Ticats’ Bob Young suggests CFL partner with NFL “in an organized and mutually profitable way”

Hamilton Tiger-Cats' owner/caretakerBob Young wrote an interesting post on his Tumblr this week (via Jaime Stein) about the CFL and the possibility of the NFL coming to Canada, which is in the news again thanks to the ongoing Bills in Toronto series and the discussions about a potential Jon Bon Jovi/MLSE partnership to buy the Bills and move them to Toronto full-time. Young makes a strong and passionate argument for the value of the CFL, which is something many Canadians would agree with; it's notable that a poll earlier this month suggested even Toronto residents don't want the NFL at the CFL's expense. However, arguments on their own only do so much good without accompanying practical solutions, and the solutions Young advances are particularly interesting. His first proposal is that the CFL needs to convince executives like Postmedia executive (and longtime NFL-in-Toronto lobbyist) Paul Godfrey and corporations like Rogers (which runs the Bills-in-Toronto series) of its value, and while that's certainly a good idea, it's not exactly the easiest thing to do. His second proposal, though, is much more notable and potentially attainable: that the CFL partner with the NFL in some formal fashion:

That plan may raise the hackles of some CFL fans who are fervently anti-NFL at all costs, but there's actually good logic here. A prosperous CFL helps the NFL on several fronts. For one thing, it serves as a player-development system. Players like Cameron Wake, Brandon Browner and Jerrell Freeman have gone from CFL stars to NFL stars, and others like Kory Sheets may follow. There really aren't a lot of alternatives out there for players past college who can't quite crack the NFL initially, as the UFL has folded and the AFL still has plenty of issues in the wake of Arena Football 1's 2009 bankruptcy, and there needs to be something; NFL teams bring 90 guys to camp in the offseason now, but only keep 61 (53 active, eight on the practice roster). A lot of those NFL camp cuts wind up in the CFL, and some of them develop to a point where they're capable of going back to the NFL.

That's a very useful service for the NFL. Keep in mind that the failed NFL Europe was a developmental league as well as a way to expand the league's brand overseas. With it out of the picture, the UFL gone, the AFL facing issues and next to no quality gridiron football elsewhere around the globe, the CFL remains a valuable developmental pipeline for the NFL. The numbers here aren't huge, as it's usually 10 or less CFL players that get NFL shots in any given offseason, but they aren't insignificant either.

Moreover, a healthy CFL serves the NFL on a public relations front, and potentially on a legal front as well. Crushing the CFL would be extremely bad PR for the NFL, as the Canadian league is no threat to the NFL's dominance and doesn't have anywhere near the U.S. league's resources; it also might convince U.S. lawmakers to take another look at the NFL from an antitrust point of view, something that worked very well for NFL players in the last lockout.That's why the NFL has generally been supportive of the CFL over the years, including not raising much of a stink about the CFL's ill-fated American expansion and even giving the CFL a loan during the rough days of the late 1990s. (Both developments are well-chronicled in Ed Willes' End Zones and Border Wars, an excellent book we'll have more on here shortly.) That loan was at least partly negotiated by Roger Goodell, now the NFL commissioner, and he's said in the past that "The CFL is very important to us." Here's what Goodell said about the CFL shortly after the first Bills-in-Toronto game in 2008:

The formal arrangement Goodell is talking about there is a decade-long agreement that involved that loan. The Canadian league repaid the loan, and the two sides continued to have a formal relationship until the CFL pulled out of negotiations on a new agreement in 2008 ahead of the first Bills-in-Toronto game. That made sense at the time, as that series then looked more like a precursor to the Bills inevitably moving to Toronto rather than what it seems to have become since, something forestalling the NFL's permanent encroachment. However, with tensions lower on that front now, and with the NFL focusing its expansion/relocation efforts on London and Los Angeles rather than Toronto, it might make sense for the CFL to go back to a formal relationship with the NFL as Young suggests.

What could that relationship look like, and would it necessarily benefit the CFL? That depends on the terms. A lot of the discussion here is along the same lines as Stephen Brunt's examination of the CFL's potential as a developmental league., and while "developmental" may be seen as a bad word by some CFL-centric fans, it doesn't have to be. Yes, NFL ownership of some or all of the CFL's teams is unlikely to work well, and having CFL teams be direct farm teams for specific NFL teams is an even worse idea, as those developments might detract from the Canadian game. The basic idea of the CFL continuing to exist as a strong and separate league while developing some players for the NFL is not a bad one, though, and negotiation might work well on that front.

How would such a negotiation work? Perhaps the CFL agrees to some things that would help the NFL, such as bringing back the NFL option year in player contracts (probably a good idea anyway) or allowing CFL players who are pending free agents to join NFL teams immediately after the CFL season ends in November instead of waiting until their CFL contract expires in February. Perhaps in return, the NFL promises not to put a permanent team in Canada for a certain number of years. Goodell recognizes the value of the CFL, and CFL commissioner Mark Cohon's a smart guy who not only won't get into a jingoistic war with the NFL (unless that becomes necessary), but also should be able to work out a solid deal with the American league.

Does the CFL necessarily need a formal agreement with the NFL? Of course not. The league hasn't had one since 2008, and it might just be at its highest historical point given the stability and revenue offered by the massive new TV deal with TSN. The CFL is also arguably more important to TSN than it's ever been given the latter's recent loss of national hockey rights, as football (both Canadian and American) will be at the core of the network going forward. Moreover, the NFL isn't particularly threatening at the moment, especially considering that the Bills' Toronto series has gone badly enough that the team's "reevaluating" it. Still, bringing back a formal relationship with the NFL isn't a bad idea, especially if it's on the "organized and mutually profitable" terms Young cites. The CFL and the NFL have plenty in common, and they certainly both have the potential to help each other out. Examining if they can do so along formal lines is worth investigation.