is it time to bring back rules that would allow the big city CFL teams to go out and sign some big name NFL free agents ?? to help them p.r to their market,s ? for instance how many tickets would bret farve sell for the B.C lion,s or even several nfl F.A,s,. who would it take to sell out the skydome?
uh no?
because teams have a bloody salary cap?
it's stupid.
first off... not every team has the same amount of income that they can go and spend crazy amts of money on teams.
this is what almost killed the league the first time, why do you think they'd ever do something so stupid like that?
Edmonton , who has the largest wallet in the CFL would just out-bid everyone else out!
it's what they did before the Cap came!
no
The Als brought in some marquee NFL players (Vince Feragammo, Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, James Scott, David Overstreet, Tom Cousineau) when Skalbania was there. Worked so well for them that it resulted in the team folding.
The biggest problem right now in the CFL is that the players salaries are capped and yet the coaches and management salaries are not capped.
Since the SMS came in to effect... two thing have occured that have both hurt the quality of play in the CFL.
The first thing that happened was players salaries were slashed by up to 15 million dollars over the entire league.
This whole scenario was best paraphrased by Ed Berry when he told his entire team in 2008 that he did not have the best players on his team but the cheapest players on his team.
This was in a season when he cut players like Juran Bolden and attempted to trade Tom Canada(both allstars)
The second thing that happened was that coaches(including assistant coaches )salaries skyrocketed.
You see while each CFL team was triming 1.5 million from their player payrolls... The CFL recieved an extra 600K per season from TSN in the new TV deal.
There was (and still is) tons of money floating around...so instead of hiring CIS coaches for assistants and recycling old CFL Head Coaches. There was now money to bring in American Coaches since now the CFL could compete with the NCAA and even the NFL.
You had coaches like Trestman and Hufnagle come into the league who would of scoffed at the 200K that the CFL paid it's top bosses back in 2006... However suddenly you had 4 to 5 hundred K to throw at these coaches and at the same time you could get decent assistant coaches from the NCAA who would now com up because instead of making 60K in the CFL...now they are suddenly paying 150-200K for assistant coaches.
Well what ended up happening is that coaches like Bart Andrus and his million dollar(guarenteed)contract started to come up to this league...
The end result has been conservative,lowscoring, mistake ridden football that is barely watchable at times.
Put a salary cap of 1 million on teams coaches and GMs and other management... Then raise the CFL players salary cap to 6 million and you will see an amazing game.
Old dinasaurs like Wally will be forced from the league and US coaches will no longer come up here to wreck our game.
You will get young CIS coaches and general managers with fresh Canadian football minds.... You will also get the best players possible.
I can count on one hand the number of CFL head coaches in the past 20 years who weren't American. In fact, if my memory is correct, I could probably do it by extending my middle finger. The SMS had nothing to do with having American coaches.
I think the Marquee player rule would be great. Set aside 1 player you can sign for up to 1 mill who does not count towards the cap (Ie Flutie, Ismail, etc.) It will allow teams to keep their best players or hire free agents from the CFL or NFL.
One player will not ruin the league or teams revenues and I believe this will help the game.
That’s what they said the last time they almost ruined the league.
Why bother with this rule? A million dollars is chump change in the NFL for any position, let alone a QB, so that’s not going to sway anyone to come here, and if they don’t want to play here for $200K-$400K, what other options do they have?
they start spending wild amts of money again, just for the sake of trying to attract big names!
there's no guarantee those big names would make it anyways! nothing is a given.
I think they need to improve their marketing and merchandising of the league.
That’s why the Als folded in the 80’s and why BC and Toronto have been in trouble in the past. They go throw 500 k at some has been and the team goes in the tank, the owners then jump ship and you get a team that folds.
CFL.
Who are you?
A former player waived out of the league, or a bitter sportwriter?
You call the league boring and the games amatuerish?
LIke it'd be better if you were in the league?
Then again attendance was strong.
TV ratings went through the roof.
You have a right to your opinion.
But your opinion is of the miniscule minority.
your comment is every bit as bad and no different than those of the anti cfl media types that we all hate so much.
I think the marquee player exemption rule should make a re-appearance on the CFL landscape. It would go a long way to selling the league in some of its more troubled, larger markets where the perception of the "big league players" is far more important than it is to the smaller franchises that reside in smaller markets.
As for the notion that the rule "ruined the league" it seems people tend to forget that those teams or the league as a whole weren't exactly on cruising down easy street before marquee players showed up either. Also, note that back then teams were free to spend as they wished which put less successful clubs at a considerable disadvantage when it came to signing any players marquee or otherwise. Today's SMS would take that advantage away for the most part while still allowing a team to go after 1 player whom they think could help them sell a few more tickets. Keep in mind that without the marquee player exemption, football fans north of the 49th would never have been treated to arguably to the greatest QB in CFL history, Doug Flutie. No QB of this era can even come close to matching what he brought to the game and as a fan it was a privilege to witness it. Without the rule, the chances of something like that of ever occurring is pretty slim.
The story of the Als folding is a long and complicated one but in the late 70’s, the Als were signing multiple players at near, equal, or as the case with Vince Ferragamo; MORE than what the NFL would pay the said players. The whole Alouette starting roster was paid in monies that was a little too close to NFL ones minus the NFL type revenues. Even at a packed and brand new Olympic Stadium, the team was losing money. As a whole, the Als hadn’t been a profitable venture for years before anyways. I don’t know which big-money player BC brought in, but in the case of Doug Flutie for example, the team didn’t pay all that much for him and the owner had just purchased the team for a $1 a season before so its not Lions were on solid financial ground before the signing either. Flutie then went on to sign a $1million deal with Calgary a couple seasons after it too was rescued from bankruptcy and shortly after he left his mark on both the team and the city (more like breathed new life into it), the team was sold for a then CFL record amount.
Wally Buono (born in Italy raised in Canada)
Greg Marshall (not the DC, the former Ti-Cats head coach and current Western Mustangs coach)
Danny Maccocia
Marcel Bellefeuille
I think you need more middle fingers.
I don't have a problem with a marquee player type of system myself but I do think there can be negatives associated with this system that might not be worth it, the biggest negative could be if it results in overspending. Also it gives the perception that you need a high profile American on your team to sell, let's face it 99.9 percent of the marquee players would be American.
One good reason to say NO!
Another good reason to say NO!
Interesting so far, Unfortunately the NFL T.V deal$ make it impossible for CFL teams to sign the top NFL free agents,BUT even if they did it would not change the level of play on the field, Only when the CFL gets a T.V deal on par with the NFL TV deal, would it be workable for a CFL team to load up with 4 or 5 big name NFL f.a,s to make an impact IF at all!~! Now how to get this through to the Toronto Media and its sheep.
what exactly for why???
Because they have hurt the CFL in Southern Ontario with their pro nfl agenda and their lack of understanding of the TEAM sport of football, because the CFL is just as Big League as the other "Big Leagues"! --