CFL to get NFL Network exposure

The Canadian Football League will get a little more exposure south of the border this season.

The league announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal with the NFL Network to show 14 games this season. The NFL Network will pick up TSN's broadcasts, starting with Thursday's Grey Cup rematch in Saskatchewan.

CFL fans in Canada won't get their games on the NFL Network, though, as TSN retains Canadian rights.

The NFL Nework, which carries a package of NFL games, also carries the Arena Football League, college and high school football games.

While the deal is smaller than previous CFL broadcast contracts in the U.S., the NFL Network should give the game greater exposure.

Comments

[Rick Grace]

Oh my.
The Americans noticed us!
Why should I care again?

[Primitive]

Because our players come fron there. That's why.

[Jgh]

Uhhhh Rick, the CFL is only as Canadian as the city names and rules. All of your (non quota) players are from US colleges....

[Rick Grace]

American players have come here before CFL games were televised in the US of A.
And they'll come here if they are or aren't.
Nice they're on NFL TV.
But really, it has zero impact on the league financially.
CFL should worry about Canada and forget about the market down there.
Because they'll never care about a foreign product.
An attitude I wish we in Canada had a bit more of.

[DLind]

Yeah, Canadians should stop focussing on foreign products like the Blue Jays and Raptors (who play in Toronto, Canada) and embrace really Canadian leagues like the CFL with its mostly American players or the NHL that has 24/30 teams in the U.S.A, seems hellbent on doing anything it can to stop more teams coming to Canada, and bends over backwards to please American audiences while pretty much disregarding its Canadian fanbase.

/sarcasm

You should enjoy sports because you like them and have a passion for them. Not because you think it's patriotic to do so (which, aside from anything else, literally makes no sense).

[SF]

This could lead to a very profitable arrangement for the CFL. There’s a huge market for football in the US and the CFL, as we’ve all known for years, is a better and more entertaining brand of football. It’s not traditional American style football and I’m sure a lot of Americans won’t like it because of that, but people who are fans of the game of football will, and there are still millions of them. It always made sense for the CFL to be carried on the NFL Network but I think while the NFL still had hopes of putting a team in Canada it saw the CFL as a competitor. Now that it’s clear there isn’t enough demand for live NFL football in Canada I think that opens the door for a more cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship.

[Rick Grace]

Hey Dlind.
We do ignore the Blue Jays and Raptors.
And I don't know what you're talking about.
CFL is 100% Canadian.
Thats why its TV ratigns are so big.
The majority of Canadians want their own league.
Thats why we want more NHL teams.
And thats why we support the CFL.

[Josh]

The ratings for the CFL aren't big because its Canadian, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The ratings are big because football is the second most popular sport in this country and the CFL is an exciting brand of football. Two other contributing factors is that there are "hometown" teams for everyone Quebec-west and that there isn't much else on in the summer.

By your logic the Memorial Cup (a Canadian championship consisting of Canadian teams) should beat NHL playoffs with American teams, which it doesn't.

The Grey Cup OTOH is different, it is watched because it is a big event, just like the Super Bowl and World Cup finals (yes Rick, for everyone except you those are considered big events).

[Primitive]

A couple of people above are missing the point.

The NFL network WILL pay for the CFL because it's a nice chunk of live programming where there usually isn't any. A deal with them will pay more than the hodge podge of regional sports networks that used to show games on tape delay.

Guys who come to the CFL usually only do so after being cut from NFL rosters. Hardcore football people watch that channel. If they see the game on the NFL Network they might think of Canada as an option when they're coming out of college, knowing that the NFL won't be available to them, instead of just giving up the game.

This will impact the CFL in a good way in the future.

[Bora Dragasevic]

All right this is so exciting!!! Now all 5 people in the USA who are CFL fans can get their fix;)and the few bucks in rights fees the CFL will get should be enough to run a few franchises this season

[Joel]

DLind, Unfortunately, A lot of Canadians have that mentality that if it isn't Canadian, they wont watch. Sure the Jays did have support in the 90's, but that's when they were winning and fans across Canada were jumping on the bandwagon. Because of this, I can't see another NBA or MLB franchise outside in Toronto.

[Jgh]

Rick forgets that baseball (even in the us) traditionally has lower day-to-day ratings because of the amount of games that are played. Seven days a week is extremely high exposure. Even the beloved leafs would take a hit on that. When you look at bb numbers, consider the weekly average .. It's quite high , and add to that when the win, the numbers skyrocket. When (if?) this team becomes competitive again,, the numbers will be excellent. We have seen it when the play well in spurts. As for football .. Yes canadians love football ... All football. Rick likes to think that it's only Canadian football, but the numbers show NFL is fantastic. Again, exposure is a big thing with the NFL but in the real apples to apples comparison (mnf vs. Fnf) the NFL holds up or wins. It's north American football audience in Canada.

[Rick Grace]

NFL Network will have zero impact on the CFL.
The CFL will have impact on the CFL.
That one million plus viewers that watched Montreal Saskatchewan proves it.
You can also add another half million at least from RDS.
One guy says being all Canadian is no benefit for the CFL?
Maybe you people in Tranna love being a tiny ignored part of these American leagues.
But the rest of Canada wants their own league where they're considered important.
Which is why the CFL is big and getting bigger each year.

[SF]

Hmm... soccer isn’t Canadian and yet millions of Canadians are watching it. No, I think the reason very few Canadians, or anyone else in the world for that matter, watch MLB baseball or NBA basketball is because the product isn’t very entertaining. I think Americans watch these sports more because they’re very culturally American, and in particular the artificial hype that surrounds them is very culturally American.
.
In Canada unfortunately we do have a group of fans who won’t watch a sport if it IS Canadian, and many of our fans of MLB, the NBA and the NFL come from this group. These are the people who talk down the CFL or CIS sports while gushing over American sports. We call this group the wannabes, but it’s a much smaller group than I think some people previously believed, and I think to a significant extent it was an artificially created group. I think Ted Rogers thought he could create a demand for American sports and he used his media power to try to become Canada’s PT Barnum, or at least the mythical PT Barnum if not the real one. Some people have clearly been fooled by the hype, but not nearly as many as Rogers thought would be, even in Toronto.

[Mike]

"But the rest of Canada wants their own league"

Again, proof please or you're just making something that you think out to be the consensus in Canada. From what I can tell, you're actually in the minority.

[Hmu]

Sf..there is a strong market for NFL football in Toronto, just not someone elses awful team at 3-4x the price as a game three hours down the road. The thought was that the bills are Torontos team, when nothing could be further from the truth. Our own team at market prices would do gangbusters.
As for the cfl, it's a good product however we all know that the players are all the ones we "gush over" from NCAA..so it's not that Canadian.
As for the cis, sorry it's just terrible football. None of these guys would make the cfl if there wasn't a Canadian quota.

[Chauchie]

A number of NFL blogs are mentioning this story, and many are commenting on it (mostly positively). There are a number of hardcore football fans down there, and a lot of college fans interested in following former players. If anything, it would give an additional "boost" to teams and players to perform, knowing that a critical audience south of the boarder is watching.

[Rick Grace]

I agree 100% SF.
For years us CFL fans, and fans of Canadian sports in general, had to be embarased to admit we supported Canadian sports.
Because according to the media we sucked at everything.
Turns out though we're the majority.
The wannabees are the minority.
So its time we start speaking up.

[Dave]

HMU
What are you taking about, so if a guy comes from the NCAA, he not Canadian. Duh, there is over 450 Canadian kids on NCAA scholarship right now, and that number is going up every year. If the CIS is so bad, how is it that guys get drafted or free agent contracts to play or try out for a NFL team, right out of the CIS. Perhaps you should watch a CIS game. To say the CFL is not Canadian is nuts

[Hmu]

Dave, if you thinkk the quality of ciu football is more than senior us highschol level, you are fooling yourself. Yes, a few get the call to an NFL training camp, but for the most part they are cannon fodder. NFL teams look under every rock and invite as many as they can. I'm also well aware of Canadians on us scholarships (I was one). It's a great setup and most come away with good educations. A professional career? Rare. Without the import rule, the CFL would have token Canadian representation only. This doesn't mean that Canadians aren't good football players, it's just fact that the US has ten times the population and the southern states in particular are football factories that churn out massive numbers of big, strong, players.
All that being said, my original point was to comment on Ricks notes. He seems to have an anti American attitude ..but he contradicts himself all of the time He puts down NFL and NCAA football...even though both leagues supply his CFL players.

[Rick Grace]

Hey HMU.
I am pro Canadian.
Just like millions of others in the silent majority.
Thing is people like you are so worried about the Americans you automatically assume the opposite.
And to say Canadians can't play football?
Our mistake is using universities.
We have to develop better juniour football leagues.
Like hockey has the CHL.
Because CIS schools are not like those down south.
They're education first. Sports is what you do when you have time off class.

[Mike]

That's ridiculous, everyone is pro Canadian. But most don't have to hide behind that as an excuse when they get called out on their nonsense.

[Hmu]

Exactly, Mike. I wonder if Ricks attitudes extend to other types of entertainment. Rick, i hope we don't catch you watching any American movies or television!

[SF]

Rick
I don’t live in Toronto and I think that mentality exists primarily within a certain segment of the Toronto media, and the people they’ve been able to make into their PT Barnam-esque suckers. I’ve never felt embarrassed to support Canadian sports. I will admit, however, that I thought many more Torontonians had been taken in and I was very pleasantly surprised to see the attendance and ratings numbers that show otherwise. The Toronto media has a very bad reputation in the rest of Canada and we don’t identify with them culturally, or take them very seriously in any way really, but I think what we’ve learned in recent years is that the problem isn’t Toronto per se but really just a much smaller segment of the Toronto media.
.
HMU
Your suggestion that CIS football is at the same level as senior high school football in the US is laughably ridiculous. No one who knows anything about football would say such a thing. I’m afraid I don’t believe for a second that you went to a NCAA school on a scholarship. That kind of anti-Canadian attitude is exactly what I was referring to above, however, and I would be interested in knowing who talked you into believing such nonsense. No matter who was doing the talking, however, you’d have to be an extremely insular and naive individual to believe such a thing.
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For those who may not know, CIS football is roughly at the same level as NCAA DII football, not US high school or even DIII football, although the comparisons are very difficult for a number of reasons. There are a lot of DI calibre players in the CIS because a number of these players choose to stay in Canada rather than go to American schools. Very few players from any level of football make it to the pros and if you don’t have pro aspirations then going to a DI school, even on a scholarship, is often not a good choice for academic reasons. Even if you do have pro aspirations there are some very good CIS football programs these days and they are a solid choice even with a pro career in mind, including a pro career in the NFL. This year I believe there were 6 players signed out of CIS football by the NFL, and last year a player was drafted out of CIS football by the NFL.

[Ted]

Hey HMU
3 Canadian kids playing in the NCAA, are reported to go in the first and scond round of next year NFL draft. My kids high school team, went down to Florida last year to play a local Florida team. They played in front of 10,000 people amd beat that team 21, 10 playing American rules. Football in Canada has come a long way, prhaps you should have another look at CIS ball. the local press in Florida made a big deal about how Canadian kids can play more then just hockey. Up here there was a samll article written in a local paper, so sad