Current CBA language limits rookies to contracts at minimum salary

CFL Talk
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I just read the Argos deal with TJ Jones is on hold because of the language in the CBA limiting rookies to 3 year contract at a minimum salary.
Firstly congrats on the league for amending the language as it should not apply to Canadians with NFL experience. Let’s hope the Players Union agrees with the Amendment forthwith for oblivious reasons.
Secondly, why in hell would the union agree to a rookie being held to the minimum salary for 3 years??!
XFL becomes the easy choice, 10 games for more money.
I can understand one year but three?

Lastly I am taking time to Navigate the new forum and as an olg geezer believe in “ if it ain’t broke,,,,,”
My rant for the day

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The NHL has three year entry level contracts for rookies.

The CFL operates its business like the NHL (probably sometimes to its detriment) so I imagine the NHL was the source for this inspiration.

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Yea. TJ Jones is by far not a pro football rookie. He may be playing his first cfl season.
So can get the wording right. Lol.
Veteran first year CFL player. That sounds about right. Lol

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Glad this is being looked into and hopefully the PA signs off quickly.

Did the previous CBA call Nationals with no CFL rookies too?

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Thanks for all the replies.
Interesting comment by one of the individuals running for the PA where he stated the cfl can’t simply hope the xfl fails.
I get the new CBA had made progress for the players in areas ( medical and new classification of American players 3 or more years) but the salary cap increase of only 50k per year is woefully inadequate.
Yes the minimum has gone up but that doesn’t mean much If the cap isn’t increased enough.
The tread for one year contracts speaks volumes.

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With the league increasing the minimum to 65K tells me they're not expecting the XFL to fail. It was done before the AAF died. At the same time, the all parties have to be conscious of the economic realities too.

Revenues have been stagnant and it does cost money to improve the medical so there's only so much blood that can come out of the stone.

Best case is for Halifax to come on-line and there will more jobs to go around and less of the middle tier scale and veterans without contracts.

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Interesting dilemma indeed. Let’s do the math. If you only have three rookies that got 50k last year, they now get 65k. The cap hit is 45k. So the increase in cap of 50k leaves only 5 k for additional salaries lol.
More rookies and the vets take a hit.
I understand about revenues etc but if you can’t pay the talent and you have to settle for players who not only can’t make the nfl but xfl and maybe arena league, the fans will be less inclined to buy tickets.
No doubt it’s a balancing act but at this juncture with attendance down, I would remind the cfl at some point you have to spend money to make money.
Again my humble opinion is the increase of 50k to the cap is a long term detriment to the league.
I hope I’m wrong.

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I'm hoping this dilemma is a one off. I believe the minimum salary with remain at 65K in 2021 with the cap going up by another 50K. It could go up more since players are to get 20% of new media revenue added to the cap.

Also, even if the XFL does survive there won't be 8 new teams (9 including their practice roster team) being created next year with a demand on jobs...XFL's cap is about the same as the CFL.

Hopefully it's one big perfect storm

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It's just common sense. That was not thought out at all when Cba was approved.
There are several cases in the recent years where Canadian Nationals started in the NFL and when they ran out of NFL options like most NFL young players do. They have been able to return to play for Canada as veterans not rookies.
Tyler Holmes, David Fourcalt, Brett Boyko, Sam Giguere,......
That's just off the top of my head

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Hopefully discussion is not dead, and its just wording issues, but surprised initially with CFLPA.

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No surprise the PA rejects it.

It would really benefit Canadians who are NFL that haven't played in the CFL yet. In other words, non-union members.

Hopefully it's just wording the two sides can get around

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Hopefully this gets worked out.
NFL looking at expanding rosters, who knows how long the XFL will be around, or when the next US league pops up. Turning away pro players that are experienced due to rookie contracts seems counter productive.
I get if you don't want to recognize XFL experience until it manages to be around for a few years, but a player that was an active player for a few years from the NFL, canadian or american should not have to come in on entry level.

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It’s absolutely ridiculous. Hard to believe nobody saw this potential problem when the agreement was written up.

If this doesn’t get resolved there won’t be very many Canadians coming back to the CFL from the NFL in the same situation.

In a league that can use as many quality Canadians as it can get to help market the league here at home I’d suggest they figure this out.

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Who would then come union members … I expect the CFLPA is trying to leverage this to get some other concession.

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Listening to sport radio show in Sask yesterday, comments were that they wished the CFL and CFLPA would just sit down and figure it out instead of leasing statements through social media. Sounds like both want to fix it, but instead of spending a couple of hours across from each other to get it done and do a joint release that the issue has been fixed, they both go straight to social media looking for princess points.

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Half correct: The league office does not negotiate through social media; we’ve not released a single statement on social media or via any other media for that matter on this topic.

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I always thought a player with NFL exp. was no longer a rookie in CFL.

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I think that’s been true for quite a while now regarding rookie of the year eligibility, but apparently that wasn’t spelled out correctly in reference to these contracts.

I’m 90% confident they’ll get it worked out, but we’ll see.