BTW, I don’t know the CFL financial situation. I’m curious if, in the interest of expansion, the NFL could buy the CFL, taking control of the most viable franchises.
What law would you think it would violate?
The CFL doesn’t own the individual franchises, so to make it work, the NFL would have to persuade a sufficient number of the team owners to sell. I think that would be a difficult pitch to make.
However, as a practical matter, I can’t see how it would be a viable expansion strategy for the NFL, given the major disparities in the economics of the two leagues. The CFL is nowhere near as rich as the NFL, given the much smaller markets.
For instance, the NFL salary cap in 2009 was $US 128 million per year. The penalty for exceeding the salary cap could go as high as $US 5 million.
In the CFL, this year’s salary cap is $C 4.25 million. That’s right, the maximum penalty for the salary cap in the NFL was higher than the salary cap itself in the CFL.
There’s no way that all of the current CFL teams could compete in the NFL economically.
A more likely option for the NFL would be to try expansion teams in the largest Canadian cities, such as Toronto and Vancouver, the way the NBA and MLB have done. However, note that there is no longer an NBA team in Vancouver, nor an MLB team in Montreal. Only Toronto seems to have the market for such expensive sports teams. There is considerable speculation that when the current owner of the Buffalo Bills dies, the team will re-locate to Toronto.
Much of the difference in salary cap and revenue between the CFL franchises and NFL franchises is BECAUSE they’re CFL franchises. Were they converted into NFL franchises their value and revenues would immediately soar; they’d sell more tickets for higher prices and command huge TV bucks.
As popular as the CFL is the reality is that many Canadians regard it as a second rate league, which, in fairness, is precisely true, and you will never get the support for a minor league that you will for the big league. You’ll find sports bars throughout Canada with people showing up on Sunday afternoons to watch the NFL, but you will not find Americans flocking to their TVs to watch the CFL.
In terms of market size, obviously Toronto and Montreal are quite comparable to the average NFL market, and Vancouver’s bigger than many markets. The question would be the Prairie teams; Calgary and Edmonton are small for NFL markets and Winnipeg and Saskatchewan are way below a realistic hope of being able to support an NFL team. Hamilton is too small and lacks corporate support. But if you could find someone to build the stadiums, I have no doubt Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver would do okay, and a team in Alberta might work out, too.
I was thinking of anti-trust laws.
That way, you can go to 6 six divisions and scheduling and 18 game schedule makes more sense:
Home-home in division (10 games)
1 team from 2 divsions in opposite conference (2 games)
2 teams from other interdivision (2 games)
2 games from each division in conference (4 games)
Note that Vince McMahon of the WWF tried to buy the CFL before he ended up starting the XFL.
As for the anti-trust issue, the XFL is an example of a league without franchises - the league owned and operated all the teams. That approach doesn’t seem to raise anti-trust issues.
I don’t know if this would apply but in 1974 when the World Football League started, one of the franchises was supposed to be in Toronto. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau objected and the Toronto Northmen became the Memphis Southmen.
That’s something of a valid point, but rarely an issue. There’s really nothing about sports franchises which violate anti-trusts, because anybody could start their own. It’s just that nobody’d watch the games. You get more anti-trust mileage out of charges that the leagues are locking down new teams and/or kneecapping existing ones.
It is very doubtful that in today’s political climate the government would be willing to use the threat of law to stop NFL expansion, and in any event it probably runs afoul of NAFTA.
We’re a more mature country now than we were in 1974 when it comes to this sort of thing.
I don’t think the NFL is particularly interested in expansion right now. The 32-team line-up seems to suit them fairly well, and works well with the 16-game schedule. Now, if they manage to get an 18-game schedule, maybe things will change a bit. But, since the recession hit, you really haven’t heard much (if any) expansion talk from any of the “big 4” North American sports leagues.
franchise movement, on the other hand, is always a possibility. The Jaguars seem to be struggling a bit in Jacksonville, and the Vikings still can’t get a new stadium in Minnesota…and, we’re now past 15 years without a team in Los Angeles. That said, some analysts see Los Angeles as a convenient bugbear for teams to use as leverage to improve their stadium situations.
As has been noted above, the only Canadian markets which would really seem to be big enough for an NFL franchise would be Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. However, the Bills now play a game each season up in Toronto, and have been working at building a fan base there…so, placing an NFL team there would likely be fought against by the Bills.
I suspect that the NFL appreciates having the CFL around. More than a few NFL players have come over from the CFL, and, with NFL Europe now defunct, the NFL doesn’t have a minor league system per se (not counting the NCAA, of course ;).
Unless, of course, it were the Bills moving to Toronto. There has been considerable speculation that could happen when the current owner of the Bills dies and new management takes over.
I guess that wouldn’t surprise me, though, I can only imagine the collective apoplexy in northwestern New York if that were to happen.
No comment on the legal aspect since it’s out of my scope, but a little food for thought:
In 1999 the NFL was paid $700M by Bob McNair to get the expansion franchise in Houston. In 1998 the Cleveland Browns were sold to Al Lerner for an expansion fee of $530M. Both were contingent on $352M and $283M new stadium constructions in addition to that.
If the NFL wanted a presence in Canada do you think they’d pay to buy existing franchises? The new Ottawa franchise was purchased from the league for $7M if Wikipedia is to be trusted and one could assume that an existing franchise wouldn’t be dramatically more expensive than that. Small potatoes from an NFL standpoint but still that would mean the NFL would be laying out money as opposed to being paid money.
Long story short, if the NFL decides to add teams in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa or wherever do you think they’d pass up the chance to earn perhaps $2B+ in expansion fees? The CFL is safe from being bought.
The only possible reason the CFL would be bought by the NFL is if the NFL franchises wanted to own it as a developmental league ala the WFL/NFL Europe.
The advantage to buying teams, though, would be to purchase the licensing rights and trademarks for team names, as well as possibly eliminating any ugliness over rights to use such stadiums as exist.
Were the NFL to want Canada’s top markets it would make sense, from a PR point of view, to buy the existing franchises and continue their history in an effort to appease the nationalists who’d be all pissy about the CFL going away. The Toronto Argonauts have been around since 1873; there would be a lot of good PR in saying you’re going to keep the team’s legacy going, though of course the NFL Argonauts would be a new organization in every other way. (Also, Argonauts is a fricking awesome name, whereas recent NFL team names have been supremely lame.) Same goes with any other CFL team.
In effect, what I would expect the NFL to do if it was smart would be to tell a prospective owner that in addition to the hefty expansion fees, part of the deal would be to buy out the CFL teams and adopt the names and such as applicable.
What’s somewhat more interesting, though, is where the NFL would get pro-ready football players from post-college if there’s no CFL.
[quote=“RickJay, post:15, topic:554361”]
Didn’t the Toronto based CFL team officially rename themselves the ‘Argos’ a few years ago?
All of this is meaningless to the NFL. It might be a consideration to the billionaire buying the franchise, but the NFL couldn’t care less. Still, for a pure profit of nearing $1B the NFL wouldn’t let name continuity stand in their way. And any owner laying out $1.5B in say Toronto isn’t going to have any trouble dealing with the trademarks and usage rights. A Toronto expansion team could buy the Argonauts and disband them without even seeing it in their balance statement just to shut up any opposition.
The only reason an existing CFL team would be retained by a NFL owner is for nostalgia and because it’s essentially free in comparison. As far as the OP is concerned, “buying the CFL for expansion” is a nonstarter. Buying the CFL to clear the way for expansion however could happen.
The folks in Baltimore, Houston and Cleveland were plenty pissed at the NFL for killing their local franchises, but they forgot about it pretty quick when real NFL teams returned. If the NFL killed the Argonauts by buying them out or buy simply running them out of business the outrage would be tepid and temporary compared to enthusiasm and ticket sales for an NFL team when the Cowboys, Packers, Bears or Steelers came to town. Hell, even when the Jaguars and Bills came to town.
[quote=“Ike_Witt, post:16, topic:554361”]
Heavens, no.