Mexicans look to join XFL talks
LFA COULD DELIVER COVETED LATINX AUDIENCE AND THEY WANT A SEAT AT THE PLANNING TABLE
When the Canadian Football League sought to expand its global footprint, the important first step was taken in Mexico.
CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie forged a partnership and friendships with Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional (LFA) owner Oscar Perez and commissioner Alejandro Jaimes. Their working agreement, signed during Grey Cup week in 2018, was the first of more than a dozen, and the CFL has since established business connections in Europe, Asia and South America.
Were it not for the pandemic and a lost 2020 season, the so-called CFL 2.0 initiative might have borne more fruit than a single Mexican TV deal, several player combines, a couple of global drafts, and one impactful global player, Winnipeg Blue Bombers linebacker Thiadric Hansen. Instead, the CFL leadership has pivoted and is focused on two fronts; a return to play in 2021 and the negotiation of a potential gamechanging merger with XFL ownership. As those XFL talks intensify and evolve, the CFL’S international alliance partners wait to find out if there’s a role for them to play. The LFA leadership is particularly hopeful and confident that no other international partner is as well positioned to do just that.
“Randy says he’s always thinking of Mexico,” Jaimes said last month. “We told him that we are so close that it should be more probable than the XFL, and CFL and LFA should make something. We have two strengths. We have the same football as the XFL, the same rules. And we are neighbours now.
“We want to be in the conversation. The CFL has told us they’re going to put us at the table, but I think it’s just beginning. I think we’re in the formula.”
That might be overstating it just a bit at this point.
“What I promised my dear friend Oscar Perez, and I would say this frankly to all of our international alliance partners, is when we have something of substance to discuss, we will of course share it with them,” Ambrosie said last month. “We embarked on a global partnership with all of these countries, and in order to honour the spirit of that, you want to be open and transparent when you have something to share. And I promised to share that with our friends in Mexico, as I will want to share with our friends around the world.”
That doesn’t sound like a seat at the planning table. That sounds more like a phone call after the fact. But the LFA leaders will be patient and remain hopeful, and perhaps for good reason.
The XFL ownership group is co-led by Dany Garcia, an astute businesswoman who has formed partnerships that prioritize the building of Latinx communities. Jaimes said he’s been told the CFL and XFL “want to focus on the Latino community” in some manner. If the LFA can help deliver a Latinx audience, that would seem to play into Garcia’s business plan.
“Since we acquired the XFL, that has been our daily activity, looking for incredible partners to collaborate with, to align with, to see what the future of this incredible property could be, and the CFL quite simply was doing the same thing,” she said when the XFL and CFL announced formalization of their talks. “Randy, working with the board of governors, has been on a path of growth, as they have had their global conversations and expansion initiatives. And all of a sudden we saw there was like-minded similarities to what the football and the football experience could be, and can be for athletes and for fans in the community, and that’s really where the alignment is. It’s on the vision, the future and the possibility.”
CFL and XFL principals continue to meet regularly, but precious little detail leaks out as all involved have signed non-disclosure agreements. So everyone else waits for news, including the LFA.
“We know we’re different,” said Jaimes. “We know the CFL needs the XFL more than us, but we want to be involved. We expect Randy and the XFL will talk with us, but it’s really premature to know which direction talks will go, to know what kind of arrangement we will have. For us, it’s a good start to have Randy invite us to be involved.”
The LFA launched in 2016 and made it halfway through its 2020 season before COVID-19 forced a cancellation. The 2021 campaign, originally scheduled to start in March, was at first postponed to a June kickoff before being cancelled outright as organizers struggled with timing. They couldn’t envision finishing the 2021 season in September and launching the 2022 schedule, which is now set to begin in February.