Coming changes to some of the long-standing traditions of the Canadian Football League – most notably the reduction of the length of the playing field and end zones – have triggered plenty of discussion since the CFL’s recent announcement.
Purists have not embraced the changes that will see the field length reduced in length to 100 yards from 110 yards, starting with the 2027 season. The end zones are also being whittled down to 15 yards from 20 yards and goal posts are to be relocated from the goal line to the back of the end zones.
A much broader diatribe could be written about how these changes de-Canadianize the game, but the goal here is to look at how the coming field changes will impact existing college, high school and youth football fields throughout the country.
Changes at the professional level tend to have a trickle-down effect in which the college, high school and youth levels will inevitably have to comply. This is true in almost all sports. So, if the CFL is to change the dimensions of its playing fields, college teams must eventually follow suit so that players with a future at the pro level become accustomed to the shorter field sizes. Elite high school football players eyeing advancement to collegiate play will need their secondary school years to prepare for the shorter dimensions on university fields. Naturally, it will all start at the youth level.
This brings up the question: What does this mean for all the artificial turf football fields that have been installed in recent years in municipalities, at high schools and on college campuses?
These fields have been constructed to current CFL standards – 110 yards long and with goal posts placed at the goal line. With few exceptions, the yard lines and corresponding numbers are sewn into the field. Like tattoos, they are permanent.
Does this mean the municipalities and school boards that own these fields will have to tear them apart and stitch in new markings so that they correspond with the CFL’s whims? If so, they’re going to be saddled with a significant expense.
Municipalities and school boards currently contemplating the installation of an artificial turf football field may be taking a wait-and-see approach before making any kind of commitment. One must wonder if the CFL’s looming field changes are carved in stone for the long term or if the league might one day revert to what Canadians have long accepted as the standard. Stadium attendance and television viewership will likely have some bearing on whether these changes stick.
The CFL field changes will have little impact on municipalities and school boards that have natural grass fields where all markings are simply painted in place. Their biggest challenge will be to reposition the goal posts, and that throws another potential wrench into things. Many high school sports fields double as venues for both football and soccer with soccer goal posts and football uprights designed as a single apparatus. Moving those to the far reaches of the football end zones creates a larger playing surface for soccer. Perhaps that isn’t a major concern, but one sport ends up impacting another.
Whether it’s folklore or fact, the story goes that U.S. football fields were once 110 yards long, but Yale University couldn’t accommodate such dimensions within its limited space and thus played on a field measuring 100 yards. Other schools opted to reduce the size of their fields in accordance with Yale, and that served as the birth of the 100-yard field which continues to be the standard in the United States.
Maybe that will soon become the standard in Canada as well.