CFL STRIKES DEAL TO GET EXPOSURE IN MEXICO
Mexican circuit will act as feeder system for Canadian league
It’s a first step toward one another, and if it doesn’t leave a deep footprint on the globe, so be it.
After all, the Canadian Football League and its new Mexican partner, the Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional, both know what they are: which is to say, the humble neighbours of the behemoth between them, the National Football League.
There is nothing wrong with a cautious move in the right direction, and the letter of intent signed by the CFL and LFA here on Friday advances a modest enough venture that is at once eminently doable and moderately valuable.
Pending the signing of a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the CFL Players Association, at least one and as many as two Mexican players will suit up for each of the nine CFL teams next year. The commissioner of the LFA, Alejandro Jaimes, is convinced there will be a CFL regular-season game in either Mexico City or Monterrey in 2020. It will most likely involve teams representing the CFL’s so-called “international cities” of Montreal and Toronto. And he said the Mexican government will help defray some operational expenses.
What will most definitely happen right away is a scouting combine in Mexico City. In January, about 40 or 50 Mexican players will run through traditional combine drills in front of 18 CFL scouts, so two per team, and 10 CFL head office officials. The goal is to identify players who will be signed as free agents by CFL teams and will attend training camps after the LFA season wraps in early May.
“The level of the football, it’s not similar. But we have some big players,” said Jaimes, who is a guest of the CFL for Sunday’s Grey Cup. “We have enough players in some positions, not just kickers. We have defensive ends, we have cornerbacks, we have some wide receivers who should be interesting for the level of Canada.”
He wants to send two players per team to the CFL, but said there is a promise of one for now. He expects that all CFL-bound players will first play the 2019 LFA season in Mexico. But for 2020, who knows?
“For the Mexican players’ growth, we don’t have any problem if our players came and stayed in Canada. If they have the opportunity to play here in Canada and stay here in Canada, we are very happy with that.
“Our project has a social vision, too. We want Mexican players to know that they can dream, not to be professionals in the NFL because it’s very difficult, but it should be in the CFL. The CFL has a very good level. We know that Canada is a first-world country. We want that our kids dream of being in Canada some day, playing football.”
The hope is also that some graduating Canadian college players who are deemed not quite ready for the CFL will be able to play in the LFA for at least a season, to hone their skills and make a run at a roster in Hamilton or Edmonton, for instance.
“Then they can keep practising at a good level, then go back to Canada,” said Jaimes, who acknowledges an LFA team would be like a “minor league” affiliate in that way.
The letter of intent and the partnership it advances is the first tangible result of CFL 2.0, a global vision sold by commissioner Randy Ambrosie to CFL governors. He’s a big thinker and he wants to position the CFL as an international brand. He has to work on it concurrently with a growing list of domestic issues, none more pressing than the negotiation of the CBA. There are player health and safety issues, such as refining concussion protocol, the imminent expansion of the league to Halifax, and consistently disappointing attendance in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
All these issues keep Ambrosie busy and humble, so typically CFL. And in the LFA, the CFL has found a soulmate. The LFA’s teams play in front of 4,000 to 5,000 fans each night, but for the exception of the Mexico Bowl, which draws 20,000. The league began in 2016 with four teams in Mexico City, grew to six teams in 2017 and will have eight teams in six cities next year.
There is a strong American football culture in Mexico, where tens of millions of NFL fans consume the game on TV and smartphones, but the CFL doesn’t resonate there.
To establish a presence, the CFL and LFA are joining forces on an awareness campaign that will educate Mexican football fans on the quirky rules, explosiveness and humble beauty of the CFL. It starts Monday, according to Jaimes.
“We’re going to do our job so that the Mexican people know the CFL,” he said.