I'm gonna fix the CFL while knowing very little about it
The CFL has always been seen as the North American professional sports league most likely to be the hardest hit by the pandemic because of its heavy reliance on ticket sales/gate revenue. If the league is willing to be open to new ideas, then the pandemic could be seen as a positive. But if it passes, and we go back to the old CFL where every team looks out only for itself, then the league isn’t going to survive long-term. So, if the CFL is to emerge from the pandemic on better footing, it will need to expand revenue streams and think of new ways to market itself.
1. A Video Game
I’m gonna be honest, I don’t watch much CFL, but I would play the hell out of a proper CFL console game, even if just for the novelty. There were talks many years ago about the CFL being included in EA Sports’ famous MADDEN NFL Franchise as some sort of add on, but clearly those discussions never amounted to much. Not only would a CFL game or inclusion in MADDEN introduce the game to a whole new set of potential fans while also attracting current fans, it would also bring in much needed extra cash for the league and its teams in the set of licensing fees. Even if the CFL only gets say 9 million from a deal with EA, that’s an extra million dollars the teams didn’t have before, and in a league with a salary cap under 3 million dollars, that right their covers almost half of you player salary for a year. NHL does this already with several top European leagues featured in the game, and FIFA licenses dozens of leagues in their game, so this shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to suggest a partnership with MADDEN and EA.
2. Set game times
This is something they could learn from the NFL. Games on at the same time every week. The NFL has a slew of 1PM games, then 4PM games, and one game every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday at 8:15. CFL times are more scattered and varied. Why not make it more like the NFL where “I know there’s a game at this exact time, every single week.” Have a Friday Night Game around 7 or 8 PM EST, and then games at 1PM, 4PM, and 7PM during the summer months on Saturdays. You can even do a Friday double header if you so choose, especially during the early months of the NHL season so as so avoid conflict with Hockey Night in Canada’s 7PM starts in October. All you have to do is be consistent with how you schedule games. You have 4 games a week, every week. If the NFL can make it work with 16 games a week you should in theory be able to make it work with 1/4th of the headache.
3. Easier access to view games
I have nothing against TSN and their production as they usually do a great job, but I feel like if you want to appeal to more people, games need to be easier to find. Why not have a “Game of the Week” on their broadcast partner stations CTV seeing as it’s available in more homes for traditional viewing. TSN used to do this with CBC for years, where they would simulcast the Grey Cup on the national broadcaster as well as on their own station. You have CTV you as a major broadcast partner under Bell Media, take advantage of that. And what about migrating some of the games online and streaming them? More and more younger generations, and I include myself as part of this, are migrating to streaming services on their laptops, game consoles, and mobile devices. Why not take advantage of that and make the games more easily available? I know TSN has their own service at between $16 and $20 a month, so why not push that more heavily. Or if you want to go deeper, partner with DAZN, who already have experience with the NFL and make games available on that as well as on TSN stations and services? It’s affordable, well known, and again, would be able to bring in extra revenue for the league. They could have an official streaming partner in DAZN, and an official broadcast partner in TSN.
4. Expansion?
Let’s be honest, 9 teams in a league is kind of weird. It creates lopsided divisions and creates more of a hassle regarding scheduling. The question is, where can you put a 10th team? Halifax has long been rumoured, but unless a proper ownership group comes forward and a stadium resolution can be found, this discussion is going nowhere. I will say this: there are major steps the league could take to make owning a CFL team a lot more attractive. At the top of that list is revenue sharing, which the NFL employs to ensure that all 32 teams are financially secure each year. Wealthy teams like Saskatchewan, Edmonton, and Winnipeg may not like the idea of sending money to the Toronto Argonauts or BC Lions for example, but it could be a good long-term investment. The CFL needs to grow as a whole and sharing revenue from gate receipts and merchandise would help make that happen.
5. Start and end the season earlier in the y
I would start the regular season as soon as the NHL season ends. There is a big gap in sports to watch for you average Canadian once that happens. And more importantly it would move up the Grey cup. I get we as Canadians love to laugh about “ooh it’s so cold, but HAHA look at that drunk shirtless idiot in -20 weather” but man I could not think of anything worse than sitting out in that type of weather to watch anything for a couple hours. I'm so sick of watching great games all year to then have the playoffs be about what team handles the awful weather conditions the best whether it be extreme cold or awful playing surface. They did start the season earlier this year, in part due to the COVID pandemic forcing their hand, but it's something they should look to doing every year. Starting in early June instead of early july, while trying to end the season in late October rather than mid November should be the goal. The other plus to moving the season is an increase in the US television viewership numbers. The larger the period where the CFL is the only televised football available, the more Americans will hopefully tune in, which in turn, can generate more cash for the CFL and their owners. Further, Americans caring about the CFL would probably help convince those here in Canada who are part of the “HAHA I’M CANADIAN AND I DONT EVEN WATCH THIS BUSH LEAGUE” crowd to give it a chance and embrace it.
So there, all you have to do is follow what I said here and the CFL will be booming. I’ll accept my royalty cheque by mail or by e-transfer. If you are compelled to actually follow the league, I've left links below to all their social channels. Disclaimer that this is not a sponsored post.
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