https://www.tsn.ca/naylor-many-questions-but-few-answers-on-a-2021-cfl-season-1.1543725

The Canadian Football League has been outrageously quiet since it pulled the plug on its season more than two months ago, leaving behind a wake of speculation about where things are headed next.

With the reality setting in that COVID-19 is likely to still be around in some form next summer, there is real concern about what the 2021 season might look like or if it will occur at all.

There are teams that believe it is vitally important to play in 2021 and that without a season the CFL is in danger of being mothballed. Whether every team believes that is another question. And there is a lot to sort out before anyone can accurately predict what a season might look like and how much pain the teams are collectively willing to stomach to make it happen.

The league and its franchises are currently running through various scenarios for next season, trying to get a handle on true costs of each and working at ways to trim budgets and save money. That’s likely to continue until the league can truly choose a course of action, which feels like next April at the earliest.

Why? Well, there’s not much point in fully committing to a scenario that’s seven months away if that scenario might be totally unrealistic by the time you get there.

There has been no 2021 business plan presented yet, only regular updates to the presidents and governors about what the league is doing to prepare for the unknown.

It should be noted that teams will need to make decisions about retaining assistant coaches with expiring contracts by December, which will be the first real economic commitments to a 2021 season. Restrictions on signing players will need to be lifted well before the opening of February free agency, where players are likely to meet a cautious market – one in which signing bonuses will probably be absent.

There’s a collective bargaining agreement to amend, if not renegotiate, with the players, which will require some kind of pressure point because it always does. But the league can’t sit down with the players until it gets a true handle on revenues and it can’t do that until it chooses a course of action.

Will CFL teams be allowed to have full stadiums next summer? It doesn't seem likely. But just what percentage of capacity will be allowed – if any at all – is impossible to guess. It seems as if the league is counting on the restrictions that currently prevent fans from being in stadiums being lifted. But to what degree?

When will we see a schedule? Good question. Or could we see multiple schedules for different scenarios? Never say never.

Could it be a 21-week, 18-game season played in home stadiums? Unlikely, given the losses teams are expected to take with reduced numbers of fans in the stands. Could we see a return to the 10-week bubble? Maybe. A nine-game schedule played in home stadiums before fans? Perhaps.

The point is no one knows, so demanding answers to questions that can’t possibly be answered right now is a waste of time.

All we know is that there’s going to be a lot less revenue for teams to operate with under any scenario, not just because of crowd restrictions but also due to older fans choosing to stay home for their safety. The CFL’s fan demographics do it no favours in this regard.

Getting consensus on a best course of action won’t be easy for the CFL’s nine teams. Back in the summer, there were teams that were willing to play without government support and teams that weren’t. And just like then, the biggest challenge commissioner Randy Ambrosie faces now is finding a scenario they can all live with.

Adopting a revenue-sharing model so that each team absorbs the same amount of red ink would certainly make consensus-building easier, which many believe should be the direction for the future, COVID-19 or not.

The other elephant in the room is federal government, which many in the CFL believe left it high and dry last summer after months of back-and-forth talks where the league believed it was making progress.

Is the CFL prepared to go down that road again, knowing it doesn’t control the timeline and larger forces can change things in an instant? Perhaps, although it’s not as though the feds don’t have a long list of people coming at them with their hands out.

There will be voices demanding the owners suck up the losses of playing a season under any circumstance, as owners have done in other sports. But the business calculation in sports such as MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA is different because of the percentage of revenues those leagues derive from television.

Losses sustained by playing in those leagues can also be viewed as investments towards protecting massive franchise values. That’s not the case in the CFL, where teams can’t just float money on the backs of their franchise values, and where one third of the teams are publicly owned.

It would be beneficial for the league to soon announce its formal commitment to play some kind of season in 2021.

But beyond that, get ready for months more of waiting with lots of questions and speculation but very few answers.

1 minute ago, 17to85 said:

I swear to God if MLSE and Montreal cost me the CFL......

I've really been looking for an excuse to switch to Telus, on account of what a giant piece of **** Bell is as a company...........this might put me over the edge, if they help kill the thing I love most in life.

1 minute ago, Noeller said:

I've really been looking for an excuse to switch to Telus, on account of what a giant piece of **** Bell is as a company...........this might put me over the edge, if they help kill the thing I love most in life.

I have been having non-stop issues with BellMTS for a couple of years. I've dumped every service I could and will now be switching to Rhawgers. 

Just now, JCon said:

I have been having non-stop issues with BellMTS for a couple of years. I've dumped every service I could and will now be switching to Rhawgers. 

my thing is....I need good coverage in both rural AB and Calgary, and want the best coverage possible when I'm back home in MB. To date, Bell has been the best choice for all of that. If Rogers or Telus could offer me the same without jacking up my monthly bill, then I'll be looking at it in June when my contract is up.

 

23 hours ago, JCon said:

I have been having non-stop issues with BellMTS for a couple of years. I've dumped every service I could and will now be switching to Rhawgers. 

Check out Primus. Or IVC telecom- 100MBPS for $40.00 per month.

Edited April 17, 20214 yr by Tracker

3 hours ago, Tracker said:

Check out Primus. Or IVC telecom- 100MBPS for $40.00 per month.

Thanks. I have been looking at some alternatives.

So any thoughts on what the league will announce this week? Announcement coming Tuesday, by all accounts. Part of it will be the official postponement of the start of the season, but I'm gonna say that they'll announce a hard start date of Canada Day. Now, will that be TC begins then or first game of the season.... But that's my guess. They'll give us something "written in stone", so to speak, so we have something to look forward to.... 

I agree we get a hard start date. I think we end up with July TC and games starting in August with fewer games.

I doubt they have a hard start date. Doesn't fit with their handling so far and we don't have enough vaccination data yet.

On 2021-04-16 at 10:57 AM, Noeller said:

 

They have had a year to figure it out.  To say they are being held to a higher standard than leagues who have played actual games...is ludicrous at this point. 

47 minutes ago, Mark H. said:

They have had a year to figure it out.  To say they are being held to a higher standard than leagues who have played actual games...is ludicrous at this point. 

Have you read any of John Hodge's tweets or stories lately on 3DN? Even worse take than this one. I think someone hit the guy over the head with a hammer. One story he wrote talked about how the CFL can spend it's way out of its problems while admitting it's not his money so the owners may not want to do it. The other was about how single game betting could cover the losses the league suffers so it doesn't have to change it's business model. It can just carry on like nothing happened. Just complete crap. As bad or worse than that 3DN writer there for the Riders who wrote about what positions players from the Riders could play if they were in the NHL. 

I appreciate Hodge's positivity... It's needed at a time like this. Someone who actually cares about saving the traditions. 

Oh yeah, there was another John Hodge story last week on twitter & at 3DN which I called him out for as it was totally ridiculous. Hodge said Vancouver, Toronto & Montreal were holding back the CFL so screw them. He claimed that they can be replaced by other cities.

I said he was delusional. How do you replace three markets with nearly 13 million people? I asked him what "cities" would replace them?? Saskatoon, Kelowna, London or Quebec City? Kamloops or Kelowna? Red Deer??? Charlottetown?? Victoria?? St. John's??? Who would pay for new stadiums? No government would. Taxpayers would be up in arms footing half to three quarters of $250-$300 million dollar stadiums in these places so no stadium would ever be built.

I reminded him the reason the Schooners in Halifax never went forward was because the city & province there refused to finance a CFL sized stadium so the team was shelved. I said without Vancouver, Toronto & Montreal there'd be no TV deal worth any money. It was a totally stupid article. He never responded. I get he's against a CFL merger with the XFL but at least write something that makes sense & gives good reason why the CFL can play with no fans in the stands & is viable long term. 

I love it. Would absolutely love to move on as a league without the organizations always holding us back. 

9 minutes ago, Noeller said:

I appreciate Hodge's positivity... It's needed at a time like this. Someone who actually cares about saving the traditions. 

It's not positivity when you know the story is daft from the start. If you believed in your mind thru positive thinking that if you stepped in front of a train going 100 kph that you wouldn't be hurt is that reality or stupidity?? That's all I get from his stories now. I want some actual hope not pie in the sky musings. I'm looking for something to grasp on to that makes sense. I'm desperate for some good news that the 3 down game remains. 

7 minutes ago, Noeller said:

I love it. Would absolutely love to move on as a league without the organizations always holding us back. 

We'd have no TV money to even cover flights & hotels without those markets. It may not even be feasible to televise games. Smaller is not good. It' would be a death wish. I doubt TSN would be interested in televising any games. If they did, maybe a game a week. 

Edited April 18, 20214 yr by SpeedFlex27

a peek at the likely message from tomorrow's announcement: 

 

if the NFL, NBA, baseball, hockey, depended on ticket sales as much as the cfl, they would be in the same boat.

 

not the same situation at all.

but the general silence from the league is pretty bad.

Edited April 19, 20214 yr by Mark F

2 hours ago, Mark F said:

if the NFL, NBA, baseball, hockey, depended on ticket sales as much as the cfl, they would be in the same boat.

 

not the same situation at all.

but the general silence from the league is pretty bad.

Tomorrow....lots coming tomorrow.

Jeff Hamilton with a bit of a scoop. League aims to start no later than mid July with camps opening weeks before that. Determined to play 18 games even if they have to go into December... 

I know SF will likely harumph this and say "I'll believe it when I see it!!" but I desperately need some good news right now and I'm gonna cling to this hope of a 2021 CFL season... 

"Harumph, I'll believe it when I see it!!"  

They can play into December because the GC game will be in Hamilton & I doubt they'll be facing minus 30 temperatures like they would in Regina. Teams will be lucky to get just one break if it's an 18 game schedule. I'd be happy with 12-14. 

I would be happy with one single game at this point

I'd take a 8 game season, games starting in August, TC in July.

Edited April 21, 20214 yr by rebusrankin

A 9-12 game season if July is the projected start time seems reasonable, IMO.

I just want CFL and some title defense Blue Bomber action!

Ottawa beat reporter....