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CFL, Hamilton look to move Hall of Fame, but plan deserves thorough scrutiny

CFL, Hamilton look to move Hall of Fame, but plan deserves thorough scrutiny

On a lot of levels, the plan drawn up by the CFL, the City of Hamilton and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and Museum's governance committee for the future of the Hall makes substantial sense. As Scott Radley wrote last year, the current situation (the Hall residing in its downtown Hamilton location) is untenable for the long term. The proposal that's been fronted has many points in its favour; it would see the most essential part of the current Hall (the busts of inductees) transplanted to a new "studio" in the Ticats' home of Tim Hortons Field where it would hopefully draw more attention, it would transfer fiscal responsibility for the Hall solely to the league, and it would potentially enable more fans from across the country to view some of the Hall's impressive artifacts, as hundreds of the artifacts currently in the main museum would be freed up for travelling exhibitions. It's not surprising that the league, city staff and the governance committee all seem to be in support of this; it looks like a generally-strong plan, it has significant benefits for all of them, and continuing the status quo indefinitely isn't really an option. However, there are some questions about this plan that still need to be answered, and there are some potential drawbacks to it.

One of the more concerning changes here is the apparent decision to completely split up the busts and the artifacts. If the Hall was merely moving to Tim Hortons Field in its present or close-to-present form, it would be hard to object to that, but the league's release only says they plan to "feature the centerpiece of the Hall of Fame, the member busts of the inductees to a modern new fan accessible “studio” at Tim Horton’s Field [sic]." Putting the Hall at the Ticats' stadium makes a lot of sense, and should help get many more people interested in it. However, while the busts of inductees may be the Hall's most popular attraction, separating them from the historical artifacts of the game is concerning. The Hall is valuable because it reflects the incredible history of Canadian football, which is about much more than just star players and executives. This plan as described would seem to almost eliminate the museum part of the Hall, at least at a fixed location in Hamilton that's easy for visitors to check out.

Could some element of the museum experience beyond the busts be preserved at Tim Hortons Field? Possibly. It's notable that many stadiums around North America and the world include Halls of Fame and museums, including B.C. Place (the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame and Museum), Lambeau Field (the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame), Yankee Stadium (the New York Yankees Museum), and Old Trafford (the Manchester United Museum); all of those have dedicated significant space to museum-style exhibits. Of course, it may be more difficult to do that at Tim Hortons Field considering that it's already been built, and perhaps a small "studio" that can only hold the busts is all that's possible. That alone would probably still be worth doing; at the least, it would get the busts out in front of more people. If there's any way to have some of the historical artifacts on regular display there too, though, that would be much better; it would keep the centralized museum part of the Hall's legacy intact, it would present some context as well as just busts of great players, and it would help keep Canadian football's profile up there with other Canadian halls of fame and museums (such as the hockey one).

Beyond that, the idea of making more artifacts available for touring exhibitions sounds good at first. Sure, it would be fantastic to see some of the material in the Hall of Fame displayed before fans in Regina, Edmonton and other CFL cities (and beyond). The key question here is how regular these exhibitions will be, though. The CFHOF has done plenty of these before, but there haven't been a lot of highly-publicized ones recently. Perhaps that changes with more CFL involvement; maybe the league decides that putting on travelling exhibits to get its history in front of its fans is something worth spending money on. The key question here should be if there will be more or less overall public access to these artifacts following the move, though. If this helps get the CFL's history to more fans, awesome. If it means that the league's artifacts are kept in hidden storage apart from special occasions, that's not as great.

Speaking of access, there are questions of just how accessible the Hall's memorabilia will be in a location like Tim Hortons Field when it's not a Tiger-Cats home game. Keep in mind that the team only plays nine regular-season home games a year, plus one preseason one and at most three playoff games (divisional semi-final, divisional final, Grey Cup). If the Hall display would only be viewable on Ticats' game days, that's at most 14 days every year.

Even that might still get the Hall's busts in front of more fans. Radley wrote in 2014 that the CFHOF's only seen a maximum of 1,600 visitors annually in the last five years (with just an average of 2.9 per day in 2013), and it's quite possible to see that potentially topped in just a couple of game days, as Tim Hortons Field can hold 24,000 fans. Still, anything that can be done to make the Hall visitable in the offseason would be a good step. This is the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, not a Ticats' enterprise, and it should be accessible to fans as much as possible year-round, not just on Hamilton game days.

Also on the access front, the release talks about putting a Hall of Fame display in the press box to feature members of the media wing. That's a good idea, and it would have a lot of value for media members. Still, care should be taken to do this in a way that average fans can examine the media wing displays as well. Segregating off the media wing and preventing fans from viewing it would diminish the value of that honour, and cover up some of the most interesting parts of the CFL's history.

A final, but vital, potential change to consider here is what could happen to the selection process. The release notes that this plan would "assign the responsibility for future operation of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame to the CFL, including member selection." Perhaps that doesn't need to sound ominous; it's quite possible that the league could decide that the current excellent selection committee and process still serves its purposes. However, if the CFL decides that it wants to make significant changes to that committee and/or process, that might be more problematic, especially if the league tries to push out media members. The Hall of Fame only keeps its status as an incredible honour if the induction process is credible and rigorous, and some independence from the league offices is necessary for that.

It's possible that all of these concerns have already been discussed and addressed in the more detailed plans, which the league and the city presented to Hamilton city council Tuesday night. If so, this will all be much ado about nothing. It's also notable that the plan overall has many strong points, and it could be a huge step forward to ensuring the future of the Hall of Fame; the current situation just doesn't work in the long run, and the Tim Hortons Field proposal would be still better than the status quo on a number of fronts even if all the above concerns weren't solved. The information the league has released so far leaves a lot of questions to be asked, though. This plan seems likely to go through, and that will likely be a good thing overall, but the details here need to be discussed in order to make the Hall of Fame the best it can be.