what he said.
i don’t think most CFL fans fully grasp the difference in pay between CFL and NFL. i also recall a lot of people arguing that Rourke should stay in CFL to be a star for lower pay rather than go south and chase his dream. the financial disparity of even just being on a practice roster vs CFL active roster is enormous (nevermind the potential to earn NFL pension).
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Patrick Mahone makes more money than the entire CFL.
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Yet another reason the league needs to pay its players more. When sitting by the phone waiting for a practice roster spot to open is a better alternative to actually playing on the field in the CFL, you got issues.
The recently expanded NFL rosters are quietly playing havoc with CFL rosters right now. The league needs to act.
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with what money?
the CFL revenue at the franchise level and league level is a grain of sand in the beach that is the NFL money machine. individual franchises in the NFL make more money than the whole CFL could ever dream of - which is literally the point of this thread. the CFL can’t conceivably compete at all in attracting and retaining players.
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To me this might be another hint that the CFL is thinking of changing the start and end of the season to get away from the NFL season.
The talent level has never been lower than it is today. These are the dark days of the CFL.
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In the 90s when the league was on death’s door qbs were throwing for 713 yards and stands were 2/3 full.
Now QBs not named Collaros or Rourke are throwing for less than 300 yards,and even if they are throwing for 300 like Harris and Macbeth, they seem to be incapable of scoring points. The back drop of all of this is completely empty stadiums in Edmonton and BC and according to The Greencast, only 15k in Regina.
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two factors that shouldn’t be ignored when talking about comparing the current financial health of league and franchises (and thus the quality of play and players) are the effect of the pandemic (the league and teams lost a lot of potential revenue with the canceled and shortened seasons), and the current financial state in general with respect to inflation and individual household disposable income.
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True but there’s no sign that things are going to get better any time soon. It’ll take years to pay back the money that the government has spent. Meanwhile the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer. Once you’re poor, you’re poor for a very long time. By the time you get financially stable, you’re looking at retirement. The best chance a household has is having kids finding success in the workplace years down the road.
With the money they have.
I didn’t say to compete with regular NFL salaries but you can at least be in the ballpark with practice roster salaries as was the case not too long ago which provided a tempting alternative for those not on regular rosters down south.
Every league has those exact same issues. The NHL will likely see a spike in the salary cap next year following a pause or a relatively flat cap during the pandemic.
And before folks jump in with the tired “that’s the NHL, the CFL can’t compare. Etc etc” the Canadian Elite Basketball League also stayed operational during the pandemic as well as the Canadian Premier League Soccer. All those leagues weathered the pandemic storm and are growing financially again, while the CFL took a knee during the pandemic, is focused overseas for growth and is struggling mightily both on but especially off the field.
Based on what the CFL owners have said, they seem to be focused on America for growth. Yes, they have Europeans come in to play or sit on the roster but how many of those players went to USA colleges etc.? Montreal took a Syracuse player in the Global draft and the guy ended up signing with the Chicago Bears. The CFL isn’t spending a crap load of money or advertising games in Europe. The athletes have to pay a fee to get tested for the combines. The combines basically pay for themselves. The results get forwarded to the CFL as far as I know. If the CFL was focused on overseas they would have a TV deal in the different countries. They don’t want to give someone a cheap deal so they stream their own international feed.
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I spent the entire CFL season out of the country last year, so I bought the full international package for 89 US. The CAD was about 81c so let's call it 115 bucks. 115 dollars for 60 odd games worked out to 2 bucks a game
This year I spent 2/3 of the season in Canada, and so if I bought the whole package I would have spent 140 Cad, because they raised the price to 99USD and the CAD also cratered.
I would have got only 30 games for 140, so I did not buy the package.
Worst of all though, they raised the per game price from 2.99 US to 4.99 US. I most likely will just buy the West Final and Grey Cup and will miss all the other games.
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How is it going to help?
They want to start earlier and end earlier…
That means that any NFL cuts would join even later in the season
The USFL finished up around July 3rd. Lots of players from that league tried to get to the NFL. Only one made it to the Dallas Cowboys I believe. The theory would be that if the CFL started and finished to avoid the NFL that anybody who wanted to do a CFL season could jump on a NFL team after it. This theory would work out better if the CFL shortened it’s season but that’s a remote possibility. However, considering how much money the CFL loses on an annual basis it’s within the realm of possibility.
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So that would be March to Sept…never going to happen and what good are NFL cuts if the season is over?
Less games means less revenue…never going to happen
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NFL draws fans from North America 380 million people - CFL draws fans from Canada - which has more or less the same population of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana - a fame of numbers - Also I don’t think most Canadians are football junkies like the people in the States -
wow i had no idea!
oh wait - you were mansplaining to me in order to back up what i just said. gotcha.
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Sorry if it came off as mansplaining - not my intention - I do a lot of technical writing and generally rehash things over and over and over - I also on occasion teach entry level welding courses to adults so repeating something and adding the same information to a discussion is just part of my OS and chipset at this point in life - my apologies if it came off like that did not mean to go there or give offence-
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no worries 
i just get mansplained to A LOT on sports forums so i’m a bit overly sensitive to it. i appreciate your reply. 
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instead of getting the cuts in September, you get them in March for the whole season. This would give you a better level of talent. Not saying it’s something that everyone will love. Just saying that if the CFL starts in May next year you can blame Saskatchewan because they are the ones complaining the most about it right now.
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