OUT OF THE TUNNEL: 5 WAYS TO FIX THE CFL
BY: RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF
Labour Day is just around the corner and the full sting of the CFL season cancellation is setting in. To have a summer, and now a fall, without this great league is incredibly sad and disheartening.
No lazy Friday’s around the TV watching a doubleheader on TSN.
No getting together with your football family at the stadium.
No new football memories of the great game-winning drive or the heartbreaking turnover.
No ‘first time’ for so many to enjoy the sights and sounds of the CFL.
No face-to-face connections with your favourite player.
We can’t really say the season is over because it never began.
So, what’s next?
The pandemic has exposed the many flaws of the CFL and if you want some great insight, head to Facebook and watch The Rod Pedersen Show’s August 21 interview with former commissioner Mark Cohon.
There are so many things the CFL can do to be ready for an incredible return to the field in June 2021.
Here are five that come to mind as we sit and lament about the 2020 season that never was.
1. Create a better relationship between the teams, the League and the players.
The players are the lifeblood of the CFL and there needs to be some thought into how the relationship works. The players can be the largest and most impactful salespeople for the future of this league.
Give the players full access to all of their game highlights to sell themselves and how awesome the league is via social media. Don’t force them be so attached to the teams and their communications staff and allow them to champion their own hard work and the teams.
Finally, make them feel a part of the league and make their salaries attached to the CFL’s revenues. A salary cap can be attached to quarterbacks to make things a little easier to sign and keep the many other high-calibre players but let the whole of the players salaries become attached to the well-being of the league.
This is just a start but it’s a nice place to begin.
2. One of the best interviews and articles was 3DownNation’s piece stemming from TSN 1050 Toronto’s interview with Toronto Argonauts president Bill Manning.
There are the haves and the have-nots in the CFL and the overused cliché that a league is only as strong as its weakest link. The CFL is in the unusual situation where the three biggest markets are in the toughest situations.
It will take a league-wide effort to boost these teams (though with a winning team in Montreal with fun and dynamic players they are pretty close) with all nine teams as well as the League using their combined efforts to boost the CFL as a whole.
The downfall is that there are a couple of teams that will not want to share all of the research and work that they have paid and worked towards, but it’s something that almost must happen. It will also help to keep costs down, which gets us to number three.
3. Many of the teams and the League office must pare down their administrative staffs. Football ops are almost down to bare bones all-the-while still being competitive in the football coaching and scouting environment.
It’s time for some of the staffs to be trimmed and for teams to save some money. This sucks because there are so many great people that work in the CFL front offices but it might be time to scale back.
This is where the shared knowledge of the CFL comes in. If the nine teams and the League can share some of the incredible work ahead of them, this will be for the greater good for the League now and into the future.
4. Open up the books of all the teams and the League. This is more for the benefit of receiving some sort of loan from federal and provincial governments.
The fanbases as a whole do not need to see what the privately-owned teams are doing but it will be necessary to allow an audit of all operations to get back on the field. This would create some trust between the entities that will help out the CFL.
5. Now, this is a personal pet peeve but it is a necessary move that is needed to get back on the field. That is to put an end to the CFL international experiment.
While the CFL house is in peril and we hear commissioner Randy Ambrosie saying the CFL will be a global force in football it makes us cringe. Let’s take the next five to ten years to clean up and build up the football product at home before stretching beyond the North American borders.
The best football players in the world are in North America, there is zero doubt about that.
The United States will continue to be the main pipeline of players outside of Canada and there should be some reinvestment in scouting the vast and bountiful football garden that is the NCAA football system.
The bulk of the CFL international money should be spent in Canada. Invest in the USports, Junior and CGEP leagues across the country. Then if you want to develop Canadian talent, don’t send them abroad. Instead invest in the already developed semi-pro leagues in Canada.
The Alberta Football League and Ontario’s Northern Football Conference are solid leagues with numerous former college and junior players filling up the teams. So, why not take the next step and make them a full-blown development league?
Players like Hamilton’s Aaron Crawford and Edmonton’s Tanner Green both played in the Alberta Football League while former Winnipeg Blue Bomber Teague Sherman and B.C. Lion Jonathan Haarke were set to play in the AFL in 2020.
The framework is already in place and it’s ripe for the CFL to take advantage of it. Let’s keep these dollars close to home and help continue to develop Canadian talent.
These are just a few things that we would like to see happen, comment below with what you think would work to get this incredible game back on the field in 2021.
(RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF)
