Another Crazy Idea

OK ... I have another crazy idea...

I've been reading some of the posts by folks like barnes7 about needing a minor league for Canadian Football. Not to imply that what's already been suggested isn't the best approach (it sounds pretty good to me), but it has made me think of an unorthodox suggestion I've considered before.

Back when the CFL was expanding in the US, I thought a bit about maybe expanding to Mexico City (to sort of preemt the NFL which had been staging a lot of exhibition games there). (With such a high altitude, MC temperatures are actually reasonable in the summer.) This idea makes less sense now than it did then.

I also considered the idea of a 4 team minor league in Mexico to play during the CFL offseason. Maybe I'm nuts, but this still seems like something worth considering:

You could set up a 'CFL Mexico' or 'Mexican League of Canadian Football' of 4 teams in the 4 largest cities in Mexico.

Mexico City (metro pop. 19.23 million)
Guadalajara (metro pop. 4.10 million)
Monterrey (metro pop. 3.66 million)
Puebla (metro pop. 2.11 million)

These cities are all reasonably close to one another, so travel costs should be low. (The NFL has staged 'American Bowl' pre-season games in Mexico City and Monterrey as well as the 2005 regular season game in Mexico City -- all to huge capacity packed stadiums.)

You could sort of treat this like NFL Europa with developmental players assigned by teams as well as recruiting some local talent. Each Mexican team could be paired with two CFL franchises for player development.

Wait a month after the Grey Cup to start the season in late December or early January and play an eight game season (3 games each against two teams and 2 games against the other one) followed by a championship game in early March (#2 at #1).

This way it'll still be 'football' season (American/NFL) for a good portion of the schedule and any excitement about the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl may help generate fan interest in these teams.

If successful, you may generate enough interest to get a Mexican TV contract for the CFL regular season as well as create a means to enhance the Canadian Football talent pool.

The CFL could stage an exhibition game in Mexico City to gauge interest. They could either play it in the pre-season or maybe have the two Grey Cup non-contestants (i.e. the East and West champ losers) play an exhibition game (sort of for third place) in November.

What about holding a regular season game in conjuction with the NFL game played outside of the US? Ok, so the field would probably be an American sized field although maybe they could make it a bit wider, but that might be cool, people get a two for one type of deal where the games are played.

this may come as a shock to you GeoffC90 .. But you can rest assured 99.9% of mexico has never even heard of the CFL. You might as well play these exhibition games in Africa - its just as ridiculous.

StatiK76
Vaya Bombarderos Azules!!!

Have to agree with Statik there, the CFL on it's own playing in Mexico for example, well, they probably think we would be playing with hockey sticks or something.

Not a shock at all considering I knew next to nothing about the CFL before the mid-90’s US expansion. We Baltimore fans warmed up to the CFL game enough – Mexican fans of American football should be as open-minded as their American counterparts (and perhaps more so). A CFL exhibition game would go a long way towards gaging Mexican receptiveness to the CFL game.

Travel Cost are too high for it to work

For what? To get the players to their teams? (It should be low cost to travel between these 4 cities which are all within a day’s drive of one another – the longest drive is Monterrey-to-Puebla (which is less than 11 hours).)

Or are you talking about the exhibition game suggestion?

Hamilton at Mexico City would be huge cost$$$

Come back next week Statik, we’ll have another goofy expansion thread. :roll: :roll: Lets see, how about Alaska, that one hasn’t been kicked around in a few weeks. :roll: :roll: I know, expansion to Brazil. Loonie Glieberman can hold a CFL game inconjunction with Mardi Gras! :roll:

This isn’t what I’m suggesting. Please take a closer look at the first post.

All we're saying Geoff is that while we appreciate that you think the CFL with a game in Mexico could work, we really do, we just don't think it will work. We love the CFL but it has hard a hard enough time with, for example, the Ottawa franchise alone. It's not like the admin office in the CFL has what the NFL has where they can assign a guy for this project or that project etc. We just don't have that manpower at this time, it's a small league that doesn't have the resources of the NFL. But as I say, we do appreciate you thinking enough of our game to think it would work, nice. :thup:

yeah, I gotta second what Earl's saying. And unfortunately I also have to second what Statik's saying (and I try to do that as rarely as possible!). I'm betting that most people in Mexico have heard of the NFL, but that the only ones who have heard of the CFL are those vacationing from Canada. And I doubt that the CFL has the resources to hype the game enough so that Mexicans would be willing to check it out - even for a CFL exhibition game, let alone a farm-league game. Also, the cost of staging an exhibition game down there would be prohibitive. But it would be neat if Mexicans saw that this was CANADIAN football, thought to themselves "screw the American NFL!", and hence went to the game :smiley:

I want CFL2 in Canada, 6 team minor league. all that's needed is the 75M for 5 Stadiums(of 15K+ seats and 14+ Boxes) all teams in Southern Quebec/Southern Ontario.

5 way split on Stadium building costs would cost CFL teams I think it was slightly over 1.8M(so 650K over 3 years)

Add in plans for all 5 Stadiums to be able to be expanded to 25 or 30K(like how Montreals Stadium had a 3 phase expansion plan these Stadiums would have a built in perminant expansion plan to get from CFL2 to CFL size)

Sharing all non-player expenses with the local CIS team.(shared Coaches, Training Staff, Refs, Stadium, Concessions)

all Stadiums should be able to sell their Naming rights for over 140K a year(going by OHL Naming rights sold in Sault Ste. Marie)

the biggest thing would be if local Businesses would support the teams by giving things like some Advertising and sponsorship(just 1/4 of what the bombers get yearly)

All these teams(with 16K Seats) at 88% capacity
would gain: 2.1M in Ticket Revenue(for 6 regular Season games 25$ ticket average, Luxury boxes not counted)
Teams could earn big bucks off well Beer.

say there are 9K beer drinkers at each game having an average of 2 beers each at 5$
a deal with a beer company like Steelback to give them exlusive Rights nets each team 100-200K$
after that Steelback gets 60% of beer Sales revenue.
so a team would get 9K * 2 * 2 * 6 = 216K + 150K for the rights.
366K from Beer for all teams.
Expect Parking to pay for Cheerleaders(5K a game)
Concessions to pay for Game Day Staff + refs.

Player Costs to be: 950K-1.1M Salaries
40K Travel(bus + Lunch for games within 4 Hours of home city, Bus + 3 meals and a overnight hotel for games outside that Zone)
Free housing during the season(38K)
Player costs: 1.2M Max(per year in first 2 years)

Beers 366K Revenue covers Coaches, Trainers some advertising.

2.1M - 1.2M players costs = 900K Revenue left.

that 900K profit would be boosted by any Media/TV deal(Local Radio or perhaps Sportnets, the score)(a Deal of around 3M a year from the Sportsnet, the Score or TSN that may be high but it is alot less then TSN's yearly 15M deal or even the previous 5 year deal of 9M a year it's 1/3 of that)
the TV deal for a league like this should be: 50% as much considering Quality of the game is going to be lower, 50% lower again due to half as many games(6 teams 12 game schedual, 36 games total) So that's 25%, compared to TSN's 2008 deal that puts the deal at around: 3.75M a year.
Looking for a 4 year 16M deal(structured Back 3.5-3.5-4-5)

That makes the 900K per team profit(at 88% capacity without Boxes, sponsorship) into 1.4M

all Considered that's pretty good. CFL2 would keep/second year profits and then pay 50% to the CFL until each CFL team receives 2M(4 years should do)
after that the leagues would work together to build up football in canada.

There is a second option of where money to start up this league could come from and that would be from Expansion teams(Halifax/Ottawa) If each has to give say 10M Franchise fee(and 5M Deposit)
that 20M in Franchise Fees would Cover the CFL's part in Stadium Construction(hopefully team Start up too)
Get some Promises from those CFL2 cities to do a similar thing(2M Franchise Fee and 1M Deposit) to basicly Start the league.

barnes7 -- I like your CFL2 suggestion. (Clearly, you've put some time and thought into this in order to come up with those numbers.)

My idea would complement a Canadian-based minor league. The rosters for 'CFL Mexico' teams would be stocked with 'developmental' players that are from CFL2 teams or from regular CFL rosters. Those from CFL rosters would need to meet a certain criteria in order to be considered 'developmental' (not sure what the criteria would be ... perhaps require that they've played in 36 games or less or something like that). You could permit a small veteran presence on each team (capped at, say, 4 players per team (no QBs)) for leadership (and marketing -- so teams can feature some CFL 'stars'). In order to generate local interest (and develop more talent), rosters should be required to have some percentage (perhaps 10 to 15%) of players that are Mexican nationals.

Coaching staffs should be comprised of CFL assistants and CFL2 coaches looking to gain more experience or even older players considering coaching after their playing career. Obviously, you'd need to have some bilingual staff as well.

I realize this is highly unlikely -- and the biggest reason being that the league just doesn't have the resources (money and manpower) to get the thing started. At least stadiums and field size would not be an issue.

As for local fans being unaware of the CFL -- that is part of the point -- you want to look for new markets to grow interest in the CFL and the Canadian brand of football. There is definitely an interest in American football there, and the Canadian game, despite the differences, is really very similar. Taking advantage of the disparity in the timeframe for the CFL and NFL seasons, you can have CFL-level talent available to play in Mexico while the NFL season and playoffs are still going. This gives the CFL a chance to introduce the Canadian brand of football during the season in which fan interest in American football should be at its peak. Let the Mexican fans and media debate the differences between the American rules and Canadian rules. Some fans will decide they like one more than the other while others will appreciate both. The weather in these four Mexican cities during January and February would be perfect for football, day or night. [Jan/Feb average high and low temperatures for each city: M.C. - Hi 70-73 F (21-23 C), Lo 44-45 F (7 C); Puebla - Hi 71-73 F (22-23 C), Lo 44-46 F (7-8 C); Guad. - Hi 73-79 F (23-26 C), Lo 45-48 F (7-9 C); Mtry. - Hi 66-79 F (19-26 C), Lo 34-42 F (1-6 C).]

wow. some of you are true dreamers.

Why not just go out an support one of your local junior teams? or your local university team? or one of the local semi-pro leagues? (AFL/NFC) ...

Wouldn't this make more sense?

StatiK76
GO BOMBERS!!!

Great idea Statik, even though SFU was an embarrasment to watch, I took in 1 UBC game and a whole lot of Okanagan Sun games.

But the dreamers like to dream of exotic places to expand. :roll: Until the real season starts we'll be flooded with goofy expansion threads. sigh.