SATURDAY CFL PLAYOFFS? – GET READY
By: Stephen Lylyk, RP Show Intern
During CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrose’s annual address to fans and media at Grey Cup, he made a big announcement regarding the future of the CFL.
“I’m happy to tell all of you that, thanks starting in 2023, the Divisional Semi-Final, and Divisional finals, are going to be played on Saturday,” Ambrosie said Friday at Grey Cup Festivities in Regina, SK.
As 3DownNation.Com recently reported, the logistics of playing Sunday postseason games have recently come into question.
“Despite being the top sports broadcast of the day, this year’s CFL Divisional semi-finals saw a 27 percent decline in viewership from the previous season. The divisional final weekend dropped 17 percent,” the CFL’s top periodical wrote.
The logic behind this move is simple, as MLB Alum and staunch CFL fan Gregg Zaun explained on Friday’s Rod Pedersen Show.
“It’s about money at the end of the day,” Zaun offered. “The CFL’s not stupid. They wanna make money like everyone else. They’ll have less competition for viewership on Saturday.”
Reid Johnson, the host of the Seattle-based Markcast podcast, appeared on Pedersen’s show Friday to argue the case of why playing on Saturday avoids competition with the National Football League.
“I tweeted a couple weeks ago that they should do it,” explained Johnson. “The CFL is just not as intriguing in comparison. If you’re trying to get new fans, you’re asking them to choose between leagues. That’s difficult do.”
The move to Saturday will benefit more than television ratings. As Co-Host of the Alouettes FlightDeck Podcast Cliffy D. Pine argued on Friday’s RP Show, Saturday football will benefit fan travel to road games as well.
“If you wanna leave, the day of the game,” Pine observed, “you’ll be getting up in the middle of the night to drive to, say, Toronto so you can arrive on time. Doing that on a Sunday when you work the next day is a challenge.”
Following Ambrosie’s announcement, the question could be asked about moving the Grey Cup itself to Saturday. A topic that Ambrosie admitted during his state of the union address, has been discussed.
As Pine mentioned, there is an added challenge of the Grey Cup moving to Saturday.
“When the Commissioner talked about this at the state of the league address, he did mention that you have to lose the extra day of partying revenue should the game moves to Saturday,” Pine said.
The CFL has tried Saturday playoff football once before. Back in 2008 they chose to play the Division Semi-Final and Division final games on Saturday.
As Rod Pedersen – who was broadcasting Saskatchewan Roughriders games on radio at the time – recalled during his Friday show, the experiment didn’t work well.
“The television ratings went down cause the rest of the country wasn’t used to it,” explained Pedersen, “and they went back to Sunday the following year.”
While some argue the logistics of Saturday playoff football, others such as Dave Petrishen, ‘The SportsDoctor’ have been annoyed with the CFL’s desire to tinker with their sport.
“Why does the CFL keep screwing around”” Petrishen huffed Pedersen. “Why must they have to have this inferiority complex? Pump out your chest Randy Ambrosie! We’re a great league, steeped in a great tradition.”
As Pedersen ultimately summarized, “it’s all about getting people interested in CFL Football.”
(The Rod Pedersen Show airs daily at 12 pm ET on Game+ TV and WQEE Radio)
I remember 1980 when the CFL playoffs were on Saturday. I believe that the East Final was on Saturday and the West Final was on Sunday. It is better to have the games in full daylight compared to having one or both at night.