Jul 02 2008
Canadians Are Hypocrites
So let me get this straight.
Canada is more than happy to participate in just about every major American sports league there is. Baseball? Sure, come on up to Toronto. Basketball? No problem. We’re happy to launch the Raptors and Grizzlies north of the border. Soccer? Hey, we’d love to have Toronto FC in MLS. Look at our crazy fans! Let’s do this in Montreal, too! We love this stuff!
But when the NFL starts making a move into Canada, suddenly, those American interlopers are trying to destroy our Canadian culture! Newspapers are up in arms! Politicians cry out that we must look out for the good for the country! PR people are producing videos like this:
Yeah! This is our league! Keep your league out of our borders, you 100-yard heathens!
You know what? I don’t see you Canadians rushing to pull all your hockey teams out of the NHL and forming your own uniquely Canadian hockey league. I don’t see you trying to build on the success of Toronto FC, the Montreal Impact and the Vancouver Whitecaps and building your own uniquely Canadian soccer league. All you have is a tri-cities championship and an association that can’t pull its head out of its arse. You’re not rushing to kick the Raptors out of Toronto, either, are you?
But no, 3-down, 110-yard football is such a vital part of your heritage, isn’t it? What would we ever do without the Grey Cup?
You’d watch the NFL, that’s what. It’s the same reason so many soccer fans who enjoy the Premier League and EURO 2008 can’t seem to get into MLS games. People want to see the best players play at the highest level, and for the gridiron game, those players aren’t in Canada. They’re in the NFL. That’s why CFL expansion into America failed in the 1990s. We don’t want minor league football in this country, and that’s what most people think the CFL is. The best CFL players almost always move south to the NFL. Most of those players played college football in the USA, anyway. It’s not like they’re switching from rugby union to rugby league or something.
Hey, here’s an idea — why don’t you dump all those Burnside Rules and go back to playing rugby union? That was your gift to America back in 1874, wasn’t it? Then Thrift Burnside came along and took some ideas from Walter Camp, and 100 years later, it constitutes Canadian culture. How fitting.
Here’s another idea — if you’re so worried about the survival of the CFL, Canada, why don’t you go round up some mounties and have them surround the Rogers Centre so that the Buffalo Bills won’t be able to get inside to play there? It won’t happen, Canada, and you know why? Canadian fans want to see the best football players in the world, too. Plus, you’re too chickenshit to build your own national leagues in other major sports. If an NFL team in Toronto destroys the CFL, then maybe the CFL isn’t good enough to stand on its own, eh?
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I can see the CFL’s point. They have their own unique brand of football, they’ve had it for longer than we’ve had the NFL, and they don’t want the NFL treading on their turf. I always figured this kind of backlash would happen as soon as the NFL started looking at Toronto or Vancouver.
My thought is, let Canada have their CFL. This a unique situation not like the other major sports — the NFL and CFL grew up separately as the premier football leagues of their respective counties, whereas the NHL was always a U.S./Canadian hybrid, and Canada never had any top-tier basketball or baseball teams, so it’s not that big of a deal to slot in a Canadian team or two in the MLB or NBA. (Yeah, yeah, or the MLS. I couldn’t care less about soccer.)
I don’t think it matters to Canadians which league has the better players — the point is that the CFL is theirs, just like the video says, and they’re trying to protect their way of doing things from the NFL interlopers. If the Bills can’t survive in Buffalo, there are other places for them to go besides Toronto. You know the NFL is still dying for a team in L.A.
I wonder if this whole Bills-in-Toronto thing is the reason the CFL has made it so hard to view games here in the States this year. It was never easy, but with the new TSN deal in place, it’s nearly impossible now, unless you’re lucky enough to have some obscure network called America One, or if your ISP provides access to ESPN360 (mine doesn’t). It’s ironic — this Saturday, I can turn on Setanta Sports and watch the All Blacks playing live, halfway around the world … but I can’t see a gridiron game just north of my own country’s border.
That’s the part of this whole recoil (if that’s what’s going on) that I think could backfire on the CFL. Share your product with Americans. Show them why you think your sport is special and worth preserving. I love watching CFL games. I’ll bet a lot of Americans would, if they just got a decent chance to tune in.
Anyway, Toronto has been the Argos’ town since the 1870s. Leave it alone, NFL.
Dave,
Much as it pains me to agree with Canadians or with the CFL fans (especially since I don’t like the CFL for trying to poach TFC’s BMO Field), I’m going to go with them on this one. This is not a comparable situation with other sports. Canadian gridiron is a different code of football than American gridiron, and if the NFL picks off the top Canadian markets like Toronto by moving or expanding there, that effectively kills off the Canadian gridiron code as a meaningful competition.
Think about it from a Canadian fan’s p.o.v.: Toronto Argonauts are the oldest continuously functioning football club in North America (est. 1873) in any code, and probably one of the oldest sports clubs in North America in any sport, certainly the oldest professional sports club still operating under their original name (some amateur clubs like NYAC are older) in North America.
Why should anyone be happy about this 135+ of history coming to an end, just so the fat cats in the NFL can “expand their footprint/market their brand more widely” and earn a few hundred million more bucks? Why? I understand the NFL’s POV ($$$$$) but from a fan’s perspective, if you care about the history and the tradition, it’s not good thing.
Could the Argos survive with an NFL team playing in Toronto? Maybe, but I have my doubts. CFL in eastern Canada has been on shaky ground for decades (losing and recreating franchises in Montreal and Ottawa). An NFL team in Toronto could drain the CFL’s market in eastern Canada entirely, and if it does that that’s the end of the CFL. The Canadian code is stronger in western Canada, but I doubt it would survive as a five team league.
Who knows, maybe the pressure from the NFL will cause the CFL to rally and reinvent itself and survive in some new form (probably with another attempt to expand into the USA) but I understand the “protectionist” reaction to the NFL.
Not having an international governing body and being nothing more than a money making enterprise, though, it’s rather late now for the two gridiron football codes to start regulating themselves along national lines. They are at the mercy of the money men. Doesn’t mean the fans can’t register their displeasure at what may be about to happen, though.
I also don’t care for the “it’s better so more people will watch it” argument. This is pure Eurosnobbery (in the soccer context). These people aren’t fans, they’re bandwagon jumpers (some may actually appreciate all of the technical differences but I’ll wager they are the minority in regards to NFL/CFL). The whole point of that CFL video was “this, this is ours”. Why is that point so hard to grasp?
American College football is hardly comparable to NFL in quality, but fans watch it because it’s theirs. Lower division football clubs in England and all over the world have their legions of fans, not because of the quality of football, but because it is THEIRS and no one else’s. MLS and USL soccer clubs in this country are slowly building up their own comparable fan culture, without which no professional sport can survive long term. “Because it’s ours, dammit” is a powerful feeling and trumps a lot of the intellectually more sound, but emotionally hollow arguments.
Do those millions of Canadian fans who will watch NFL but won’t watch CFL really understand the technical aspects of the game that make NFL superior to CFL, or are they simply bandwagon jumpers who are attracted to the greater publicity, glamor, glitz, and $$$ that the NFL has? Would we ever see these people sitting in a snow covered stadium somewhere in Canada just because they want to watch their team play? Would the NFL even be considering Toronto if they didn’t already have a domed stadium there?
Bandwagon jumpers come and go. Real fans are what keep the game going year after year. I’ll side with the real fans over the posers and bandwagon jumpers on this one, even if the economics of the game are not on my side of the argument.
Dave: Yeah, as a USL fan, I see why the whole “This is ours” argument holds some water. I have my doubts, though, that sports fans in Toronto would choose the Argos over the Bills, history be damned. That city seems more than happy to host teams from American sports leagues.
Perhaps the real question is whether the NFL would allow the CFL crash and burn. Jeff Garcia and Doug Flutie might have something to say about that.
oldest teams in major league baseball…
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ALL THE BEST PLAYERS IN THE nfl?
Ricky Williams was a bust, (not mobile enough for our speed league)so was Oontario smith -cut in train ing camp-BEAT OUT BY SPEEDY CHrles Roberts)
Dexter Manley-was too slow, cut in training camp, David Boston ,Andre Rison,JIM zORN , ALL BUSTS..
THE nfl HAS THE JERRY Rices, AND lADAININAN TOMLINSON…fair enough, but not every team has a player of that calibre. RockeT Ismail is a case in point. Everyu body knows he was just an average reciever with some speed , but he got 1,000 yards with the Cowboys..
NFL lineman are too big and slow to play here,,,and by the way Kenton Keith says there is no difference in the hitting between the leagues, and he had more yards/per/carry than Joseph ADDAI
I certainly think that the NFL has general athletes in general, but they are different codes, and I like each league on its own merits. That said, I will actually watch a whole CFL game but get bored very quickly with NFL ones.
I think it’s also important to note that the difference in “quality” is a recent development. If it weren’t for television revenues the differences would still exist i’m sure, but be much smaller.
The 2008 Super bowl had 71000 people in attendance, the 2008 Grey Cup had 68000 people in attendance, the interest is there.
And on a sidenote (and the real purpose behind this post) is this video.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=1iALRIgKnBQ
It’s a recap of the 1971 Grey Cup with a hilarious announcer and funk music. Plus I think the quality of football is very good.
The CFL still retains a lot of that run and gun style of play, clearly not on the same level of course. Where NFL quarterbacks are “better” today, hitting incredible rates of pass completions, but 5 yard checkdowns are boring.
I think my points are all over the place. Final point: Canadians like the CFL still, and there are reasons for it. Even beyond “it’s ours”.
I forgot to mention. I think the biggest problem the CFL faces is coaching. The teams have been recycling the same guys for years and if you looks at the success the Montreal and Calgary coaches had this year (after working in the American system) I think that many of the systems just need to be updated and have some innovation.