NFL vs. CFL

There has been a thought rattling around my head lately when I talk to people that are fans of the Canadian Football League. I wonder why people in my generation don’t have the same relationship with the CFL as they do with the NFL. The person that I can use as the most readily available is my own father. My father has an almost romantic relationship with the Argonauts that I could never imagine having, and am quite honestly kind of jealous of. There is something about the talent in the CFL that leaves a lot to be desired. The rules seem to benefit players of a higher skill level as well. Three downs is a more demanding brand of football to play. It puts more emphasis on the passing game. Which with less quality players it is harder to execute plays to the most impressive degree. Another thing that throws me off about the CFL is that it is hard to establish a connection with a player when he could be go to another league to get a bigger pay cheque. When I talk to people that are around the same age as me there is not the same interest in the CFL as there is in the NFL. Part of the reasoning behind this has to do with exposure. It is of my opinion that our televisions now show more NFL than they have ever shown. While the CFL is on television four days a week it is only on one channel. The NFL is basically inescapable on Sunday.  I cannot envision a Sunday where I turn on the television and am not inundated with NFL broadcasts. Not only is the NFL inescapable on Sunday’s it is a 24/7, 365 living and breathing machine.

            My father has given me my limited exposure to the CFL. If not for my father’s influence I doubt that I would have any interest in the game. I am in passing a Toronto Argonauts fan, but not a diehard by any means. I don’t want to cast aspersions in saying that CFL fans are old. Because I am sure there are young fans of the CFL, but most of the people that I talk to around my age have little to no interest in the CFL. Other than the Grey Cup many people do not seem to be week to week fans of the CFL. But if you were to ask them about the week to week of the NFL they could tell you a lot more than they could about the CFL.

            The CFL also seems to be a sport that is more popular in markets that do not have any many options for professional sports teams. The CFL is obviously most popular and vibrant in Saskatchewan where it is the only professional game in town. Because of this love of the game the Roughriders are everybody’s second favourite Canadian Football League team. And if they are not obviously you hate fandom. Just kidding obviously, if you are a fan of one of the other prairie teams you probably don’t have much love for the Roughriders. It isn’t just communities that only have a CFL teams. The Stampeders and Eskimos are also very popular because other than their NHL teams they are the only show in town. During the summer the NHL is in its off season so it is truly the only thing going on in the professional sports world.

            Another factor is the rules of the CFL seem to benefit a higher skill set. This proves to be a more difficult factor to prove. Three down football is harder to execute because it requires much higher accuracy in passing. It just seems to me that the CFL hardly has any time to get a drive going before it is over. Two downs, punt and repeat seems to be the most common procedure. It is a more difficult game to grasp because of the lack of sustained drives. Even if a drive stalls out they can still score which is an interesting component of the Canadian game.

            It is hard to maintain a connection with many of the players in the CFL when many of the players would give anything to even be on the practice squad of an NFL team. It increases their income dramatically and puts them in a better position to be used in the NFL at some point. Many fringe players in the CFL would probably make more money in the arena league than they would in the CFL. Their prospects of making the NFL probably diminish though because it is such a different game than the NFL. At least the CFL emulates the NFL game to a respectable degree. I think this is why guys like Damon Allen and Anthony Calvillo are so respected. These are players who are legends in the CFL that didn’t give up everything to be a 3^rd string QB in the NFL like Ricky Ray did. Ricky Ray, one of the best Canadian Football quarterbacks in a long time couldn’t stick around in the NFL for very long.

Whatever the reasoning is, I think the CFL needs to examine why it is that they seem to be losing fans. They must focus on gaining new fans because they cannot rely on their current fan base being around forever. Ultimately I believe they are hurt by the fact that they are on only one channel. Their deal with TSN makes them only accessible if you have cable television, especially if they are playing on TSN2 which isn’t on many basic cable packages. It is a crisis I am sure they are aware of. I don’t want to see the CFL slip any further than it already has but I am sure it will always have a place in the hearts of many Canadians, at least in the markets that seem to embrace it the most.