CFL announces changes to the game - merged topics

[wpg#1]

Until we actually see the field in person, and watch the game played on the new field with the new rules, any objections are literally without substance, and pretty much based on tradition and feelings.  I'm not dismissing the value of tradition or feelings, but sometimes change is good.

That goes with your opinion also. Any effort to fluff it up like you are trying, is without substance.

[Blue In BC]

The CFL has moved the GC earlier in recent years by starting the season earlier. 

Moving it a month earlier would make preseason in Canada untenable.  Also, preseason in AZ/FLA makes sense, its cheaper to get the huge number of US players we host in camps, and less need for paperwork.  The smaller Canadian contingent would love a working vacation in spring in AZ/FLA.

Puts US eyes on the game in springtime, both live and maybe some local TV content.

Moves more of the season out of competition with the NFL, giving more of a captive audience.

Preseason games in Canada are not attended well, and any lost gate will probably be made up for in reduced expenses for running camps.

Personally, I'd MUCH rather go to Grey Cup festivities in WPG in October (like, next week) in nice fall weather than in November in a parka...

American market is not interested in the CFL. They are not even interested in the USFL. Moving any games pre season or otherwise would be a revenue loss. Moving the Grey Cup there is absolute insanity.

You want warmer weather guaranteed for the Grey Cup then move the game to Vancouver permanently if that is the goal.

Starting the season earlier is not a good idea but spring weather might be similar to fall weather. CFL plays games in cold and snow. So does the NFL. I don't see them moving their season earlier to avoid a Superbowl in bad weather.

Although I don't support the idea, shortening the season by 2 regular season games is always an option.  That moves the play offs 2 weeks earlier. The CFL used to be 4 pre season games and 16 regular season games. So it's not a new idea per se.

[theaardvark]

American market is not interested in the CFL. They are not even interested in the USFL. Moving any games pre season or otherwise would be a revenue loss. Moving the Grey Cup there is absolute insanity.

You want warmer weather guaranteed for the Grey Cup then move the game to Vancouver permanently if that is the goal.

Starting the season earlier is not a good idea but spring weather might be similar to fall weather. CFL plays games in cold and snow. So does the NFL. I don't see them moving their season earlier to avoid a Superbowl in bad weather.

Never moving the Grey Cup south.  Never said anything remotely to suggest that.

Wow .. how do you come up with this stuff ? Hilarious ! Yes, lets fly everyone down to Florida for trainng camp ? A preseason game. Hotels, meals, flights .. no problem. So the cost of this is OK ?
You somehow try to convince people on here it'll be all great, and you make it worse.

Fly everyone to Florida instead of flying everyone to Winnipeg?  You think travel to Canada is cheaper than travel within the US?  With a 100 player roster who mostly live in the US?  And many of the coaches living in the US as well?

And none of the TC fodder need any paperwork or documents until the make the team.  And you can have a mini camp ahead to look at even more prospects.

Hotels, meals flights, much cheaper in Winnipeg than Florida?

Not sure the cost of operating a Canadian training facility vs. renting a US one, but I'm not sure that's not a saw off.

We have had sucessful minicamps in FLA in the past. 

[Blue In BC]

Never moving the Grey Cup south.  Never said anything remotely to suggest that.

Fly everyone to Florida instead of flying everyone to Winnipeg?  You think travel to Canada is cheaper than travel within the US?  With a 100 player roster who mostly live in the US?  And many of the coaches living in the US as well?

And none of the TC fodder need any paperwork or documents until the make the team.  And you can have a mini camp ahead to look at even more prospects.

Hotels, meals flights, much cheaper in Winnipeg than Florida?

Not sure the cost of operating a Canadian training facility vs. renting a US one, but I'm not sure that's not a saw off.

We have had sucessful minicamps in FLA in the past. 

I can read between the lines. You are suggesting a bunch of ideas that are making our game Americanized. You mentioned weather as a factor.

You should note that the USA has winter as well. 9 CFL teams playing pre season games in which cities that are spring weather? It's further from Florida to California than from Winnipeg to Regina etc etc.

The USA imposed ratio laws when the CFL expanded to the US. No idea where that would stand now but they might not let Canadian players play in the states.

Lots of problems in everything you've suggested. The closest scenario is similar to the USFL where they centralized where all teams resided and played in season 1. 

Here are a couple more:

What do warmer southern states have in common in the spring? Answer; Hurricanes and Tornadoes.

Name a stadium or two that have a 65 foot wide field or the ability to modify that for a CFL pre season game?

[Sir Blue and Gold]

Just like new people aren't going to start watching because the field is shorter and the goalposts get moved back. That's the argument.

All you've ever said is, "well we gotta do something" without giving a good reason as to why that something will be useful.

But as you say, you're getting your wish and I agree with you that they will probably keep moving in the direction of making it seem more like the NFL. Hopefully it works! Of course I don't think it will and it would be laughable to think I would give the league a pass for "at least twying somefing".

The difference between old fans and new fans is that old fans pay money and new fans hopefully pay money. Gotta be careful how you roll this out so that money is coming from somewhere...

Why is more than 50% of toothpaste worldwide mint flavoured? The answer is because that's what sells and more specifically it's what sells because it's what people expect from the product category. If your toothpaste was banana flavoured and you wanted more marketshare you might consider changing the formula or adding a new variant.

The CFL can't run two leagues or introduce new variants to some games. They can align their game to be what more and more Canadians expect football to be like in this country. That's mint and that's a smart move if you're a toothpaste brand or the CFL who wants to grow in what the market for football looks like TODAY.

Of course the 1% of people who love banana toothpaste in this thread will hate this answer and find some reason to fault the thought process because they're applying emotional reactions to an entirely unemotional business decision. If you find you're one of them: the changes aren't for you and never were.

[Blue In BC]

Why is more than 50% of toothpaste worldwide mint flavoured? The answer is because that's what sells and more specifically it's what sells because it's what people expect from the product category. If your toothpaste was banana flavoured and you wanted more marketshare you might consider changing the formula or adding a new variant.

The CFL can't run two leagues or introduce new variants to some games. They can align their game to be what more and more Canadians expect football to be like in this country. That's mint and that's a smart move if you're a toothpaste brand or the CFL who wants to grow.

Of course the 1% of people who love banana toothpaste in this thread will hate this answer and find some reason to fault the though process because they're applying emotional reactions to an entirely unemotional business decision.

I preferred cinnamon toothpaste but it has disappeared from the marketplace. lol

[blue_or_die]

Why is more than 50% of toothpaste worldwide mint flavoured? The answer is because that's what sells and more specifically it's what sells because it's what people expect from the product category. If your toothpaste was banana flavoured and you wanted more marketshare you might consider changing the formula or adding a new variant.

The CFL can't run two leagues or introduce new variants to some games. They can align their game to be what more and more Canadians expect football to be like in this country. That's mint and that's a smart move if you're a toothpaste brand or the CFL who wants to grow in what the market for football looks like TODAY.

Of course the 1% of people who love banana toothpaste in this thread will hate this answer and find some reason to fault the thought process because they're applying emotional reactions to an entirely unemotional business decision. If you find you're one of them: the changes aren't for you and never were.

The problem with your analogy is that while everyone wants mint toothpaste, we are just changing the texture of the toothpaste to match what the leading brand has and are not able to make our toothpaste taste like mint. Our texture is closer to the leading mint brand. The people who are actually buying the banana one don't care for the texture change, and the ones who want to buy mint have no new reason to try the banana brand because it's still banana flavour no matter how much you think you've moved closer to mimicking the leading brand.

If the CFL had a way to make our toothpaste taste like mint and we were able to take market share, I'd be all for it even if I preferred the old texture.

If you think changing the texture will help even though the problem is the flavour, you can expect a number of people to be upset at the loss of their banana toothpaste with the original texture, a few of whom stop buying it altogether, and left with no reason why anyone who's already buying the mint leading brand to switch. It's not being emotional, it's just using logic.

[wpg#1]

Never moving the Grey Cup south.  Never said anything remotely to suggest that.

Fly everyone to Florida instead of flying everyone to Winnipeg?  You think travel to Canada is cheaper than travel within the US?  With a 100 player roster who mostly live in the US?  And many of the coaches living in the US as well?

And none of the TC fodder need any paperwork or documents until the make the team.  And you can have a mini camp ahead to look at even more prospects.

Hotels, meals flights, much cheaper in Winnipeg than Florida?

Not sure the cost of operating a Canadian training facility vs. renting a US one, but I'm not sure that's not a saw off.

We have had sucessful minicamps in FLA in the past. 

This is just bonkers on a whole new level. So you're suggesting changing the size of the field will help facilitate the training camps of all the teams to be in Florida ? YIKES

[Sir Blue and Gold]

The problem with your analogy is that while everyone wants mint toothpaste, we are just changing the texture of the toothpaste to match what the leading brand has and are not able to make our toothpaste taste like mint. Our texture is closer to the leading mint brand. The people who are actually buying the banana one don't care for the texture change, and the ones who want to buy mint have no new reason to try the banana brand because it's still banana flavour no matter how much you think you've moved closer to mimicking the leading brand.

If the CFL had a way to make our toothpaste taste like mint and we were able to take market share, I'd be all for it even if I preferred the old texture.

If you think changing the texture will help even though the problem is the flavour, you can expect a number of people to be upset at the loss of their banana toothpaste with the original texture, a few of whom stop buying it altogether, and left with no reason why anyone who's already buying the mint leading brand to switch. It's not being emotional, it's just using logic.

I'll just state what I think are facts:

The CFL is a business, facing business challenges, making business decisions that they think will help grow interest in the game, revenue and profit. The market for football in Canada today is vastly different than 25 years ago. Many franchises have and continue to lose money.  The ones that are profitable are not wildly so. The results attained by the league as of today are, generally speaking, the result of having a fairly traditional and reserved approach to major changes. If being very different from the global market leader was helpful, we would have more full stadiums across Canada.

[jets4life]

Saskatchewan is in 1st place, and they had a chance to wrap up 1st overall tonight. Attendance? 27,500.

Fans are outraged by the ill conceived changes to the game, and are putting their foot down.

[Jesse]

Saskatchewan is in 1st place, and they had a chance to wrap up 1st overall tonight. Attendance? 27,500.

Fans are outraged by the ill conceived changes to the game, and are putting their foot down.

As someone who hates the changes and would cancel my season tickets if they made more, I doubt it affected the Riders' attendance at all. They just don't sell out often.

[jets4life]

I'll just state what I think are facts:

The CFL is a business, facing business challenges, making business decisions that they think will help grow interest in the game, revenue and profit. The market for football in Canada today is vastly different than 25 years ago. Many franchises have and continue to lose money.  The ones that are profitable are not wildly so.

In other words, the CFL is in the exact same predicament it was in the 80s and 90s, when most teams were in debt, and two (Ottawa and Montreal) folded, while others Calgary and Saskatchewan barely survived the mid 80s.

I honestly think you may want to do  more research on the history of CFL economics, what you are saying is false.

[TBURGESS]

I'll just state what I think are facts:

The CFL is a business, facing business challenges, making business decisions that they think will help grow interest in the game, revenue and profit. The market for football in Canada today is vastly different than 25 years ago. Many franchises have and continue to lose money.  The ones that are profitable are not wildly so. The results attained by the league as of today are, generally speaking, the result of having a fairly traditional and reserved approach to major changes. If being very different from the global market leader was helpful, we would have more full stadiums across Canada.

Do you think the changes will actually work? Will they grow the sport in the US? 

In business, you need to differentiate your product to other competing products, especially the #1 product because they already have most of the product share. 

[Jesse]

In other words, the CFL is in the exact same predicament it was in the 80s and 90s, when most teams were in debt, and two (Ottawa and Montreal) folded, while others Calgary and Saskatchewan barely survived the mid 80s.

I honestly think you may want to do  more research on the history of CFL economics, what you are saying is false.

This isn't true at all. The league was on the verge of folding during those years. Despite some weird naysayers, the CFL has never been in a stronger position than it is right now. League revenue is at an all time high. The claims that 7 of 9 teams lose money is a complete red herring and must be an accounting number that doesn't include revenue sharing or the TV deal or something. It doesn't make sense otherwise.

[jets4life]

This isn't true at all. The league was on the verge of folding during those years. Despite some weird naysayers, the CFL has never been in a stronger position than it is right now. League revenue is at an all time high. The claims that 7 of 9 teams lose money is a complete red herring and must be an accounting number that doesn't include revenue sharing or the TV deal or something. It doesn't make sense otherwise.

That's exactly what I was saying. If you read "Sir Blue and Gold" post, one would think the CFL was highly successful, and making tons of money, up until 25 years ago, or at least that is the implication.

However, you are completely incorrect by stating "the CFL has never been in a stronger position than it is right now."  The league took a massive hit during COVID, where most teams lost nearly 10 million dollars (the Bombers allegedly lost $7 million in 2020), and overall CFL attendance dropped, once the league resumed. If anything, the high water mark for the CFL was 18 years ago, when average attendance was close to 30,000/game.

The bottom line,is that the new changes in the game will likely kill off the league within 5-10 years. It's a slap in the face to the four CFL teams that have constructed new stadiums, specifically designed with the current playing field size in mind (especially Regina and Winnipeg).