OUT OF THE TUNNEL: A DIFFICULT TIME FOR FOOTBALL
BY: RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF
It’s hard to understand why the right thing to do is often so difficult. The Edmonton Eskimos are currently experiencing this right now with the pressure to change their name. This isn’t even the first or second time that this has come up, but rather something that has been hanging over the franchise for years.
Much like in the NFL and MLB with the Washington football club and the Cleveland baseball club, it’s become clear that it’s time to change the team names. What these teams, and others in the past, have always worried about includes a very quiet minority that doesn’t want the team name to change at all.
The funny thing is that it’s not the name that won all of those Grey Cups. It’s not the name that placed the Edmonton football team in the hearts of their fans. It’s the players, coaches, organization and their fans that have made Edmonton so beloved (and hated) in the CFL. What’s also clear is that they are an iconic sports franchise.
Many teams have changed their name for various reasons over the years and it hasn’t affected a thing. The majority of teams eliminated derogatory names for Indigenous people in favour of names that kept their team colours and so much of their heritage.
Some examples of teams that changed their name or mascot include: the University of North Dakota who changed their name to the Fighting Hawks in 2013; St. John’s changed their name to the Red Storm in 1994; Stanford changed their name to the Cardinal in 1972 and here in Saskatchewan, Bedford Road Collegiate adopted the Redhawks and Balfour Collegiate became the Bears. We could name dozens more.
For some reason, professional sports teams have been the last to do the right thing. When it comes down to it, most of the teams are owned by either a single person or entity that feel they can do what they want when they want, like Washington’s Dan Snyder.
This is where it’s hard to figure out why a community-owned organization has dragged its feet for so long. If the Edmonton Football Club changed it ten years ago, then they would look progressive and we wouldn’t think twice in 2020.
Our favourite team here at Out Of The Tunnel is the now-Las Vegas Raiders. It doesn’t matter if they have played in Oakland, Los Angeles or now Las Vegas, they are still our favourite team. If they had to change their name from the Raiders, sure it would be strange but after a year or two it wouldn’t matter anymore.
Even with a name change, it doesn’t change the memories we have collected cheering for the Raiders. The same can be said for the Eskimos. Just do it because frankly, time is running out.
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This gets us to what the CFL will look like if and when the season is cancelled.
It will be devastating for so many great people that work in these organizations to lose their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic and it could possibly mean the beginning of the end for the CFL itself.
But, there could be a silver lining for many teams if there’s a reset.
It could be a brand new league with brand new policies and organizations in place across the country. A brand new version with a long history supporting it.
For Edmonton they could change their name, ride out the controversy for waiting so long to change their name, and debut with a new team name, logo and branding.
It has the possibility to reinvigorate a fan base that is starving to support and get behind their team again. A fresh start could be the remedy.
In B.C. a year away would give the team and current owner David Braley time to find new ownership and a new start in a market that has been hard to crack if your team isn’t called the Canucks.
The Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS have shot themselves in the foot multiple times and alienated a fan base while the Grizzlies packed up and left ages ago. The city is set and primed to support something that is purely Vancouver and that window could be the return of the league in 2021.
It can be the same way for the other major market teams in Montreal with new ownership, and Toronto with the chance to tap into some of the marketing that made TFC so successful in the MLS.
Saskatchewan can hit the reset button and trim down a bloated administration staff, run a little leaner and use some of the potential extra revenue to continue to pay off their loans to Mosaic Stadium and also have the money in place to improve an already great facility.
The team it would hurt the most is Winnipeg. This would have been a glorious season at the gate for the Blue Bombers who are coming off their first Grey Cup victory in decades. They already run pretty lean and efficient under solid leadership and a reset would be tough.
And as a league, a reset would mean some potential new opportunities; they can gas the international experiment and focus on the CFL in general and make it a great Canadian league again.
Having the season end would cut deep but may not necessarily be fatal and so many good things could come from it. Of course, they also need great leadership.
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Football across the board looks to be in jeopardy.
U-Sports has already cancelled fall sports including football in 2020 and the CFL has a deadline of July 23 looming and we think there is about a 20% chance that they will play this fall.
Locally, the best chance could be the Prairie Football Conference. They could have an Alberta division and a Sask-Toba division with a six game regular season, division semi-finals and finals with the two winners playing for the league title.
It would be great and they are best suited to pull this off.
South of the border, the football infrastructure is feeling the brunt of the explosion of positive COVID-19 tests.
The NCAA has seen the Ivy League delay fall sports until the beginning of 2021. Now they may play in the FCS level of football but when the smartest people in the room feel that it would be very difficult to morally play in the fall, many will follow.
The first steps towards this began this week with the Big 10 and Pac 10 declaring a conference-only schedule this fall. The ACC will be next with the SEC and Big 12 following suit in the power five conferences.
We are only about 15% sure that there will be college football in the fall and if there is, it will be just the Power Five. The group of five conferences that make up that group of five (MAC, AAC, CUSA, Sun Belt and Mountain West) will not have the financial backing to play. Especially without those big payouts when they visit the those top level schools.
There is a lot of money in place for the Power Five schools. Most of it comes on the backs of players who don’t see a penny of the television money. Even if there are no students on campus, the cheap labour that makes the college football machine run may still be on the field in the fall.
Finally, the National Football League.
The big daddy of all football is in an interesting spot. They have already reduced their pre-season games to two but the NFLPA endorsed a plan to not play any pre-season games.
There are a myriad of precautions in place to open the season in time but the NFL isn’t a bubble sport and are primed to get taken down by a rash of positive tests.
The biggest motivator to play or not to play is always money. Nothing has been done to figure out what will happen if players opt out of play, if there’s a reduced season, if there’s a cut in pay due to a lack of revenue and the biggest one in place is the guaranteed money for many veterans once they hit the field for week one.
This is the vested veteran salary guarantee. If a player who is set to make $1-million in 2020 is cut after Week 1, the team is still on the hook for the full $1-million in salary.
The NFL schedule is set up to easily tweak to a 14-, 12- or 10-game schedule so that is also a positive.
We give the NFL a 50-50 chance of playing. This is the league that has the most money to lose without a season in 2020 and so many of the players are willing to take the risk because the window to make any significant money is small. It will likely be the best chance to watch football in the fall.
The only certainty at the moment is that no one knows how this is going to play out.
(RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF)
