THE CFL IS BACK. MAYBE
Return-to-play depends on virus
The Canadian Football League has pushed back its 2021 regular-season kickoff from June 10 to Aug. 5, reduced the 18-game schedule to 14 and plans to stage the latest Grey Cup in history, now set for Dec. 12 in Hamilton.
The average low temperature for that date in the Steel City is minus-6 C. Better that than minus another CFL season.
“The idea of being able to talk in such positive terms about getting our league back on the field and our commitment to playing in 2021, man that felt good,” CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said Wednesday. “It's been a long winter and it feels like spring today.”
Training camps are tentatively scheduled for mid-july, there won't likely be any pre-season games, and the Aug. 5 kickoff is a “target date” according to Ambrosie, because the league's return-to-play plans are once again subject to the vagaries of the COVID-19 pandemic that wiped out the 2020 campaign and left the nine CFL teams with a reported cumulative loss of at least $60 million.
With COVID variants raging in B.C. and Alberta and case counts reaching new all-time highs in Ontario, the CFL couldn't make its way onto the field in time for May training camps and a midjune start. In consultation with public health officials in all six provinces that host CFL franchises, and with a goal of keeping as many games on the schedule as possible, the league pushed the start date back, and has left room to do so again. Though Ambrosie wasn't specific, there are contingencies for fewer than 14 games.
“I can report with confidence that we have backup plans and backup plans to our backup plans and we have backup plans to our backed-up plans. We have a commitment to playing in 2021. We're going to play football in 2021 and that's the mindset that we are sharing with our fans and with all of our stakeholders today.
“From the teams' perspective, from the players' perspective, let's play the maximum amount of football this year. So that was a principle that guided our thought process. This strikes a real balance. The feeling we got in discussions with public health, many of them gave us guidance that we should have a lot better line of sight into what's happening with the COVID crisis in early June, and that information will help guide us to a final decision to play. So an Aug. 5 start was perfectly logical for us.”
That said, an Aug. 5 kickoff hinges on two key issues; government approval of the league's health and safety protocols, as well as permission from those health officials to host “a significant number of fans in the stands, in a significant number of venues at the start of the season, and in the rest of our venues soon after that, so a 2021 season is financially tenable for our clubs.”
What's a significant number of fans?
“We're going to work with each team, look at their stadium, talk to their public health officials, get some guidance on what they might allow and then build a matrix that relates to each team,” said Ambrosie.
“There is no one-size-fits-all answer here.”
There is a common thread, however, and that's the teams' dependence on in-stadium revenue from tickets, merchandise and concessions.
“The CFL depends on ticket revenue more than other professional sports leagues in North America. Fans in the stands account for at least half of our revenue,” Ambrosie said. “Our clubs already stand to suffer substantial financial losses this year. Playing without fans in the stands would dramatically increase those losses.”
With massive broadcast rights deals stuffing their coffers, the National Hockey League, National Football League, Major League Baseball and National Basketball Association have been able to mitigate losses associated with playing in empty or mostly empty stadiums. That's an option for the CFL only if the ownership of all nine teams sign off on a cumulative league loss expected to reach $100 million, so dependent are they on in-stadium revenue.
Ambrosie said the league continues to talk to the federal government about funding, and there are programs in the new budget that could benefit the league. He also said teams are prepared to be creative, collaborative and flexible to maximize whatever revenues are available to them this season.