new playoff proposal for 2014

um, 8 *2 = 16. Unless you want each team to play themselves twice.

Again, your argument is the ‘nice pretty number’ argument. And on top of that, as arleady astutely pointed out, your math is wrong. For an 18 game schedule you need 9 OPPONENTS, not 9 teams. Not that I would be against going back to a 16 game schedule myself. And on top yet still, none of this makes a case for scrapping East vs West.

I am all for scrapping divisions not just in this league but in the NHL and MLB as well. With those two I would go to two 15 team conferences. With the CFL one 9 Team league. Scrap two games or rotate them I don't care. Top four make the playoffs, makes the regular season games much more important.

Yeah, my math is wrong because I was thinking of 10 teams with 18 games schedule… 9 teams… somehow, my subconscious creep in with a wrong math number. It was supposed to be 16 games. My bad.

Anyways, one poster mentioned 3 divisions idea. While I don’t like the odd number of teams within the division (5 and 4) or three divisions idea. I would not be opposed to some new idea with 3 divisions format but the playoff format would look funny. So here is my idea and suggestion to make regular season more meaningful and increased intensity with the 3 division format if there is some sort of modification in the playoffs format for the three-teams within three divisions.

Regular season scheduling matrix:

3 games against two divisional opponents for 6 games (2 home and 1 away, and 1 home and 2 away on yearly rotation basis)
2 games, home and away, against 6 non-divisional opponents for 12 games

Total regular season games: 18 games.

Playoffs format: I will write three suggestions for the playoff format.

Suggestion #1

Total playoffs team: 4 teams

Divisional winners automatic make the playoffs with one wild card spot.

First round: Top CFL team vs the lowest regular season record while second seeded team vs 3rd seeded. In theory, the wildcard team could be better than other divisional winners so therefore could be second seed however, I would not allow the wild-card team to host a home playoff game but be forced to play against the 2nd best divisional winner opponent, away.

You could use a single game elimination with this format or allow the two-game total point aggregate to maximum the revenue for the playoffs teams or the best of three format for the playoffs round.

Grey Cup game: semi-final winners.

Suggestion #2

Total playoff teams: 5 teams

Divisional winners automatic make the playoffs with two wild card spots. The divisional winners would get the bye in the first week of the playoffs while the wild-card teams facing off in the first round. The winner of the wild-card plays against top team in the league unless the wildcard team record is better than lowest Divisional champion record.

First round: 5th seeded (second wildcard) at 4th seeded (first wildcard)

Second Round: Wildcard winner at 1st seeded Best divisional champion / 3rd best divisional team at 2nd best Divisional champion.

However, I realize that the wildcard get the revenue with a home gate while the 3rd divisional winner won’t get to see a cent of their playoff revenue. It would not be fair for them. so I propose a slightly different playoff system: only top-seeded team get the bye in the first week of playoffs, giving the incentive to finish first overall in the league.

First round: single elimination game, wild-card game, the winner advances to second round, a single elimination game against the top-seeded Divisional team

Second round: single elimination game: wild-card team vs the top-seeded team.
Two games total points aggregate: 2nd best Divisional winner at 3rd best division winner for first game then the second game, the 3nd best Divisional winner at 2nd best Divisional winner.

Grey Cup Game: Semi-finals winners at neutral venue.

Suggestion #3

Total playoff teams: 6 teams

Divisional winners automatically make the playoffs with next three best wild-card teams

First round:
Top two Divisional winners get first round bye.
Third best divisional winner automatic host a playoff game regardless of their record against the lowest wildcard team.
The best wildcard team get its home game against next wild-card team.

Second round: best divisional winner against the lowest CFL record while 2nd seeded team against the better record. Even the 3rd Divisional winner with the worst record than the wildcard team must face the top seeded team.

Grey Cup: semi-final winners’

This is my playoff proposal for the three-divisions in the 9-team league.

The league under the current format is getting record TV numbers and has resulted in a great TV deal. New stadiums popping up. But lets change it because :roll: :roll: :roll: :cowboy: :cowboy: :cowboy: ??????? The league is built on tradition and disregarding that fact would be foolish and thankfully the league will continue with a EAST and WEST division. The cross over brings a bit of that different look at times which is great.

There's one thing that can't happen out of all of this.

lets say you get rid of the east west, so you have to take away the West and East Final and semi-finals. As an attendance thing I don't think it makes sense as you would be taking away the big rivalry games of the west and east. These games have gone back over top of all of the playoff formats that have come and gone, from the best of 3 days that went right into the 70's I believe, to now and before then even their has always been an eastern final and a western final and it would be a big deal to host one. Some teams go decades without hosting one even in just an 8 or 9 team league. I mean look at a Saskatchewan, 3 grey cups in their entire history, when they host a West Final you could easily had temporary seating for the Grey cup and sell out the Eastern Final in Saskatchewan without question. I think if Saskatchewan gets the Western Final this year they should most definitely sell out those Grey Cup stands for it.

Actually, maybe this should go on another subject, but doesn't Saskatchewan more than anyone deserve a 50,000 seat stadium? I mean I just don't see why they couldn't do what Vancouver does and sell it out sometimes and keep 30,000+ most of the time. But I guess its the Montreal factor of keeping a soldout crowd around for a hot ticket and maybe one day they will. Oh well just a thought lol.

Montreal doeasn’t sell out anymore and 50 000 way to big for Regina. Keep it around 33 to 35 and all good. If SK starts losing thre crowds will come back down to 24 k.