Should the CFL expand into the US again or not?

Question

Baltimore was a huge success but a lot of southern expansion was not too successful. Should the CFL expand southward again to add to their TV market, or is Canada's 33M enough to remain viable?

I have posted this on a board that deals with college football realignment because the posters there are very business savy, but am posting it here as well to try to get imput from CFL fans.

http://ncaasports.proboards10.com/index.cgi?board=nfl&action=display&thread=1987

Answer 1

Absolutely not. It almost destroyed the league. First of all, the teams refused to use Canadian players.....how long before the franchises refused to play by our rules, and wanted to switch to boring four-down, off-tackle, three-yard passes offence? How long before they claimed they couldn't get a TV contract for viewers who've no idea where Hamilton or Regina are?

Answer 2

portland oregon?

Answer 3

Baltimore was a success because the city was without an NFL team after the Irsays alienated the Colts fanbase and then used that as an excuse to move to the middle of nowhere.

The CFL had to leave the USA because Baltimore finally got an NFL team again.  I doubt the CFL could have much success anywhere else, but the Canadian government should think about passing a law to stop the NFL's attempts to move into Canada (with the Toronto Bills).  I believe they've considered a law to protect the CFL from the NFL before.

Answer 4

American expansion was a mistake.  One American franchise after another failing became a threat to the Canadian franchises.  We got our pure CFL back, finally, when the Baltimore Stallions moved to Montreal and took on the proud Alouettes name.

Answer 5

Keep the CFL North of the Border!

Answer 6

As an American fan of Canadian football, I would say no, the CFL shouldn't expand into America again, because despite a halfway decent following down here in the States, the CFL would most likely not be able to hold up against the NFL and College football. Additionally, there are very few stadiums that can hold a Canadian football field. The only one I can think of off-hand is LA Coliseum, since it was designed for olympic track. What I think the CFL should do to add to their TV market is to give a sports network like Comcast or FSN or ESPN2 the rights to CFL games. Like Arena Football and Soccer, putting it on TV expose people to the game, and the sport can grow from there. THEN, the league can talk expansion.

Answer 7

there's a reason why it's called the CFL, no american teams, this is a canadian league, the americans have the nfl, so p**s off

Answer 8

baltimore was majorly successful, i know, wait,  where are they again?  thats right,  they had too leave,

Answer 9

I would have liked to have the Ravens and Stallions in Baltimore together.  It took me the preseason games to get used to the differences between the NFL and CFL, and I like both.  I was a season ticket holder for every Stallions season, both of them, and enjoyed the games imensely.  I do know that Baltimore did set some attendance records for CFL games their first year and I do think that the CFL if it were to expand back into the US could do well, the only thing that hurt them was trying to add too many teams too quickly and NFL owners using the CFL expansion as a way of testing the waters of relocating their teams to a new location.

This is what I think happened in Baltimore.  No owners were going to leave their current cities without finding a way test the waters first.  No team was interested in moving to Baltimore untill the 1994 CFL Stallions attendance records proved that there were football fans that were ravenous for professional football there.

What I would really like to see is the CFL teams to play the NFL teams, even if only as an exhibition game.  Either treat the rules like they would MLB inter-league games (CFL rules if played in a CFL stadium, NFL rules if played in an NFL stadium) or possibly NFL rules one half CFL rules the other half chosen by the team that wins the coin flip (this would be impossible because of the field dimensions).

Oh well just being a little sentimental for my old Baltimore Stallions.

Answer 10

yes NFL needs competition

Answer 11

h**l no

Answer 12

The American experiment has proven to be a failure. The owners thought that they were in a for a NFL-AFL type fight but it never materialized.

The CFL will not win in a battle in the USA because the College Football fraternity is too strong and entrenched. The American successes were in areas which thought they should have had NFL teams and used the CFL as a substitute. Local rivalries were difficult to sustain and nothing could compare to Toronto-Hamilton or Saskatchewan-Winnipeg.

Answer 13

It was a crazy pipe dream and I certainly hope they never do it again.

Just like American expanion into Canada has been mostly a failure in other major sports (Grizzlies and Expos), even when there are no other competitors, the CFL expansion south was met with mostly apathy by US fans and media (Baltimore being the only true exception).