DAVED BENEFIELD OP-ED: WHERE THE CFL LOST ITS WAY

CFL All Star linebacker, Grey Cup champion, former CFL on CBC commentator and CIS coach & broadcaster Daved “Mr. Furious” Benefield penned an amazing Op-Ed to his Facebook page on the current state of the Canadian Football League, and what it needs when it comes back.

Give it a read:

“People always ask why the CFL can’t get it right.

The CFL is cool and different but it’s lost hella ground. The Canadian fan and public have become inundated with American football. The CFL has failed to keep up with even the most basic of advances the NFL embraces:

1. NFL Films. The CFL has nothing. So can we really say that in a country of 36-million there has never been a guy and his dad who loved football and movie-making enough to want to do the same for the CFL that the NFL has had for so long?

2. Fear of saying someone is great.

3. The willingness to cut a proven player/fan favourite over $20,000. Have we not figured it out yet that it makes the league look bush, and degrades the value of the game? Why not try to make 20K more in revenue?

4. Fear of promoting a player. I often hear it’s “about the team”. Well it’s true but players make teams. Warren Moon or Earl Campbell on the Oilers. Seahawks. Too Tall Jones. In the CFL we never grasped the importance of star players. God forbid a broadcaster uses the word or speaks of the players in stardom like the quality of NFL players.

5. The beauty of the back story or history of the team, its tradition and the colourful players.

6. Lack of player comparisons. The idea you are giving light to past players while comparing their styles and abilities to the players of today. It’s about greatness. HELL high school broadcasters do it in the US.

7. Media stiffness. Have we not noticed the NFL, NBA and NCAA have people who breathe life into the game? We struggle.

8. An aging demographic, afraid of change. I can hear the league yell out, “My Lumbago” when it’s called out to get with the present. It’s no wonder we can’t attract younger fans. We might as well have a blinking device known as a VCR, plugged in scaring the kids.

Look at our Grey Cup halftime selections. The first thing the Commissioner should have done was call Drake, then called the Tokyo Police Club and done the Grey Cup right.

9. Why is the game only on one TV station?

10. Fear of being too American. We can’t reinvent the wheel, we can’t tailgate because let’s face it, “It’s not Canadian”. Social skills, talking to folks you don’t know, chillin having drinks and food before a game.

11. Unwillingness to promote youth football and sell the story of how great the CFL is.

I’m tired of talking about this. We haven’t been exciting, or had energy – let alone relevancy – since the Raghib Ismail days.”