For those of us who can remember, (and I wouldn't have had I not done a report with them in it) the Balitimore Stallions were a reasonably successful CFL team and were the only US team to win the Grey Cup. Now even though the CFL has gained many US fans with the "failed" expansion the Stallions may have had a fighting chance in Baltimore. There would have been that period with no football in the city with the Colts leaving and it have been able lead to another "successful" branching out to the States. The only reason they left was that they didn't want to be the odd man out after all the other American teams packed up and left. Now I know that people will say that the game should be kept Canadian. Which I agree with somewhat but to really keep the game truly Canadian there would only be about 5 imports or less allowed per team and there's only so far you can go in Canada with only 1-3 major cities per province. Montreal fans would also argue that they wouldn't have a team. But if the expansion and publicity could generate enough revenue then we could have a team there anyway and we'd have more teams accross Canada and the US. It's a pipe dream but it just fell into my head and decided to let it out. And I think this is probably my longest post yet.
Actually, the main reason the Stallions left Baltimore is because the Cleveland Browns moved in ... Speros (the owner) tried to find a way to stay, but it could be made to work (from my understanding) and they moved to Montreal.
It would have been interesting to see how well the Stallions and the Ravens would have co-existed ...
A lot of people looked at the American expansion as awful and the worst thing the CFL could have ever done, and now we to live with that US team name on the Grey Cup forever as the consequence. Really takes the C out of CFL for some if not a lot of Canadian CFL fans, I don't see US expansion working out any time soon.
I wonder how americans would feel if a Canadian team ever won the Super Bowl. And you know, hockey is Canadian. Should we be disgusted that american teams have won the Stanley cup?
Another problem is with imports, can't we not inforce the import rule in the US
The USA labour laws forbid the Canadian ratio. The USA have more talented players. The USA have money.
They could write USA on the Grey Cup year after year if we'd let them.
I oppose the motion. Let thee CFL stay where it belongs.
I didn't say I wanted the CFL to go back to the States (Hell no! - sorry to US Cfl fans). I was just wondering what the league would've been like if the Stallion had stayed in Baltimore.
LOTS of cups for them, LOTS less parity and LOTS less fans as a result
Speros wanted to stay in Baltimore but when the Ravens (Browns) came to town it seemed that the Stallions lease didn't matter anymore. Yes Speros and his team had primary rights to the stadium but once the NFL decided to come back to Baltimore it was over.
Even though Speros had the primary rights to schedule games at Memorial Stadium the city and state were going to fight him in court and he would have run out of money so he moved to Montreal. It was a shame actually since he brought a great product to the states and alot of excitment for the Canadian brand of football (which I still favor to the NFL and I'm from Baltimore).
Oh by the way, the press also virtually abandoned Speros once it was confirmed the NFL was coming back. What made it worse was they announced it during the CFL playoffs when they could have waited until after the game. It cost Speros some attendance which is a shame. I also don't think Baltimore would have supported both teams without decent media coverage and with the CFL and the NFL in town the CFL would be lucky to get their schedules / standings in the paper.
Well it worked out great for Montreal
I'm glad that it did for Montreal. A few weeks back our cable company started showing CFL games again. So for the last 3 weeks it's been a real blast getting to watch some CFL football. The last 2 weeks I saw the Tiger-Cats lose a couple more. They're showing the CBC game of the week. I just hope that don't stop once the playoffs start. I'd love to see the entire season through the playoffs.
And we have hockey again to boot. Well something that resembles hockey (I hate the shootout).