The CFL Does Not Warrant Special Protection

Did you know, as the National Post attests in its editorial, that the Canadian Football League is superior to the National Football League? It must be because the size of the ball used is slightly wider, because the size of each squad is larger, because the playing surface is different. It cannot be because the skill of its players is comparable. CFL salaries have been unable to compete with NFL salaries since the 1980s, and every CFL player who gets a shot south of the border takes it. I do not know any CFL player personally, and even the moldiest benchwarmer is ten times the athlete I ever was, but let us not confuse the issue with this chest-pounding boosterism. You see, CFL advocates want it both ways: the CFL is both the superior product and the minority enterprise that requires protection. If it was truly better, it would need no protection. The interest of fans would carry the day.

There are many reasons to follow sports played below the level of top-tier, elite professional enterprises. You can spend an exhilarating Friday night watching the Lethbridge Hurricanes play the Calgary Hitmen, but that does not mean that we need to require the Calgary Flames to pull out of the Saddledome for the good of "Southern Albertan culture." Lower division soccer teams in England have their loyal fans, but all these teams aspire to promotion to the Premiership, and no one sees a match between Reading and Swansea as anything other than an undercard. As a child, I was a big fan of "semi-pro" senior hockey in Newfoundland.

So what is it about the Canadian Football League that requires its supporters to disparage another, more entertaining enterprise based south of the border? If, as the CFL commissioner claims, the Grey Cup is a symbol of national unity, what have they to fear? We cannot change the title music of a hockey broadcast in this country without huge cries raised across the land, so is the very possibility of a NFL team in Canada much of a threat in the face of genuinely, spontaneously nationalistic loyalty? Do we really need a politician like Larry Campbell threatening a law to keep the NFL out of Canada? Need I fear a fine or imprisonment simply because I would rather watch the most dreadful game between Oakland and Cleveland than a pitched battle between Toronto and Hamilton?

I am so tired of being a pariah because I follow the National Football League. I have to listen to insults about my game from people who are terrified by the thought that the Buffalo Bills, a franchise that struggles perpetually, might play a game or two in Toronto over the next few years. Our Senate, with all the crises facing us, feels the need to occupy itself with Canadian football on the off-chance that Toronto will outpace Los Angeles in attracting a NFL franchise. If, as CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon suggests, a threat to his game is the beginning of the end of Canadian culture, I suggest we power down and hand the keys over now. All hail our new overlords, all spikes and four downs!

Okay, okay. That is drastic. I will instead try to ignore the stupidity and the waste of this annual debate. God bless the CFL, but I await the beginning of NFL training camps. And I long for the day that the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who watch NFL football on Sundays warrant the kind of respect that would bestow on them a team of their own – if the marketplace, open and fair, will bear its weight.