THE LATEST ON THE CFL’S RETURN TO PLAY

TSN’s popular 3 Downs segment aired on Friday night’s Sportscentre and hosts Dave Naylor and Farhan Lalji discussed the latest in the Canadian Football League’s efforts to Return To Play.

Here are some notes:

• The CFL has submitted its request for financial aid to the Federal government with the endorsement of the Players Association. 100% of the ask is directed towards playing a shortened 2020 season, with dollars to cover player salaries and operating costs, not subsidizing losses due to the pandemic.
• The amount of recent CFL ask for Federal assistance is believed to be in the range of a quarter of the $150-million figure reported in the spring. The ask is designed to be consistent with the government mandate to put people back to work.
• Talks continue between the League and Players Association and we are just a couple weeks away from the league’s “soft” deadline for the players to accept the proposal. 
• If they can get a deal and the Federal government provides financial assistance, Winnipeg is still the “clubhouse leader” as a potential Hub City. The league’s been using the Manitoba capital for models and projections however we’re a week away from a final decision on that and the CFL would accept pitches from other cities. 
• There’s been behind-the-scenes conversations with governments in Manitoba and provincial health officials but the CFL’s Health & Safety Committee is pretty confident they know what it’ll take to pull this off. They’ve been in talks with the MLS, NFL and other leagues. They feel they have a formula to succesfully Return To Play whereby the players and citizens in the community will be protected.
• The most likely scenario is a 6-game season with an 8-team playoff, but there’s a concern over how long they can keep the players in “The Bubble”. There are also economic advantages to playing only a 6-game season.
• Talking with players and agents over the past week, 75-80% of players are committed to playing this year. That doesn’t mean 20-25% don’t want to play, but there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.