Ranking every CFL team’s 2024 schedule reveal

The Canadian Football League unveiled its 2024 schedule on Thursday, which means one thing and one thing only: schedule reveal videos.

It has become an annual staple in professional sports that teams communicate next season’s slate to fans in a unique and frequently comedic digital format. Most CFL teams have bought into the concept, with high-quality video productions hitting social media from all corners of the country this morning.

Now that the dust has settled, here are all nine teams ranked by how good their content was.

9. Montreal Alouettes

It seems the Alouettes were too busy drinking champagne and extending their Grey Cup-winning core to bother producing any sort of schedule reveal. The team posted one single graphic on social media on a day when several other teams were pumping out content and generating conversation. It all begs the question: what are Pierre Karl Peladeau’s video production connections good for if you’re never going to use them?

8. Hamilton Tiger-Cats

There wasn’t much to the Ticats’ schedule reveal video, which only featured the team’s home games. Each opponent was represented by a Tim Horton’s donut, with the sprinkles on top being that team’s colours. The only real touch of creativity here was that the double blue donut was the last one taken out of the box in the opening shot — a nod to the QEW rivalry with the Toronto Argonauts.

7. Edmonton Elks

The Elks elected to go in a simpler direction with their reveal than other teams on this list, paying homage to sketch comedy institution Saturday Night Live with a parody of their intro. Each team was treated as a cast member, with all dates against them displayed on the screen over top of some highlights. The video certainly won’t blow your socks off but it was clean, crisp and professional.

6. Calgary Stampeders

There isn’t much to be impressed by in the initial stages of the Stampeders’ reveal, as we witness the schedule loading in a fairly standard hype video. However, the punch line at the end makes it all worthwhile.

Dave Dickenson taking a single piece of paper out of the printer and taping it to the whiteboard, then suggesting that John Hufnagel still communicates by fax perfectly encapsulates everything the Stampeders are as an organization — both good and bad. This video won’t attract much outside attention, but it’s worth a good chuckle for avid CFL viewers.

5. Ottawa Redblacks

A team group chat is the focal point of the Redblacks’ reveal, with players sharing videos, gifs and commentary about each matchup. It’s a tried-and-true format that hardly stretches the boundaries of our expectations but there are still plenty of amusing quips that will make you want to pause and read, including Bryce Carter and Kene Onyeka suggesting that Calgary’s touchdown horse, Quick Six, is a workplace safety violation.

The real value of this video is in a blink-and-miss-it piece of the setup. As players are seen pulling out their phones around the facility in the intro, a portion of a hanging jersey can be seen briefly — a subtle teaser for an upcoming new uniform unveiling.

Screengrab courtesy: Ottawa Redblacks

4. Saskatchewan Roughriders

The Riders went long-form with their reveal video, giving us a look at how the news of the release spread throughout the organization before it landed on the desk of new head coach Corey Mace. A number of staff members from multiple departments make appearances with various degrees of acting prowess, though it seems as if writer and historian Rob Vanstone might take off for Tinseltown with how much he has embraced his on-camera roles this year.

There are a number of fun cameos and easter eggs in the nearly three-and-a-half-minute-long video, including an appearance by 80-year-old Rider legend Alan Ford and his grandson Jaxon, who currently plays safety for the team. The highlight of the production appears early on though, as mascot Gainer is seen walking the sheep that infamously got loose at Mosaic Stadium when he hears the news.

T-2. Toronto Argonauts 

The Argos took a “man on the street” approach this year, asking oblivious Torontonians in Yonge-Dundas Square to identify the logos of each of their opponents. The results were predictably bad, with the rival Ticats getting called both a hockey and basketball team and Winnipeg being dubbed “the Wombats.”

T-2. B.C. Lions

The Lions also stole their idea from the Tennessee Titans, but at least they owned up to it in the intro. Passers-by on Granville Street were incapable of identifying CFL teams other than the ubiquitous Saskatchewan Roughriders, with two gentlemen who had undoubtedly sampled some of B.C.’s most famous export appearing particularly befuddled.

As always, the concept generated some amusing results with the Redblacks earning the new moniker “Tablesaws” and the Elks being deemed “a ram of some sort.” However, even being erroneously identified as the College Football Playoff-bound Washington Huskies couldn’t satisfy the Bombers, who took issue with this post as well and noted that the Lions had played copycat before.

1. Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Winnipeg took a unique approach to their reveal, creating a ridiculous hype script for the season and feeding it through artificial intelligence software to generate a montage of images. The results are equal parts fascinating and horrifying, as misshapen futuristic football players witness alien crash landings, battle intergalactic dinosaurs, and play in a bouncy castle stadium.

While the B.C. Lions pointed out that this was not an entirely original idea, likely stemming from a fan-made AI-generated Toronto Blue Jays commercial, there is no doubt that the Bombers put their own spin on this. If only computers were smart enough to figure out how not to lose Grey Cups to East Division underdogs…