Praise for CFL Week in Regina
The Saskatchewan Roughriders and CFL were more than pleased with the inaugural CFL Week.
“It exceeded our expectations,” Riders president-CEO Craig Reynolds said. “We all knew that it was going to be a great event and that our fans would embrace it. It has been bigger and better than even we expected and we had fairly high expectations.”
CFL Week ran the gamut, from autograph sessions to the introduction of the 2017 Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees, to western and national combines. More than 50 star players were available for extended media interviews and accessible to fans who were taking in the FanFest in Regina.
According to the CFL, 330 media interviews were conducted during the two days of access to the players. About 7,000 fans visited FanFest, an event that featured numerous interactive exhibits, displays and games. Another 350 fans took in the Hall of Fame announcement at Mosaic Stadium on Wednesday.
“It was great to see the fans and their reactions,” Reynolds said.
CFL Week was the creation of commissioner Jeffrey Orridge and the league’s senior vice-president of content and marketing, Christine Litz. The event kicked off Tuesday in Regina and ended Sunday.
“It ticks all of the boxes because we created our own event outside of the Grey Cup,” Orridge said. “It has been perceived as wildly successful and I’m really satisfied.”
The event has been so successful that it’s been suggested that the league return to Regina for the 2018 CFL Week.
“That’s a conversation as a league that we will have to have,’’ Reynolds said. “Now we know we have a great event in the middle of March that gets people talking about football and gets our players interacting with fans.”