Recently there has been a lot of talk regarding a new CFL franchise in the Atlantic region with Halifax seemingly being given the go-ahead to have a franchise ahead of other candidates like Moncton, but why can’t a place like that have one too? I make this point as Halifax is in a different province than Moncton, with Halifax being in Nova Scotia while Moncton is in News Brunswick, thus there potentially being a market for both. If you live in Moncton you are probably unlikely to go and watch a game in Halifax and vice-versa. The obvious question when approaching a subject like this is whether or not there is a market for it. I believe that there is one, since if you look back at past Atlantic Touchdown games in Moncton one was a sell-out. Moncton has a population of approximately 70,000 which makes it the second largest city within the Maritime Province, putting them 78th in the most populous city list in Canada and a long way behind cities which currently host a team. This could prove a drawback, especially if you compare it to Halifax which seems likely to be the 10th franchise. It currently sits 14th and has a population of over 400,000, so the likelihood of a sell-out increases in that scenario. Moncton may have a low population compared to the other active CFL franchises, but I believe that this still makes them a viable candidate. Just look at Green Bay in the NFL for example who have just over 105,000 population which is slightly better than Moncton and, yet they have an average attendance of 78,092 (ESPN, 2017) for 2017, thus giving them the second highest average behind Dallas. In my view this outlines the potential a place like Moncton could have if they were awarded a team in addition to the Halifax franchise. If Moncton do get a team along with Halifax this would be a massive boost for the CFL as this would create a rivalry which could eventually blossom in the Atlantic region. Moncton also holds an advantage over other potential CFL sites as they already have a stadium meaning they would not have to spend time and money finding a suitable site, however they would be required to improve on their current stadium. For example, they would need to increase the capacity up to the required 25,000 by the CFL as well as undertaking renovation work in the surrounding area in order to improve infrastructure and the ease of access on matchdays. Below I’ve inserted some statistics why Moncton should be considered for a CFL franchise in the future. · In 2014, KMPG ranked Moncton as the lowest cost location for business in Canada (Moncton, 2016). · Moncton is known as the hub of the Maritimes with more than 1.3 million people living within a 2.5-hour drive (Moncton, 2016). · Moncton added more than 25,000 jobs to its workforce since 1990 (Moncton, 2016). The three statistics above show the following; 1) With Moncton being ranked as the lowest cost to setup a business it underlines that the city would be a perfect place to start a profit making CFL franchise, 2) With Moncton being the hub for the region there would be no better place to host a franchise should the league want one in the Atlantic region, 3) By creating a CFL franchise there would be potential job growth as shown in bullet point 3 with more than 25,000 jobs being created in 26 years. In conclusion, I believe Moncton would be a perfect candidate for a CFL franchise in the near future, considering the past success of the Atlantic Touchdown games as well as the future growth the city may continue to experience. Furthermore, 1.3 million people live within a few hours drive of Moncton, making it acceessible toa huge fan base. The city is also styling itself as an entertainment hub, so the addition of a CFL team could attract more fans in the 18-34 range as well as young families.
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You may look at the title of this blog and you may be puzzled, well fear not, let me explain. The initial thought of this piece was provoked by the recent talk of a 10th franchise in Halifax and it got me thinking why can’t anywhere in Canada have a team without needing a set of wealthy investors? I’m of course talking about places which may lack the complete infrastructure in order to put a bid together, such as funding / ability to build a stadium or just lack of capable investors. This could apply to places like Moncton (talked about but seems unlikely) or Windsor, or perhaps unlikely places such as Fort McMurray or St John’s of Newfoundland. I’m not saying all these places should start crowdfunding tomorrow. I’m talking about if you have some Canadian Football fans in an area where they are desperate to bring a CFL team too they could start crowdfunding and see what happens. The great thing about crowdfunding is until the amount is met you don’t have to pay, meaning no commitment from anyone for a while to be honest you will need to raise a lot to fund a team’s operations. These costs will include things like a 25,000-capacity stadium, 55 player roster along with various backroom staff and other costs. One of the appealing things about crowd funding from a league perspective is that it would open up the league to a global audience as anyone in the world could invest. Potentially you could get 50,000 shareholders worldwide which would be great for the CFL and help them target new customers. Crowdfunding a sports team is a fairly new idea, but one which has been tried before. About four years ago Spanish football side (soccer) Eibar now in La Liga, were struggling financially and needed a way to raise cash in order to avoid going out of business. They successfully did so and doubled their revenue in the process to over €1.2 million and today they have over 11,000 shareholders in something like 60 different countries. This just illustrates the power of crowdfunding and why I think it should be under consideration in the CFL in order for fans to achieve dreams of their city hosting a team as well as the ability for the league to expand their international fanbase.
An excellent and enlightening book by Steve O’Brien looking at the entire history of Canadian Football and how it has survived many turbulent times. O’Brien lays out in great detail various decisions by the league which have had both a positive and negative impact on the league such as the brief US expansion in the early 90’s, but have helped shape the CFL to what it is today nevertheless. The book is divided in to chapters each picking up an event or time period which has help shape the league, while the chapters towards the back of the book look more at the Canadian culture. There are quotes from CFL greats like Doug Flutie to add an extra element and personal experience to the book too. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the history and prestige of Canadian Football and the CFL and who wants to learn more. As an English fan of the CFL I would also recommend to international fans who either are keen fans or just have a passing interest in the league as this book acts as a great educational tool which offers great insight. Furthermore, this is one of only a few books which focuses on Canadian Football available (and arguably the best at dissecting the history of CFL), so a rarity too. Overall, fantastic research by O’Brien in order to put this book together and leaves it open for a potential follow up as the league has gone through a number of changes since it’s publication. Whether you’re a die-hard of CFL or just a general fan of Gridiron football this books for you. Although please appreciate that it looks at events as opposed to being full of statistics.
UK: The Canadian Football League: The Phoenix of Professional Sports Leagues (Revised Edition) CAN: The Canadian Football League: The Phoenix of Professional Sports Leagues (Revised Edition) I initially had the thought of doing a type of brand analyse of the CFL or clubs within after being inspired from some work I did during my undergraduate days at Hull University which included applying some of the framework (as seen below) to a Manchester United case study (football / soccer). So now I have decided to apply the framework to the Toronto Argonauts which I thought was particularly interesting after their recent Grey Cup victory coupled with the change in ownership within the last 2 years. First up is the Business model canvas which is used by organisation to show the organisations current business model as well a template for developing new ones. It’s a visual chart which outlines an organisations customers, activities, infrastructure and value proposition. Below is Porter’s 5 Forces model which is a tool which was developed to analyse the various competition facing the organisation from an outside point of view. It’s useful for organisations to use so they can formulate a strategy. External analysis Porter’s 5 forces The SWOT analysis looks at the strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats which face Toronto Argonauts as an organisation. SWOT is a very useful tool to use as points can simply be bullet pointed, yet they can help an organisation carve out a strategy. From my perspective it is useful to layout exactly what an organisation has at its disposal with everything stripped back (strength and weakness), once you’ve done this you begin to see the opportunities to grow while taking into account potential threats. SWOT Internal analysis The VRIO analysis stands for Value, rarity, cost and organisation (ability). This is an excellent tool when examining any organisations internal environment. VRIO The Resource & Capability model assesses the relative strengths of the resources and components through ranking them in a table, then on a chart. It shows what the importance of each resource and capability is and what the current strength of each one is. R&C Model Concluding the brand analysis, it is clear that Toronto have areas where they require improvement in terms of reaching out to the wider international fanbase more as well as growing their fanbase within the city, like improving attendance. However, they have grown their brand since the ownership change and especially over the last year which saw coaching and GM changes. Their recent Grey Cup success will go further to strengthening the Argos brand along with any further success which may follow in the near future.
The post-season may only be a couple of weeks old but it’s already time to look at, or at least talk free agency and what we might expect from it. Each of the nine teams each face a variety of different scenarios in the upcoming free agency with some like the Edmonton Eskimos facing a list bigger than your child’s Christmas list to Santa, while the Hamilton Tiger-Cats have perhaps the easiest job as they only have 17 players in total entering the free agency. Although Hamilton still face other problems with wanting to bring in the right blend of quality to improve for next season whilst trying to keep hold of lead receiver Brandon Banks, which is appearing to be problematic at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Eastern sides Ottawa and Montreal face other problems in terms of the amount of free agent Nationals they may have (12 and 15 respectively), meaning they need to focus on tying up the Canadian depth while bringing in quality needed to improve on this year. Ottawa will need to concentrate their attempts on building up their defense given the amount of points they conceded, while Montreal have a massive task as they need to improve in numerous areas. The other Eastern side and recent Grey Cup champions, Toronto Argonauts arguably have the easiest task going into the free agency where their main aim should be to tie up most of their stars from this year, including quarter-back Ricky Ray, star receivers SJ Green and DeVier Posey and National backs Matt Black and Jermaine Gabriel. The question facing the Argos will be how much of the budget they will be willing spend on retaining the players. Regarding the West, each of the five teams have different scenarios facing them with Edmonton facing potentially the most upheaval with a total of 37 free agents while Winnipeg face the least disruption with only a total of 19 free agents including only just 5 National players. The Blue Bombers free agency will be about tweaking here or there as their core is decent, while their main aim will be strengthening enough in order for them to get past the divisional semi’s. Edmonton will want to tie down their main core of free agents including key offensive players Brandon Zylstra, Derel Walker, Vidal Hazelton. Also, they will want to sign-up some of their Canadian talent which includes 17 players, whilst wanting to attract some talent from the other teams. Meanwhile the BC Lions have seen some changes in the background with Buono focusing solely on coaching duties with Ed Hervey taking on GM duties with his first task most likely being keeping hold of Emmanuel ‘The Manny Show’ Arceneaux. Saskatchewan face a similar issue in trying to re-sign a star receiver of their own with Duron Carter being one of the players of the season. Chris Jones is slowly building the Roughriders up, so I would expect that he’ll try to re-sign the majority in order to keep that cohesion. The other West side Calgary have a big task too with 27 free agents, including 12 Nationals with one being the highly talented and probably sought-after Jerome Messam which I’m sure Dave Dickenson will want to keep. Expect him to reshape in this free agency as he will need to reflect on two straight loses in the Grey Cup and can find a team to bring back success to Calgary. So, who do I think will be the main movers? Brandon Bridge Canadian quarterbacks are rare in the game especially talented ones and Brandon Bridge fits that description. He had some outstanding plays last season when called upon in Saskatchewan and I would expect that to continue, however Bridge will be looking for more exposure as a starter and with Kevin Glenn and Vernon Adams vying for that spot too it may be difficult to nail down. Since his Montreal days, Bridge’s stock has been growing. I think it could be time for him to come back to the East, specifically his native Ontario and test himself with the Toronto Argonauts. However, I believe this move hinges on a number of factor’s, the first one being what would happen to Ricky Ray (who is also a FA) as retirement is talked about but may play on for another year, in which case Bridge could play understudy for one year before taking on the starter role in 2019. The other factor is stability and whether Bridge feels he would benefit more sticking in Saskatchewan or twisting in Toronto. Jeremiah Masoli Another one of the 11 quarterbacks potentially up for grabs, Masoli leaving Hamilton could be fairly likely. Despite playing in the majority of the Ti-Cats games (12/18) in 2017, he is effectively back-up to Zack Collaros, who was injured for parts of last season and is under contract for 2018, so could be pushed back to the bench again. This could become even more apparent if Hamilton bring in Johnny Manziel which seems increasingly more likely as the days go, meaning Masoli would effectively become third choice which is something he would not want. So, the question is where next? Well I think BC Lions may come calling in order to offer support and competition for young starter Jonathon Jennings who had a mixed season in 2017. This move would look more likely too if back-up quarterback Travis Lulay announces his retirement, meaning more chance of game time for Masoli. Diontee Spencer
Impressive over his two years in Toronto and even more so during the last season in Ottawa where he recorded a total of over 900 yards and 6 touchdowns. The main talking point surrounding Spencer is which side of the boarder he might be playing with rumoured NFL interest shown in him. If he did get a move to the NFL this of course would rule the wide-receiver out of free agency, but if he were to stay in the CFL where would he go? I would say he has numerous options as no doubt the Redblacks will want to keep hold of him in their quest to bring the Grey Cup back to the capital in 2018. The only thing stopping him from staying would be salary as he would require an increase given his rising stock in the game. The majority of other CFL sides may be interested with the final decision coming down to stability of the team and how good their QB is. |
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