The sporting world has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and while it is the traditional football offseason, football has not been immune to the effects of the pandemic. The National Football League Draft was moved to a virtual format; the XFL was forced to fold due to the financial stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Canadian Football League has been forced to delay the start of their season and possibly forgo the entirety of the 2020 season.
The CFL has, most likely, the toughest route back to being able to play. The XFL had no route back and has accepted that, and the NFL has supports in place that they can rely on.
The NFL has a solid Television deal that they could lean onto for funding and getting the teams in a sustainable position to play their 2020 season. The CFL does not have a large television deal that it can lean back on. The CFL is only covered on television by TSN in Canada. It was reported by the Toronto Sun back in September of 2019 that the new deal to be announced later by the league and TSN was a six-year deal worth $50 million (but there were possibilities of that number rising due to incentives in the deal based on ratings and others). This deal is only worth $8.3 million per year, and works out to only $925925.93 per team per year. The CFL salary cap in 2020 will be $5.3 million. That's a difference of $4374074.07, and the only team that announces their financial status are the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and they announced a profit of $3.5 million, and that accounts all costs and profits. These numbers are just an idea, but this gives the picture that the CFL cannot survive on just a TV deal and needs gate money to survive. The NFL currently makes $5 billion per year from television rights, which works to $156.25 million per team, with the NFL salary cap at $198.2 million, there is a much smaller gap in percentage-wise to fill with other revenue streams that the CFL and is, therefore, more likely to find a feasible model for resuming play. If the CFL is going to resume play, they are going to need some stimulus to resume play.
Another hurdle that the CFL would have to overcome is the possible logistics of keeping the players isolated. The CFL has also been looking at implementing a hub city model to resume play. To do this best, the league would have to look at either a one-city or two-city model. A two-city model may be the most feasible for resuming play, but is problematic, and not the most preferred to me for one simple reason. The two- city model would force the team to divide the league into two divisions, which it already has done, but the divisions would not be able to play interdivisional games. The other issue I see is that the division of 5 teams would be forced to play a more weekly schedule instead of a weekend schedule to keep the teams playing the same number of games. This is not a large issue, but one the league would still need to consider. The one-city model is not without its problems. There would be more people in a tighter area, and if the virus got into the bubble, more people would be infected; safety must be the largest concern for the league moving forward, but a one-city model would permit for more matchups between different teams and supports a more long term solution to playing football. While that is not the primary concern for the league, a two-city model is the best way to move forward if the league is able to resume play.
The CFL will have two major hurdles to overcome in order to find a way to have a season this year: finances, and health. These cannot be overlooked. The feasibility of the league may be questioned due to these questions, but the best thing for Canada, the CFL, and its people is to have our league in its best state and uniting our nation.
La Cheeserie, Littles
Fight On, Sleepers
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