Thanks to all of the fans who submitted questions for Commissioner Mark Cohon. We received quite a few questions and will be posting the Commissioner’s answers over the course of the next several days. Please check back to CFL.ca to see the answer to your question.
Here are the next 10 questions and answers:
Please Note: No new questions will be answered after this point, so please save them for our next Q and A with the Commissioner.
1. I think it’s about time that the Maritime Provinces get represented in the Canadian Football League as well as northern and western Canadian cities. It seems like the officials of the CFL keep dragging their feet in expanding the league and particularly into Canada. I believe rivalries would develop almost automatically if you put teams in cities like Halifax, Sarnia, Quebec City, Whitehorse, Victoria and Saskatoon? (Just to name some) – Is there some agreement with the NFL to not compete with them? I think the CFL is solid and stable enough to move to a greater level. I also believe new American teams would be great, perhaps a team in Alaska, so long as they followed Canadian rules.
Our expansion policy has nothing to do with the NFL. It has everything to do with a strong CFL. We will only expand into markets with strong, committed ownership and appropriate stadiums. That’s exactly what we’re doing in Ottawa, where we have tremendous prospective owners in place, and they’re working towards a refurbished Frank Clair Stadium.
2. Mr. Cohon, I would like a straight answer as to why the Eskimos have had so many Thursday night games. Is it the Eskimos organization? TSN? The League? There is definitely an uneven number that our team is playing, when compared to some teams in the league that do not have one this season…while the Esks are playing five? How exactly is the schedule so lop sided?
I wish I could give you a simple answer, but there is nothing simple about scheduling. It’s a Rubik’s Cube. A lot goes into it, including availability of venues, broadcast schedules, and team and fan preferences. Some teams need to accommodate concert schedules in multi-use stadiums. Others, such as the Als playing at McGill Stadium, only have access to their stadium on certain days of the week, at least once the school year begins. Football coaches also stress to us the importance of a full week, if possible, to let injuries heal and game preparations take place. Some fans prefer to have their weekends free to visit, say, their cottages. Others want weekend dates. All of these factors went into the Eskimos schedule. But fans’ preferences are an important part of the process, so please keep sharing your feedback with us and the Eskimos.
3. 1) Is the league looking to expand again? We keep hearing the rumor of a Maritimes team, but still nothing happens. 2) I would like to see the schedule allow for a set of games between the Grey Cup champs and the NFL champs. My proposal is a 2 game series. One game in the NFL stadium with NFL rules, and the second game in the CFL stadium with CFL rules. It is like a round robin with most points for/against winning. It would draw some major support up here to see an NFL team play with different rules.
We’re working on expansion to Ottawa, or a return to the national capital, if you will. We’re also exploring the possibility of a regular season game in Moncton, which could give us a foothold in Atlantic Canada. As for your idea of a series between our Grey Cup champs and the Super Bowl champs, that’s not in the works right now. NFL and CFL teams did play each other in the past, but it seems that was a different era.
4. Hello, can you tell why the CFL lets some players go to NFL for tryouts and then when the don’t make the team they are allowed to come back to the CFL. I feel there should be a one year wait if you want to come back to CFL. What do you think? Also I am from the states and love the game better the NFL.
Thanks for the positive comments about our league. I think our teams welcome back players they believe will make their teams better. It’s as simple as that. We could legislate some sort of waiting period, as you suggest, but we would face some angry General Managers, who want access to as many good football players as possible, and perhaps some angry fans as well.
5. With the great success of the Labour Day weekend games in such CFL markets like Regina, Calgary and Hamilton, does you league see a similar tradition being built into the Thanksgiving long weekend by having those same rivalry games hosted in the opposing cities like Winnipeg, Edmonton and Toronto?
It’s an intriguing idea, one we’ll look at with our teams. So far, they have found home and home series really stoke a rivalry. That’s why the Tiger-Cats play in Toronto, the Stamps play in Edmonton and the Riders –play in Winnipeg, the week after they play each other on Labour Day Weekend. Still, our league has strived to make Thanksgiving weekend special. This year’s games on Thanksgiving Monday feature a Grey Cup rematch, with the Stamps visiting Montreal in what should be a great game, and the Bombers visiting Hamilton in a game that could have huge playoff implications. But you’re right about Labour Day: it’s a tradition all its own.
6. There has been a marked improvement in broadcast options this season, compared to the failed experiment with espn360. Those broadcasts were just awful. What can you do with stations that don’t broadcast the entire game, if anything? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. I’m glad you see an improvement. It’s always a balancing act, trying to ensure more of our U.S. fans can see more of our games, while ensuring deals with U.S. cable companies are fair to our league. We certainly urge them to show entire games and will continue to do so.
7. Thank you Commissioner. It is great to finally have someone in charge who gets it! For so many years our league just kind of existed but now it seems to be moving forward with a purpose. I feel a lot of this is due to your leadership. I think I speak for all CFL fans when I say thank you for all you have done!
Thanks for being a fan! There is still a lot of work to be done, but I’m proud that our league is working well, and that we in the league are working together. A lot of the credit for that goes to our Board of Governors. One of those governors, Tiger-Cat owner Bob Young, refers to himself as Caretaker instead of owner because he says the team really belongs to the fans. We’re all conscious of the fact that this league really belongs to all of us who love it, and to fans most of all.
8. What’s the situation with Buffalo?
If you’re asking about the Bills series in Toronto, we’ve said we want the Bills to succeed in Buffalo, and we support this series if it helps them achieve that goal, but we do not want to see the series expanded, nor do we want the Bills to leave Buffalo for Canada. We want the Bills to thrive in Buffalo and the CFL to thrive here in Canada.
9. If the CFL is truly going to reflect its self as totally Canadian it must have teams in Ottawa and the east coast. But not just awarded for the sake of having a team there (Glieberman’s, etc….) Deep pockets don’t make good owners. You have the right group in Ottawa now, Ottawa fans supported their team good or bad, ownership killed the team. When excepting or reflecting on ownership of any new team look not just to the new owner but who their support team is, and they will show the true prospect if the team will survive or not.
I agree that we need owners that have a deep perso
nal commitment to a team as well as considerable financial resources. I also agree that the group of prospective owners in Ottawa is the right group to make football really succeed again in the national capital. And I absolutely agree that the fans in Ottawa are great fans. We owe it to them to get this right this time.
10. Listen to your in house interview and wasn’t that impressed. Know I strongly support you as the Commish, you have brought to your office a passion I haven’t seen and felt in a very long time. But lets get real, CFL permanently in Moncton …. yes they are finishing an open air field for track and field 10,000 seats, a team needs 25,000 to 30,000 seats and more then a 150,000 population base to be realistic you can only bus in so many fans. I strongly believe the CFL needs a team on the east coast and yes a game played anywhere there will sell out like it had in the past but to have a team draw game in and game out it needs a strong population base and only three cities in the Maritimes have that and each of those cities need to build a stadium and not just convert a poor designed open air track and field staduim (use of the word stadium use lightly) just to say there is a team there. Don’t rush the CFL will be around for a long time to come …. and the maritime CFL fans will wait a little while longer for the right situation to be part of the CFL. Will you support and wait for the right group and stadium deal for a team in the far east?
(Not impressed by my interview? Mom, is that you?) Kidding aside… Just to be clear, no one at this point is talking about a permanent team in Moncton. We’re talking about a series of regular season games in Moncton. For expansion to work anywhere in Atlantic Canada, or anywhere else in Canada, there has to be committed, well resourced owners, and a proper, permanent stadium. You and I are on the same page when it comes to not rushing into expansion for the sake of it. Our league is to too precious to Canadians to do anything that weakens it, and expansion has to be done properly, if done at all.
