Expand the Salary Cap

So losing Rourke to the NFL is going to maybe motivate the league to raise the salary cap, right? $5.8 million is lower than MLS, it’s not remotely enough to keep talent here. Canada has billionaires too, several of em even. Are they actually committed to growing the sport? Or just content to sit on their rapidly wilting laurels?

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Cfl fans dont sell out games at most ztadiums other than a few, and a significant cap increase would force ticket prices beyond the affordability of most fans

The NFL has billion dollar tv revenues that contribute significantly to the NFL cap ..... the CFL will never have such riches

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And so, again as we have written about in many other threads including the Streaming thread, get a better media deal for the US and outside of Canada than at hand now woefully for years!

Of course within Canada via TSN is its own debate, and now that more people are streaming they should pay more for those rights too.

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All good sentiments but unfortunately wishful thinking I believe.

Canada has billionaires but they don’t seem to be interested in owning an already money losing franchise. And there are three community owned teams that mostly make money, a la the Packers, that this wouldn’t apply to.

The salary cap won’t move significantly until the current TV contract that runs I believe until 2026 is up for renewal. Even if they double the current contract the CFL has no hope of competing financially with the NFL and Rourke wouldn’t have stayed under any circumstances if he had a legitimate NFL opportunity. And why should he?

The CFL doesn’t compete with the NFL and never will. They need to worry about the spring leagues assuming they stick around. They are the direct competition.

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Yeah and there is a reason
They don’t throw their money away

Meaningless with different amounts of games played

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First, they have to do their utmost to raise revenues. Then, they can increase the cap (more than it's currently scheduled to increase over the term of the CBA, anyways).

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Unfortunately there is no realistic way the CFL's economics can compete with the NFL much like the Swedish Elite League doesn't compare with the NHL so Sweden's best hockey players don't play at home if they have the opportunity.

What I hope today's story can do is inspire more young Canadians to play football and see the CFL as a means to get to the top level. Also knowing they can play here should their NFL days end.

The current CBA counts years playing in the NFL as experience here so they don't have to play 3 years at the league minimum meaning the best Canadians outside of the NFL will play here

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The CFL is really miasing the train on this

My adult sons dont have cable … they use streaming and free apps like pluto and ruko.

They pay for NHL.streaming to watch their cancuks but wo t pay for the cfl needed sub
We are also looking to drop.optik tv as its just cfl.and nhl games we use it for. Everything else we get on netflix/disney/amazon prime and the free pluto gives my wife the game shows she wanted …

The CFL should have a streaming package that provides

$75 gives you one team all games
$100 gives you all team games

$35 playoff package for all play offs

Or $125 before season all.access and playoffs

Id sign up for team and playoffs in a heartbeat

That way i could get live stream canucks and riders for $200 a year which is way cheaper.than the optik 2 sportz channel package you need now

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Billionaires become and stay billionaires by investing their money where it will get the best return, not by propping up poorly run businesses that are proven money losers.

If someone dropped such a fortune on me, I’d work to grow it, not blow it.

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Don’t think it’s even that much right now. We’ll have to wait to get it up that high

This is a wonderful league and it must be allowed to flourish. Not to be just a major market league. If anything I could say is that the CFL desperately needs great marketers Build a structured sound plan and the players and money will follow. The CFL does not compete with the NFL. It has a place for expanding. Expand television coverage into Mexico, into Europe, worldwide if possible. Hold camps year round in pursuit of capable talent. You think there is a 305 6'5" offensive tackle in Poland who can be developed... There are players more than ample to have twelve CFL teams competing at a quality level. Stadiums than can be built cheaply and quickly holding 30,000 plus from Halifax to Vancouver and new programming contracts to be secured. Just saying what I believe is possible.

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I don't think the CFL can, or should, compete directly with the NFL. The best case scenario is an amicable relationship between the two codes and their associated leagues. The NFL, for what it's worth, doesn't see the CFL as competition and under Goodell has pretty clearly said that Canada is CFL territory. Even my American expansion plan is not designed with competition in mind, but a symbiotic relationship.

Cap expansion is about paying players what they're worth before anything else.

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I believe what you’re suggesting is already close to what TSN offers… $19.99/mo with no commitment… so the 5 month CFL season would cost $99.95 plus tax… plus you’d have access to all other TSN programming. If you only want the playoffs and Grey Cup you’d only need to pay for the month of November. Commiting to a full year, the price is $199 plus tax. They used to offer a day pass for $4.99 but I’m not sure it’s still an option.

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Gets back to Larry T and MLSE and them not being happy with the status quo of the league. Those with the money see a path forward but there are deal killers in place that keep them from going that direction.

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Not sure salary cap increase makes a difference.

A cfl watcher in the UK on a sports channel that you pay for. It has the US college games also.
It is on here and Ireland. Evening times means virtually impossible to watch it.

Nfl is king of the north american sports here by miles. Never met another cfl follower in UK but i do try convert the nfl followers. The summer when cfl is on is the window while nfl isnt.

My best guess from here for growth to increase salary cap down the line but not now, i think… (though easier typed than done).

More afternoon weekend games nfl times, to give the kids over there opportunity to go, im assuming thursday evenings isnt kid friendly. The nfl k/o times seem kid friendly
Bigger attendences increases turnover. Not sure on ticket prices being high or not. Better attendences look better for tv.

Trying to grow the next gen long term, free saturday football in the community with relevant franchises, places where they arent going to afford the ticket prices.

A 10th team team adds a 5th fixture every week and increases money from tsn.

Staying different from the nfl, rouges, 3 downs, 12 players, bigger pitch, stay different, i think getting closer to nfl brings ruin. Though i would award a point for fg that hits the post.

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The salary cap is in place because teams were over spending :moneybag: money they did not have. Then get equalisation came into play… Toronto among other teams was taking money from the riders to give to players who the riders could not pay as the riders were abiding by the rules. I care not do much about the above but the biggest thing is the CFL cannot pay the money they are paying players now and people think billionaires are for some reason withholding money that could save the CFL…
Billionaire only back stuff that will make them money not make them lose money… The NFL has a limit to what money paid out stops being smart investments … they have not yet hit that level. The CFL on the other hand… Well a league thst hangs by a hair and perpetually on the verge and cannot find any investors to bring in a 10th team while 2 or three or more other teams are constantly on the verge of packing it in … Well the fans really need stop fooling themselves by blaming the rich investors for not propping the CFL up… They would be tripping over them selves to get here if it was a cash cow.
We just need to enjoy our game and stop fooling ourselves it is among the head table when the big boys have a meal

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I have always wondered why BTSport broadcasts so many CFL games live when there is not much of an audience and games start after midnight local time.

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Bt sport and sky sports the other one have more channels than sports exist.
They probably dont pay much for cfl and other sports. There is probably a fair few sports with low watching numbers and some probably even less. Bt sport is quite cheap, they have soccer (hard for me to type :slight_smile: ) which probably pays for the others.
I record it if its live and watch as much as i can.
Nfl got so far ahead as an n american sport due to channel4 in the 80's when we only had 4 channels.

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On a couple of other threads Paulo_X has talked about the other alt football league and at some point when the bleeding gets to be too great the owner will pull the plug. NFLE - the NFL was a single owner and the NFL pulled the plug. 2000 the XFL 1.0 Vince was a Billionaire him and NBC pulled the plug. AAF in 2019 the plug got pulled - XFL 2.0 in 2020 once again Vince pulled the plug. Paulo_X is predicting that the USLF will have the plug pulled in two or three years by Fox which is the owner which is a multinational news broadcast entity. XFL is owned by Redbird Capital is probably heading in that direction.

To me the structural financial differences between the CFL and other non NFL leagues is that the CFL has 3 teams that are owned by the community Elks, Riders and Bombers that can’t fold due to the nature of the social contract between the team and fans. The other six teams are in various states of losing money and having a revolving door of owners take turns losing money to keep the teams afloat. And for the most part those owners buy the teams out of loyalty to Canada and patriotism they don’t buy a CFL franchise to make money.

From a financial standpoint I would bet that the losses from the XFL this year the USFL and CFL will all be in about the same neighborhood. The inherent structural advantage that goes to the CFL is the 3 publicly owned teams which can’t fold and the ability of the CFL to spread the losses to 6 teams, which keeps the losses from showing up on one balance sheet.

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Magic bookkeeping does keep shite floating. The CFL is in trouble and if the league and the fans don’t see that it will sink

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