The Love Affair Is Over
Why I'm Done With The Canadian Football League
If you shopped at a store that sold you damaged goods and then refused to take the product back, you likely wouldn't shop there again. Well, as customers, we have that right. And no matter what terms or labels you want to put on it, sports fans are exactly that: customers. You can call them fans, supporters or whatnot. But in the end, the root term is customer.
Now, as a lifelong customer of the Canadian Football League, I've been shopping at it's Edmonton Eskimos location for 25 years at least. Well, my father paid the way for the first 10 years, but you get my meaning. I've always preferred the Canadian game to the American one, even though I am also a customer of the NFL. Three down football on a longer and wider field with an extra player was just always more entertaining for me. As a customer, I felt that my money was well spent. But in recent years, some things have changed.
The CFL has, for at least 20 years now, been a league that has struggled to make ends meet. They've always had at least one store that was close to failing. But the other locations would bail it out. A true corporate effort, if you will. But that spirit has been lost among the different franchises, who cannot agree on the direction the corporation should take on any issue. The league has grown considerably in recent years in terms of fan support and television ratings. The head office has done a better job under recent commissioners of marketing the league and getting corporate sponsorships. But why, then, has the actual product on store shelves continued to decline in terms of quality?
The ever fighting and greedy CFL Board of Governors refuses to empower the league's commissioner, instead preferring that the commish be the de facto head of marketing and not much more. Those same governors fight it out over the financial structure of the league. They agree on a salary management system then several of them blatantly cheat and refuse league auditors access to their books. Others cheat and will gladly pay the penalty. They have the cash or draft picks and don't care. Meanwhile the players continue their steady stream back to the USA to play in smaller but more financially stable leagues like the Arena Football League, which pay better. Or they just get real jobs back home, which also pay better. Quite frankly, the CFL can't manage itself to save its life. All this affects the product on store shelves.
The quality of player in the CFL has dimishished considerably. Expanding leagues like the NHL have an excuse: more teams equals more players equals a watering down. The CFL has no such excuse. The explanation is poor management in every sense of the word. Low salary expectations have driven many players away. Right now Ricky Ray may be the best quarterback in the league, but the man has no deep ball, and cannot read a defensive secondary. This is the best? Not everybody is going to be Warren Moon or Doug Flutie, but I think we can expect at least a few Holloway or Austin calibre players. Ricky Ray isn't that, I'm afraid. The fact that he, or perhaps Henry Burris, is the best right now shows how bad the talent level in the CFL has gotten.
The league now makes more money than ever before, yet still doesn't have a full-time crew of officials. They haven't invested in referees who are employees of the league full-time, and who are properly funded and expected to keep to a high standard. Employees who train, and hone their skills. This just isn't the case. The referees in the CFL are some of the worst in professional sports anywhere in the world. Not only do they affect the outcomes of games in a negative way, but they negatively affect the entertainment value. Ruining Sean Fleming's last field goal at Commonwealth after a long and storied career via a non existant holding call was just the latest example of how embarrassingly bad it has gotten. And to rub salt in the wound, the league's head of officiating, Mr. Black simply insults fans by saying that there is no problem at all.
So where's the incentive for me, as the customer, to continue to shop at the CFL? And in particular, where is the incentive to shop at their Edmonton location, a store that used to be the envy of the whole corporation, but is now one of the worst run stores of them all? Quite frankly, it will take some serious changes at the league level to bring me back. The sincere promise of a better product league wide, not just at my local store. The Eskimos ridding themselves of Danny Maciocia and getting some better marketing people would be postive steps, but that only affects one store out of eight. Edmonton running things better doesn't mean that underpaid players will stop abandoning the league. It doesn't mean that officiating will improve. It doesn't mean that the league will take the proper steps to improve the product in meaningful, long term ways. If the league took those steps and asked me as a customer to be patient while the store underwent renovations, I could see myself continuing to give them my business. But none of that is happening. There is no real investment in officiating. There is no empowering of the commissioner. There is no decent pay for players who aren't top-end quarterbacks. So, where's the incentive for me, the customer?
The answer is, of course, that there is none. And until there is, I'm done shopping there.
If you shopped at a store that sold you damaged goods and then refused to take the product back, you likely wouldn't shop there again. Well, as customers, we have that right. And no matter what terms or labels you want to put on it, sports fans are exactly that: customers. You can call them fans, supporters or whatnot. But in the end, the root term is customer.
Now, as a lifelong customer of the Canadian Football League, I've been shopping at it's Edmonton Eskimos location for 25 years at least. Well, my father paid the way for the first 10 years, but you get my meaning. I've always preferred the Canadian game to the American one, even though I am also a customer of the NFL. Three down football on a longer and wider field with an extra player was just always more entertaining for me. As a customer, I felt that my money was well spent. But in recent years, some things have changed.
The CFL has, for at least 20 years now, been a league that has struggled to make ends meet. They've always had at least one store that was close to failing. But the other locations would bail it out. A true corporate effort, if you will. But that spirit has been lost among the different franchises, who cannot agree on the direction the corporation should take on any issue. The league has grown considerably in recent years in terms of fan support and television ratings. The head office has done a better job under recent commissioners of marketing the league and getting corporate sponsorships. But why, then, has the actual product on store shelves continued to decline in terms of quality?
The ever fighting and greedy CFL Board of Governors refuses to empower the league's commissioner, instead preferring that the commish be the de facto head of marketing and not much more. Those same governors fight it out over the financial structure of the league. They agree on a salary management system then several of them blatantly cheat and refuse league auditors access to their books. Others cheat and will gladly pay the penalty. They have the cash or draft picks and don't care. Meanwhile the players continue their steady stream back to the USA to play in smaller but more financially stable leagues like the Arena Football League, which pay better. Or they just get real jobs back home, which also pay better. Quite frankly, the CFL can't manage itself to save its life. All this affects the product on store shelves.
The quality of player in the CFL has dimishished considerably. Expanding leagues like the NHL have an excuse: more teams equals more players equals a watering down. The CFL has no such excuse. The explanation is poor management in every sense of the word. Low salary expectations have driven many players away. Right now Ricky Ray may be the best quarterback in the league, but the man has no deep ball, and cannot read a defensive secondary. This is the best? Not everybody is going to be Warren Moon or Doug Flutie, but I think we can expect at least a few Holloway or Austin calibre players. Ricky Ray isn't that, I'm afraid. The fact that he, or perhaps Henry Burris, is the best right now shows how bad the talent level in the CFL has gotten.
The league now makes more money than ever before, yet still doesn't have a full-time crew of officials. They haven't invested in referees who are employees of the league full-time, and who are properly funded and expected to keep to a high standard. Employees who train, and hone their skills. This just isn't the case. The referees in the CFL are some of the worst in professional sports anywhere in the world. Not only do they affect the outcomes of games in a negative way, but they negatively affect the entertainment value. Ruining Sean Fleming's last field goal at Commonwealth after a long and storied career via a non existant holding call was just the latest example of how embarrassingly bad it has gotten. And to rub salt in the wound, the league's head of officiating, Mr. Black simply insults fans by saying that there is no problem at all.
So where's the incentive for me, as the customer, to continue to shop at the CFL? And in particular, where is the incentive to shop at their Edmonton location, a store that used to be the envy of the whole corporation, but is now one of the worst run stores of them all? Quite frankly, it will take some serious changes at the league level to bring me back. The sincere promise of a better product league wide, not just at my local store. The Eskimos ridding themselves of Danny Maciocia and getting some better marketing people would be postive steps, but that only affects one store out of eight. Edmonton running things better doesn't mean that underpaid players will stop abandoning the league. It doesn't mean that officiating will improve. It doesn't mean that the league will take the proper steps to improve the product in meaningful, long term ways. If the league took those steps and asked me as a customer to be patient while the store underwent renovations, I could see myself continuing to give them my business. But none of that is happening. There is no real investment in officiating. There is no empowering of the commissioner. There is no decent pay for players who aren't top-end quarterbacks. So, where's the incentive for me, the customer?
The answer is, of course, that there is none. And until there is, I'm done shopping there.
posted by Deathsdoorstep at
8:17 a.m.
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