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Plan to move up the CFL season is gaining traction, but it has drawbacks as well as benefits

CFL commissioner Mark Cohon has said the time is right to talk about moving the season up. (Liam Richards/The Canadian Press.)
CFL commissioner Mark Cohon has said the time is right to talk about moving the season up. (Liam Richards/The Canadian Press.)

This weekend's divisionalsemifinals featured cold weather and low attendance (15,107 in Montreal, 26,237 in Edmonton, both the lowest totals for those teams this year), and that's spurred even more discussion than normal about moving the start of the CFL season up. That discussion's percolated a bit over the last few years, but it got a new injection of life with Edmonton Eskimos' president Len Rhodes and Calgary Stampeders' president Gordon Norrie teaming up to try and convince the league to start the season earlier  (which happened even before the semifinals' poor attendance). Their request, which proposes moving the season ahead by approximately two weeks starting in 2016, will be discussed at a meeting of the CFL Management Council from Dec. 10-11 in Las Vegas, but outgoing commissioner Mark Cohon said the idea's time may have come. ViaTerry Jones of The Edmonton Sun:

“It came up last year at Saskatchewan. Saturday at the Grey Cup, if you remember, it was minus 35. I was down in the parade. So I felt it,” said the out-going Commissioner who will present the Grey Cup for the final time Sunday in Vancouver.

“I think the important thing about this is that you now have the opportunity to think about these sort of things. “This year, at the start of our season, we were really having to focus on our labour negotiations. We were focusing on launching TSN with our new agreement. “In terms of long term, this will now be on the agenda and these are the types of things the Commissioner and the presidents and the board of governors need to talk about,” he said of his replacement.

“If you move the season up a few weeks it could address some of the cold-weather issues. “We’d obviously have to deal with TSN and work with them in partnership with that. “But I think these are the type of conversations we should have moving forward.

Cohon added that cold weather isn't the only factor driving low playoff attendance, but it can be a detrimental force, especially in an era where the TV product is so compelling:

[O]bviously cold weather does have an effect when you have your 70-inch high definition TVs and your man and lady caves, too, and people want to stay home.

“We have to make sure the environment is right for people to come out to the stadium as well.”

Cohon's not wrong there, and neither are Rhodes or Norrie (whose teams, along with Winnipeg, may be more adversely affected by cold weather than anyone else). Cold weather's certainly something that may be contributing to low attendance late in the season and in the playoffs. The question is how much difference two weeks will make, though. In Calgary's case in particular, Snow Bowl III and Matt Walter's comment of "I have never seen worse conditions" happened Nov. 1 this year, which would be the week of the semifinal playoff games under the new system. The Stampeders' previous Snow Bowl took place October 20, 2012. Thus, you're certainly not avoiding winter weather entirely by moving the season up a couple of weeks. You're limiting your exposure to it, and hopefully winding up with more home games in warmer temperatures, but the idea of moving the season up fixing things for the playoffs isn't necessarily accurate. Holding divisional semifinals on the first weekend of November rather than the third weekend may be slightly warmer (or it may not), but it's still unlikely to be balmy anywhere in Canada then.

There are some notable perils to moving the season up by any length of time, too. The most significant comes from the NHL. The Stanley Cup playoffs are incredibly popular in Canada, and the finals draw massive attention and viewership regardless of which teams are involved. Those finals ended on Friday, June 13 this year, at the same time as the CFL's second preseason game and two weeks minus a day before the CFL regular season started on Thursday, June 26. 2013 was unusual thanks to a lockout that delayed the NHL season, but those finals wrapped on June 24; 2012 ended June 11 and 2011 ended June 15. Thus, moving the CFL season up by two weeks would likely lead to at least some overlap with the end of the NHL playoffs.

Sure, that overlap might only be for a regular-season game or two in terms of direct competition for TV ratings and people deciding to stay home and watch the NHL instead of going to a CFL game. (It would hurt the CFL preseason significantly, but the preseason already has its issues, and attendance there isn't that important.) Overlap for a regular-season game or two problematic in its own right, though, and it could see the CFL season getting off to a slow start in terms of fan interest. The media side might be even more concerning, however. Under the current setup, there's enough of a break between the end of the hockey playoffs and the start of the actual CFL season that most Canadian outlets shift their focus and do big CFL season previews. It seems unlikely that would happen in such depth if the CFL season is starting while hockey's still on.

Is that a problem? It definitely could be. Yes, the CFL overlaps with the NHL late in the football season and does okay, but apart from the hubbub over the start of hockey season, that's the NHL at its weakest (early-season games really don't mean much in an 82-game schedule) and the CFL at its regular-season strongest (most games have playoff implications). Going up against the NHL at the height of its popularity (the end of the playoffs) would be more challenging. Moreover, many people like following the CFL from the start and may be less inclined to jump in after hockey's done if the season's already going (diminished media coverage may play a factor there).

There are football operations concerns too, including the lateness of the NFL draft now, the CFL's need to draft after the NFL, and the short time that would exist between the CFL draft and training camp under this plan. One anonymous coach or executive told Kirk Penton of The Winnipeg Sun in his "The Insiders" segment Wednesday (which doesn't seem to be online, but was in the CFL press clippings digest) that "I don't want the season moved up at all. Our draft is already late, and the NFL is talking about May drafts from now on." That's a valid concern, and one that should be discussed.

There's also the history and uniqueness angle to consider. Many of this league's most memorable Grey Cups (the Snow Bowl, the Ice Bowl, the Fog Bowl, the Mud Bowl) all took place in late November, and the incredible weather was a good deal of what made them stand out. The elements can play a huge role in Canadian football, and that's not a bad thing; weather games can help attract viewers, too. Moving the season up wouldn't eliminate the possibility of weather games, but it would reduce it; while that carries some positives on the attendance side, it might diminish the ratings and make for less really memorable games.

With all that said, this plan should still be discussed. It's worth having the conversation about what benefits there would be from moving the CFL season up two weeks (or even more; some have suggested a month). It's just also worth mentioning that there are some substantial possible drawbacks to this plan, and that's why this discussion hasn't gotten too far before. This isn't a uniformly positive plan. If the benefits outweigh the costs, fine, but this should be a decision made after full analysis of the pros and cons of moving the season up, and consideration of other options to improve playoff attendance (cheaper tickets? tickets included in season-ticket packages? improved in-stadium atmosphere and amenities? improved pre-game tailgating?). This idea is worth consideration, but it's not a uniformly-positive slam dunk, and other alternatives might wind up working out better.