the other hand, the only use I’ve had for football in any form is appeasing my father-in-law or playing that old “QB1” trivia game–which basically turned watching a game into a game itself.
It wouldn’t cause the same outrage as the NHL folding, I can say that much with certainty.
Ultimately, I’m pro-bailout. Not because I care so much, or even the tradition of it, but simply because it shouldn’t be very spendy as such things go. Most of the teams turn a profit, and they don’t cost anywhere near as much as an NHL or NFL team to run. So it wouldn’t cost a great deal to keep the league afloat (and having football to watch would be good for the national morale right now), and were the bailout in the form of a loan, we actually have a good chance of seeing it paid off.
(Also as a point of trivia, kanicbird, the Canadian version of gridiron football has some subtle changes to its rules that makes for a more dynamic game, I’m told. Though as an NFL fan, you won’t be really confused about what’s going on.)
Hand-wringing over the future of the CFL is a long-standing tradition. Considering that it’s such a tiny league (8 or 9 teams, not counting the brief U.S. expansion in 1994-95), it doesn’t take too many teams folding or threatening to fold to cause an existential crisis.
My parents and my brother live in Saskatchewan (by far the most active CFL fanbase) and they actively follow CFL football. My dad also watches NFL and college football, but my mother and brother have no interest in the NFL.
Where will municipal, provincial or federal governments find the millions required to subsidize an NFL stadium? I can’t see many folks happy to have their tax dollars go to the NFL. That’d be an awful big ask, for any politician to advocate for, during the difficult financial times that likely lie ahead. I think that’s more likely to drive the outcome than pride in the CFL.
Anyone know the demographics of their fan base? If it’s mainly 50+ who have fond memories and team loyalty because it harkens back to a time before the NFL was omnipresent, then keeping it afloat may not make sense.
I don’t think the NFL has much interest in expansion, but they’ll have leverage when current NFL teams threaten to move to Canada. It’s pretty easy to poke endless holes in the move to London arguments, not as much for Canada. Toronto could become the next Los Angeles.
I don’t claim to have my finger on the pulse of Toronto sports fans, but among the people I know there is a healthy amount of skepticism about NFL prospects in Toronto, considering the lack of CFL interest and the probable need to build a multi-billion dollar stadium.
The Buffalo Bills had an agreement to play a regular-season game each year in Toronto, but they couldn’t fill the Skydome.
I guess the NFL could try to run CFL as a sort of farm system for the NFL, they did that with NFL Europe from `1991 to 2007. Fans may not like the CFL being a farm system but now it is clearly not at the NFL level. NBA has the G league and some of the best BB kids are now skipping 1 year in college to go to the G league.
It should also be remembered that Canadian football is a similar, but not identical, game to American football, with the bigger field, three downs, an extra eligible receiver, more offensive motion allowed, etc. Many of the skills certainly do translate, but CFL football, these days, bears more of a resemblance to the “spread” offenses that many NCAA teams run, than NFL offenses.
If the NFL were to use CFL as a farm system they would likely want the CFL to use NFL rules. Just like minor league baseball uses major league rules. NCAA FB has some differences in rules from the NFL such as 1 foot down vs 2 for the NFL to be inbounds. NFL uses radios to send in the offense/defense play calls , NCAA has not used that yet.
Logically, that makes sense; if the NFL were to have its own a minor league, they’d want it to really prep players for how the NFL game is played.
The CFL, as it stands today, is a different (if allied) sport, and (by rule) the majority of players on CFL rosters are Canadians. Reshaping the CFL into a developmental league for the NFL (though changing over to American football rules, and primarily using American players) would fundamentally destroy the innate “Canadian-ness” of that league. I would have to believe that many CFL fans would be deeply angered by that, and would refuse to follow that sort of “new” CFL.
I doubt it. The NFL is perfectly structured right now with eight divisions of four teams each for a total of 32. There may never be true expansion again.
The only way a Canadian city would get a team might be if some team wanted to move - there’s been occasional talk of the Bills moving to Toronto, for instance.
You may be aware of this, but there is a long history of players moving from the CFL to the NFL already. Doug Flutie and Warren Moon had some success in the NFL after playing the CFL, for instance.
No NFL stadium is that big. Rogers Centre seats a max of about 54,000 for NFL football. That’s below NFL capacity, but not by THAT much.
The CFL is important regionally, but unfortunately it’s not at all important in the most populous places in Canada. There are far more NFL fans in the Toronto area than CFL fans, and the Montreal Alouettes have fallen on hard times recently too.
The NFL would do gangbusters in Toronto. It would be hugely successful.
The failure of the Bills series was because if was some other city’s team. They weren’t the Toronto Whatevers. They were another city’s team, playing in an inadequate stadium. (It didn’t help that the series coincided with the Bills sucking.)
The NFL is nonetheless huge around here. Sports bars fill up on Sundays.
Well, yeah, you’d need a new stadium, but that’s how it goes anywhere.