The CFL appears to finally have some of its priorities in order coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Commissioner Randy Ambrosie revealed in his state of the league address that the CFL’s owners have agreed to a model for revenue sharing.
“History has always seen us have a team or two struggle and to some degree we’ve left them to struggle on their own. We have to find a way to help them so we can build something special,” said Ambrosie on Friday.
While the optics are shaky — hardworking Saskatchewan fans can’t be happy about subsidizing rich executives at MLSE — revenue sharing will help stabilize the league as a whole. The CFL only has nine teams and it can’t afford to lose any.
Legendary commissioner Jake Gaudaur said the CFL would have folded in the 1970s — an era often cited as the league’s heyday — had it not been for revenue sharing. Take that for what it’s worth.
The CFL also partnered with Physical and Health Education Canada to create a new resource for educators and students across the country. Previous iterations of the Move Think Learn series, which included CFL-affiliated resources for students, reached nearly 1,500 educators and more than one million children.
This is precisely the type of initiative that the league should be using to market itself to young fans. One of the ideas behind the league’s global initiative — more on that in a moment — was that it would serve as an entry point for new Canadians to become fans of the CFL. What better way to do that than the school system?
Canadian football is a huge part of our nation’s heritage and culture. It should be easy to find ways to incorporate it into education, particularly with how provincial governments are trying to help students become more active. The NFL reaches tons of Canadian kids through Madden but the CFL can reach millions more through school.
What’s even better is that the league’s educational resources were created with expertise and insight from Football Canada. The CFL and Football Canada working together is a positive development that can only lead to strengthening the game at the grassroots level.
The CFL also struck a deal with Genius Sports, a data and technology company, with the goal of maximizing revenue and fan engagement opportunities. The details of the arrangement are cloudy at best, but anything that combines social media, video, and betting to engage fans can only be a positive thing.
Ambrosie’s four-year tenure as the commissioner of the CFL has been defined by two major undertakings: the global initiative (ie. “CFL 2.0”) and the pursual of a potential collaboration with the XFL.
The global initiative was meant to generate revenue for the CFL and has failed to do so, as Ambrosie acknowledged in his address. The league spent a ton of money — reportedly between $1 and $2 million CAD — getting it off the ground and it has yet to yield any meaningful financial returns.
The initiative was also redundant. Our country already has a governing body — Football Canada — that’s a member of the International Federation of American Football (IFAF). The organization has been around since 1880 and has existing relationships with professional and amateur leagues around the globe.
As per amateur football sources, the CFL never sought a collaboration regarding its global initiative with Football Canada. What could have been a symbiotic relationship between our country’s top football organizations became two separate entities competing for the same space, resulting in a waste of precious resources.
As for collaborative talks south of the border, Ambrosie said the XFL’s leadership team was made up of a “very nice group of people” with whom they “parted company as friends” when a deal couldn’t be reached. Making friends is nice, but it’s not always productive.
Ambrosie told the media that he and his team would be back to work by 9:15 a.m. the day after the Grey Cup. Considering how the league has squandered the past few years, hitting the ground running on Monday seems like a smart idea.
