Hostile Dialect, the CFL did have several U.S.-based teams for three seasons (1993-95). The Baltimore Stallions even won the Grey Cup in '95.
I did not know that. Thanks for the link.
To briefly hijack the thread, how does the skill/talent level in the CFL compare to the NFL? I’ve always been mildly curious about the Canadian game (I know there are some rules differences and such), but AFAICT it’s impossible to see one on TV here.
Here are some of the differences between American and Canadian football. Like the article says, the main thing is a bigger focus on passing and special teams in Canada beacuse of the three downs and larger field.
This said, the caliber of play in the CFL is obviously lower than the NFL, as most if not all American players in the CFL (every team also has to respect a Canadian quota) are there because they could not get a job in the NFL. But the style of play is so different from the American game that not every good U.S. player can adapt to the CFL. For every Doug Flutie or Warren Moon that were huge successes, many have failed over the years.
Also,HD, if you want to see for yourself what Canadian football looks like, there are some excerpts of games on YouTube, and lots of footage in the Multimedia section of www.cfl.ca.
CFL players are almost universally the guys who were not quite good enough to make the NFL. There is the odd exception of a player who the NFL badly misses, but if they sufficiently dominate the CFL they end up going back to the NFL anyway. The most obvious example would be Warren Moon, who was ridiculously overqualified for the CFL, but was passed over by the NFL because he was black. Once it was obvious he was awesome, he signed with Houston.
The CFL also requires that teams have a minimum number of Canadians. They tend to be disproportionately the reserve guys, since Canada just does not produce enough football talent to merit making up 50% of the roster if it was a true meritocracy. Nonetheless, it really waters down the talent level.
As a result, the talent level lies above Division 1-A, but way, way below the NFL. The NFL’s worst team - Miami, right now - would go undefeated if admitted into the CFL and would probably not win a game by less than thirty points. (If they were forced to dump half their roster for Canadians this might not be true.) The best team in the CFL would be annihilated in every game if allowed into the NFL; again, they might not do too bad if allowed to dump their Canadians for Americans. CFL teams simply could not exert any control over the line of scrimmage; CFL talent-position players are often very good, because on the bigger field they have to be, but the linemen are not up to NFL snuff.
The CFL’s basic rule differences are:
- The field is longer and wider and the end zones are much deeper,
- There’s 12 men on the field,
- 3 downs,
- Offensive players can be moving forward when the ball is snapped, and
- Touchbacks (downing the ball in the end zone or having it kicked beyond the end zone) are worth one point.
By necessity, CFL teams are passing teams, at least usually (scoring has dropped a little of late.) With only three downs to work with but all the space in the world, as well as having receivers who can already be running full tilt when you snap the ball, passing is a high-reward enterprise. The field is a LOT bigger, and pass coverage much more difficult, though of course you start to stretch the QB’s ability to reach the receiver with an accurate pass. The 20-yand-deep end zones are especially fun to pass into; the difference between trying to cover a man in a 10-year end zone versus a 20-year end zone is huge. Passing attacks in the red zone are much more likely to be effective in the CFL than the NFL because you just have so much more room to attack.
True, but the subsidies were more inline with what states normally do to attract a business, not the kind of multi-million dollar giveaways that other states do to attract (or keep) pro sports teams. Sure, it was a good deal for Kraft, but it was a great deal for the commonwealth.
Not his point. His point was that there was no sentimentality involved; he simply took the best business deal available, and would have moved it it hadn’t been the best business move.
That’s a matter of opinion. Kraft was a longtime season ticket holder and he’s a local guy. He sat in those horrible bleacher seats of the old Schaeffer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium. I think he really didn’t want to take the team away from the region.
Has he made money off the team? Sure. But if it was a cold unsentimental decision, the team would be in Hartford… or St. Louis.
Jacksonville isn’t really an anomaly. It’s just in a bad place. Atlanta and Tampa are within a four-hour drive, and most Floridians are long-time fans of either the Dolphins or Bucs (woot!).
Most people in north Florida have rooted for the Falcons for awhile, and of course most people across the border in Georgia have too.
Jacksonville’s fanbase WILL slowly increase; it will just take a while for generations to grow up with an established local team.
Another problem has been a lack of star power. Fred Taylor and Mark Brunell are the only two Jaguars most football fans know well, and neither one seems to strike a chord with fans; Taylor’s never been to a Pro Bowl, and Brunell just wasn’t good for long enough.
NFL teams need someone marketable - Peyton, Brady et al. - or at least someone soundbiteable - Chad Johnson, T.O., etc. - so that casual fans have a reason to be interested.
And lets not forget Jack Kent Cooke (former Redskins owner) did the same thing. He built the stadium with his own money, even though many cities would have LOVED to get a storied franchise like the redskins to move there. JKC was a true fan and would have never allowed his team to leave the DC area.
Did it make good business sense? Heck ya. But just because one thing leads to another doesn’t nullify the reasons behind it!
Is it just me, or would it be awesome to see an NFL game between two great passing teams played by Canadian rules? An exhibition game, of course, but still!
Well, that’s going on my list of Things To Do If I’m Ever So Rich I Can Make Anything Happen.
I don’t think it takes a lot of cost-benefit analysis (or knowledge of NHL history, although that helps) to figure out that it’s a little easier to sell loads of tickets in Boston than Hartford.
The fact that neither the City of LA, the County of LA, or the State of California will commit any real money to a stadium is the real reason that there’s no team in LA. Not that the city doesn’t care, just that it doesn’t want to spend tax dollars to help the NFL get even richer.
So far there has been no rich person willing to spend over $1 Billion of their own money. Houston (city and team ownership) offered a package equal to over $700MM, which was more than the LA rich guys could put together (a little over $500MM, I think). Today, the stadium alone would probably be over $700MM, and the franchise fee to the NFL would be over $500MM. That’s just too much money, even for a really rich guy.
Proof positive that Angelenos aren’t as stupid as you might think.
I have always felt that a couple of factors don’t get talked about much but have a real impact on getting an NFL team going in LA: population and geographical size.
The Kansas City metropolitan area has about 594,000 people and they support a NFL team. Seattle has about 582,000, and they have a team. Los Angeles metropolitan has about 13 million people, so they should be able to support 24 NFL teams, easy!
Also, whenever there is talk of an NFL team in LA, it gets bogged down in where it should be located - Chavez Ravine (Dodgertown), across from Staples Center downtown, Anaheim (the Angels), Inglewood (the old Forum site), Irwindale (an old quarry site), as well as the aforementioned Coliseum or Rose Bowl. Nobody wants to give up their local favorite, and nobody wants to think about driving all the way across town in traffic to one of the other sites. Result - classic stalemate.
To break these logjams, I think we need to think about more than one team as a starting point (3? 5?). Yeah, it will cost huge sums of money, but we need some big thinkers every once in a while, yah?
His actual first choice was in South Boston, next to the Convention Center and the I-90 extension. Blame Tom Finneran for blocking it. The Hartford move was a bluff, so was the Providence proposal right before it.
The stadium has been a good investment for him, even though traffic’s a nightmare far worse than it would have been in town.
Are you making fun of the Angels? I love their new name! “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” has a ring to it that no other team name has.
Heh.
Robin
It ain’t that simple. Take a look at this.
Kansas City straddles Kansas and it’s not too hard to imagine that it’s the pro team of choice in most of that state plus half of Missouri, and it could easily serve another two. Seattle is the only game in town (so to speak) for 4-10 states, depending on how you look at it.
Kansas: 2,688,418
Half of Missouri: 2,921,357
Half of Nebraska (we’ll assume half for the Broncos and half for the Chiefs): 855,632
1/4 of Iowa (shits and giggles): 731,581
Washington state: 5,894,121
Oregon: 3,421,399
Idaho: 1,293,953
Montana: 997,195
An LA team, by contrast, would compete with a formidable San Diego team 120 miles away, not to mention all of the gangbangers rooting for the Raiders and the fogeys possibly rooting for the Rams, not to mention serious competition from UCLA and USC.
Well, but if you are going to accept competition from college teams, a Kansas City team competes with KU, KSU, MU and Nebraska, as well as Iowa and Iowa state, really, in that same area. So what?
A much better way to look at it is to compare MSAs.
So none of those teams has anywhere near as much sports tradition as half of UCLA or USC, and their football teams can generally be considered to be nowhere near as interesting, ie, not as big of a threat to attention to pro teams.
And those are…?
Medicare Set-Asides.
Er… usually.