Keeping the CFL
As I sip my coffee on this Sunday week-end morning having watched six Canadian CFL teams excellently entertain with some outstanding football (the best will come this evening when Saskatchewan hosts Hamilton, although it will admittedly be hard to beat the Edmonton-Calgary barn burner on Thursday night), my mind turns to whether something should be done about the covetous investors looking at the Toronto market for a future NFL franchise.
Normally I would favour leaving sports investments to the market. There are too many other worthy matters that government should attend to. However in the case of a NFL franchise for Toronto, I believe there is a case for action.
Not because US investors are not welcome in Canada(as is the case with banks, broadcast media and airlines). Indeed it is quite likely that a Toronto franchise would be owned and controlled by Canadian capital. But that doesn’t make it any less palatable.
Leagues work because teams depend upon each other and share something in common and thus must operate as a form of cooperative. They also work because they are compete around something that matters to fans and thus have an identity based on some unifying element.
A Toronto NFL franchise would likely drive the Toronto Argonauts out of the Toronto market, or at least reduce it to an afterthought with a very narrow fan base. The NFL would drive out media coverage in the Toronto area and severely dilute corporate and community support of the Argonauts. It is unlikely the team could survive for any length of time.
This would severely damage the CFL. While some believe the demise of perennial losers who are more laughed at then celebrated would be of little loss, the fact is that without Toronto the league would lose its most important feature, which is that it is the Canadian competition between Canadian teams. With Toronto in the NFL, this identity goes. The “Canadianess” of football in Canada would be badly dilute. And if Toronto should have a successful team, which it must at some point, this would be so strong as to devastate the CFL. Television audiences in particular will migrate away from the CFL as its primary association dwindles, finances of all of the teams will decline, and the league will be reduced to a rump.
Today the CFL gives us a high quality sports experience. The athletes are faster, stronger and more skilled then they have ever been. Canadian players regularly stand out as play-makers, adding to the enjoyment of the game. The league continues to draw even as the NFL dominates the television market with its huge audiences.
It would not require much to cool down the interest in a Toronto NFL franchise. A simple statement by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition that the NFL will not be welcome in Canada and will not be provided any of the protections it enjoys in the US would probably be sufficient.
Let’s let the CFL prosper. It is worth keeping and protecting. It is good for the Canadian soul.
I couldn’t resist taking you up on this one, and not because – call me unCanadian – I prefer the NFL on-field product. I think you’ve missed two linked arguments here: 1) size of market. Toronto is one of the largest sports markets in North America. 2) price point. NFL is at a much higher price point. I think you’d see more choice for the sports consumer, and I don’t think you’d see a drop-off in CFL attendance. I think the CFL game is sufficiently differentiated from the NFL, that it will continue to attract. The Vancouver Giants regularly sell out with the Canucks in town – different price point, different market, different style of game. Granted, it is hockey in Canada.
I agree that the CFL needs Toronto, but I think the CFL has enough substance, personality, and identity to survive in Canada with an NFL team in the same city. It would be nothing like the US-expansion disaster of the early 90’s.
The problem is not so much whether there would be fans to come to Argo games, although one might wonder what the hope would be of getting the minimum 20,000 per game. The real problem is that free media and general interest in televised games would fall way and the overall revenue of the league drop. It is also worth noting that price points and size of market have not sustained any of the attempts to install competing teams in the US market. The USFL, the Arena League, and the CFL US teams all could not generate enough interest to survive. The teams were all in big markets with price points that should have attracted fans. The product was not that bad. But the overall market dynamic wasn’t there. The NFL presence is the obvious explanation.