Brockleigh -> RE: Okay... FINALLY... (6/18/2006 4:14:59 PM)
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I myself wouldn't mind seeing the CFL expand south again, but only if: a) The number of viable Canadian Cities has been exhausted, and b) The US cities chosen are close enough that they could receive a CBC television signal or have a Candian Channel on their cable package. Starting with b, if the candidate city is at least familiar with CFL football through CBC or TSN broadcasts, then they have a knowledge base installed. The spectators are familiar with the game, and the crowds generated will be actual Canadian Football fans, as opposed to being strictly out of curiosity. Under no circumstances should the CFL expand further south than the first line of states adjacent to the Candian border. That would lead to the 1995 disaster. Then a), according to the 2001 Census, Regina is the smallest CFL market with a metropolitan population of 192,800. Saskatoon (225,927) is actually larger than Regina, so they could quite conceivably host a CFL team. Once you get outside of the football-mad praries, and toss out the cities that are too close to existing CFL teams (Oshawa is too close to Toronto, St. Catharines and Kitchener are too close to Hamilton, Victoria is too close to Vancouver) and would only compete with and erode from an existing team's fan base, you'd need a city with a population of about 300,000 to reasonable be able to support CFL football. According to the Census, that would leave: Halifax (359,183) London (432,451, and could also draw from Kitchener's 414,284) Quebec City (682,757) and Windsor (307,877 and you'd probably have a number crossing the border from Detroit's 911,402) So, maybe an additional five teams to go with the existing (and I include Ottawa in 'existing') nine. a Fourteen team league would work quite well. Now it would just mean finding an additional six owners (and now I include Ottawa in this number) deep-pocketed, Canadian-Football-passionate Bob Young/Howard Sokolowski/David Cynammon types that could pony up the dough for an expansion team, and not caring about losing money on the venture... ... and Canada's richest man just died... I wonder if his heirs like Football.
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