CFL commissioner and guy who looks like the nerdy accountant who always gets eaten by the dinosaurs in every Jurassic Park movie, Stewart Johnston, announced last week that the CFL was adopting new rules that just happen to make the CFL look a lot more like the NFL.
Apropos of nothing really, Commissioner Johnston also specifically went out of his way to mention, as a single bead of sweat started forming on his forehead like the fat guy who Arnold Schwarzenegger shot in Total Recall (the 1990 version, not the 2012 abomination), how much Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) really, really, really just loves the CFL.
MLSE was owned by strange bedfellows Rogers Communications and Bell Media, along with Larry Tanenbaum. Then, in a buyout that was finalized in mid-2025, oh, just coincidentally a few months before the CFL rule changes were announced, Rogers bought Bell out of MLSE. As it stands now, Rogers controls MLSE.
MLSE, meaning Rogers, owns a bunch of financially successful sports teams, as well as the, ahem, Toronto Argonauts. All these other sports teams are involved in leagues that are heavily connected to the United States of America. MLSE just announced a “strategic partnership” with the Buffalo Bills, much like the 1939 “strategic partnership” between Germany and the Soviet Union (ask Poland how that worked out).
My advice for CFL fans is to not think too much about what this all might mean for the CFL and stop reading this article. But just so everyone is aware, Rogers/MLSE owns one team in the CFL, but that team happens to be located in the CFL’s biggest market. Rogers’ only competitor, Bell Media, owns TSN, which owns the exclusive Canadian broadcast rights to the CFL and the NFL.
Is it possible that Rogers/MLSE, using its influence as the owner of the largest market CFL team, is forcing Bell to slowly convert the CFL to NFL-style rules in an effort to eventually eliminate the CFL and pave the way for a NFL franchise in Toronto? Rogers dramatically reduced, virtually eliminated, Bell/TSN’s NHL coverage by throwing billions at the NHL. What is to say Rogers doesn’t have its eye on taking the NFL away from Bell/TSN? Or maybe Rogers doesn’t have the money to own the Canadian broadcast rights to both the NHL and the NFL, so they are willing to let Bell/TSN maintain those rights as long as Bell/TSN lets the CFL die on the vine, thus making it far easier to place a NFL team in Toronto. Rogers owns the NFL team; Bell/TSN owns the NFL broadcast rights; it’s a win/win for two big media corporations. Why would Rogers want to own a money-losing football team like the Toronto Argonauts instead of a guaranteed financial juggernaut like a Toronto NFL team? Is it possible Rogers would like a Toronto NFL team to join the Blue Jays and the Raptors in the MLSE stable?
Looking back on what is happening right now, will anyone eventually think Canadian football fans were being groomed back in 2025 to accept the demise of the CFL in favour of one NFL team in Toronto?
Maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe big corporations like Bell and Rogers aren’t out to increase their profits. Maybe they want to spend a lot of time and money preserving, nurturing and growing an important and historical Canadian sports and cultural institution like the CFL. Maybe Rogers doesn’t want to score a huge financial windfall by dumping the Argonauts and killing the CFL, and being awarded a NFL franchise to go along with the Blue Jays and the Raptors. Maybe Rogers is more concerned with the general public than their own shareholders. Maybe both Canadian sports networks don’t have an interest in eliminating the CFL so neither network is preventing its employees from saying anything bad about these rule changes. Yes, this is all just making me feel better about these rule changes that I’m sure only coincidentally make the CFL look a lot like the NFL.
But I just can’t stop thinking about that old Joseph Heller quote: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
One has to wonder why the powers that control the CFL would want to make these specific rule changes. Consider the following.
The rouge. Some people say that the rouge is reward for failure. Miss a field goal? Get rewarded with a single point. I can’t say I disagree, I suppose, as long as we can agree that fourth down is a reward for failure when a team cannot get ten yards with only three downs. Or that a base hit is a reward for failing to hit a home run. Or a two-point basket is a reward for not being able to bomb three-pointers from the perimeter. Or that games ending in a tie, like last night’s Cowboys/Packers game, is a reward for both teams’ failure.
No one complains that the fourth down is a pretty obvious “reward for failure” because everything the NFL does is money. Money! How about that new NFL kickoff? Most exciting play in professional sports. Obviously, someone looked at soccer and thought, what a great way to start a match! Gently kick the ball (backwards)! (And then keep kicking it around, endlessly, until everyone in the crowd is so drunk and bored they start a riot.) Now each NFL game starts with a casual kick down the field from a kicker who could literally be eating a ham sandwich while he kicks off. He doesn’t even have to try anymore! And how much are they paying these guys?
My point is that the idea a rouge is a reward for failure is a lazy and weak argument, and no reason to eliminate it, but really, who gives a shit? The CFL is tweaking the rouge; let’s see what happens. If it sucks, we can always go back. And it’s not like the rouge is gone entirely. There will no longer be rouges on missed field goals and limited rouges everywhere else. Fine, let’s move on.
Smaller endzones? They did it in 1986 and nobody noticed. The CFL’s bigger endzones, relative to the NFL, make it more difficult to defend when a team gets close to the goal line; not as cramped as the NFL. A loss of five yards in the endzone is not a big deal and makes sense as far as dealing with the rounded endzones in some of our league’s home fields.
But here’s a rule change I don’t get. Kill the 55-yard line? Why? Who has ever been clamoring to eliminate the 55-yard line? When has that even come up? The members of the CFL Board of Governors need to get a hobby if that’s what they sit around complaining about.
The problem with eliminating the 55-yard line is that is screws over every level of football in Canada. Almost every field in Canada has a 55-yard line. Now schools and cities have to figure out where to find the money to change their fields to eliminate the 55-yard line and move the entire endzone on both ends of the field. You can expect a checker board of fields across Canada, 100-yards or 110-yards, depending upon how much money a school board or a municipality or a university has available to spend on adjusting their fields to dainty CFL regulations.
Will Edmonton high school teams play on 55-yard line fields while Calgary high school teams play on 100-yard fields? In the CJFL, will the British Columbia Football Conference go with 100-yard field but the Prairie Football Conference go with 110-yards? Will Atoms, Peewees and Bantams play on old 110-yard fields until they get to high school ball? Will the U Sports teams in the RSEQ stay at 110-yards but the OUA go with 100-yards. Will this all turn into a multi-lateral designated-hitter-type situation that MLB had for years?
The switch to 100-yard fields is just mean. Why create problems for all the leagues in Canada, already struggling to cover costs of an already expensive sport, to maintain the same field as the CFL? Why screw over the entire football feeder system that creates the Canadian football players who eventually populate the CFL? Why fix something that ain’t broke? But let’s put those rhetorical questions aside for a moment.
What about the goal posts being moved to the back of the endzone? Again, this is the same issue as the 55-yard line elimination. It means schools, municipalities, high schools, universities and leagues of all ages need to move their goal posts. Or default to a chaotic system in which teams are playing on different fields at different times on different levels.
Unlike the reduction of rouge opportunities, the disappearance of the 55-yard line and the goal posts being moved means infrastructure costs that our football community cannot afford.
The CFL can go back and forth on the rouge—eliminate it, put it back, tweak it again, whatever—there is no cost to anyone to follow the CFL rule changes. Same with the endzones. There is virtually no cost to drawing a line in the back of the endzone to eliminate five yards. And you can erase that line any time. The endzones can be expanded or shortened with little cost to anyone. The CFL can switch back if it turns out the smaller endzones are a bad idea, and fields across Canda will be adjusted at the stroke of an erasure. There’s nothing wrong with a little experimentation (don’t say that to your wife).
But eliminating the 55-yard line and moving the goalposts? That’s a costly change and it’s more or less permanent. Why do that? Why cause all that expense? Why cause all the chaos? Why do something that no one was asking for? All it does is make the field look more like an NFL field and… what a minute!
Well fuck. Back to the rhetorical questions.
The obvious reason the CFL is making these specific rule changes, or perhaps more accurately, why Rogers/MLSE is making these specific rule changes, is to make our game look like American football, and cause all sorts of chaos across Canada so that a unified Canadian football field no longer exists. Then it’s just one small step to four downs (the ultimate reward for failure) and, to quote Emperor Palpatine, “your journey towards the dark side will be complete!”
And for those who think I’m talking crazy, consider this. When Commissioner Johnston was asked if the CFL would ever move to four downs, his answer was hardly comforting:
“I don’t offer guarantees [about staying with three downs permanently]. I don’t say the word ‘never.’”
First of all, you just said the word “never”.
But my point is that, sure, maybe these rules are going to make the game better. What do I know? I’m more worried that these shorter fields are part of a longer game being played by two very big corporations who already control our cell phone and cable prices. Do either of these companies strike you as being concerned about anything but their own bottom lines? Are cell phone rates sky high in Canada because these companies are trying to give consumers better service?
One final thought. This move to shorten the field feels a lot like shrinkflation. You know, where big companies reduce the size of their containers, call it “Fun Sized!” or claim they are saving the environment by using less plastic, and make us all pay the same price.
These rule changes suggest all CFL fans, Canadian football players and Canadian minor/amateur/junior and university football leagues might be paying a major price in a few years.
Say hello to FUN SIZE! football and goodbye to Canadian football.