Thomas Gray |
There were a few strings attached to the deal, of course. The NFL can now sell its merchandise at CFL games, play regular-season games in Canada and have better access to CFL players. Simply put, the globally minded NFL is shrewdly extending its marketing dominion into Canada without actually expanding.
However, the CFL doesn't just get a cash infusion. It also gets the backing of one of the world's most powerful sports syndicates and much-needed assistance from a marketing juggernaut.
To be sure, not everybody is thrilled with the deal. Some Canadian purists are actually disgusted by the move - they would rather see the once-proud CFL die than accept dirty NFL money. In fact, as a recent perusal of the rec.sport.football.canadian newsgroup showed, the amount of hatred that some CFL fans have towards the NFL (and towards Americans in general) is remarkable. In America, we fear losing our city's NFL franchise. In Canada, they fear gaining one.
However, not even the most fiercely independent CFL fan can deny that the alliance with the NFL is saving his league. The sport of Canadian football (for those of you who aren't football aficionados, the Canadian game is a wider, faster-paced version of the fall spectacle we all know and love) was dying a slow and painful death.
Crowds were dwindling, deficits were mounting and management of the league was becoming increasingly inept. The situation become so bad, in fact, that in 1993 the CFL decided to expand into the United States in search of new markets. Canadian Football League franchises would eventually appear in several U.S. cities, including San Antonio. Though in 1995 the Baltimore Stallions became the first-ever American team to win the Grey Cup (Canada's version of the Super Bowl), the U.S. expansion experiment was so poorly managed and so inadequately marketed that it was scrapped in 1996.
The Canadian teams had problems of their own. Last year, the 129-year-old Ottawa Rough Riders folded after years of inept ownership, poor on-field performance and pitifully small attendance. In fact, virtually every CFL franchise was facing some sort of management and/or fiscal crisis.
It would have been a shame for the CFL to die. Although the NFL, in its search for large markets, would surely have replaced the Toronto Argonauts and Montreal Alouettes with teams of its own, fans in smaller cities, such as Calgary or Winnipeg, would also have lost forever the teams they loved and supported for generations.
If you ever get a chance to see a CFL game, you ought to do so. The rules might be a bit weird for those used to the American game, but this unique sport is definitely worth watching.
And saving.
Gray is a UH alumnus who believes football is the greatest sport
invented by mankind.