It’s a program with a catchy title co-hosted by a pair of unlikely partners, but the results have been good so far for the Future of Football concept.
A partnership formed during the 2025 season between the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts and NFL’s Buffalo Bills, the goal being to preach the gospel of the sport to the youth of the GTA. The collaboration was met with a healthy amount of public skepticism, but the steps taken to date have been positive ones.
The latest result of the alliance was a free flag football camp for girls, held after a similar co-ed camp which ran a month earlier. It helps the Bills increase their reach into the Toronto area, while strengthening the Argo brand for the next generation of fans, who by their attendance show they already have an interest in the sport.
The Argos are benefitting from the clout the NFL carries in this market.
“The partnership has opened up people’s awareness that we’re running these programs,” said Alison Foster, coordinator of sport development at MLSE. “I think the cool thing about the partnership for us is just being able to run more events to reach more kids and then have them want to come to events in the future and keep coming back and learning more and being more involved in the sport, turning them into fans of the Argos, the Bills, and football in general.”
It’s truly the grassroots, hand-on approach needed to cultivate the next generation of fans and expose them to the Argos, perhaps for the first time.
Roughly 80 young female athletes attended a pair of free sessions held recently at The Hangar, an indoor facility near Downsview airport and the TFC training ground. One was for girls 10-13, the other for 14–17-year-olds. There were several coaches on hand to run drills, including Argos Lirim Hajrullahu and Jack Cassar, as well as former Bills safety Aaron Williams.
It was obvious this wasn’t the first time the girls had received coaching.
“It was really cool to see how many of them were skilled and have clearly been playing flag,” Foster told Argonauts.ca. “I noticed that they all had gloves on and had clearly been playing and knew the drills. We try to do scrimmages, but it can be hard sometimes when kids have never played before, so being able to run scrimmages with a bunch of girls who knew the rules and were excited about the game was super fun, and it was cool to see how athletic and skilled those girls were.”
The camps have been successful, and Foster and her team are hoping their next Future of Football programs will be equally well received.
“We’re running our first flag football summer camp in July, which will be a week-long camp,” she explained. “We’re still working out the details of when registration is going to launch, but we’re excited that this partnership is allowing us to not just do one-day clinics, but a whole week. Doing the week-long programming allows more development of skill and learning. It’s kind of a quick hit when you come in for a three-hour clinic, but getting to be with the kids for a full week and building that skill and relationships is going to be really fun.”
Along with the Bills alliance, the Argos will continue running their own clinics, both for players and coaches. The team’s open house for coaches has been a big success in the past, allowing amateur coaches to shadow the Argo staff for a day, watching them at practice, then heading back to the meeting rooms to sit in on the classroom sessions with Argo coaches and players.
The date for this year’s clinic is yet to be determined, and more promotions featuring the Argos/Bills Future of Football collaboration will be announced closer to the beginning of the CFL season.
For more information on upcoming flag football events, or to learn more about what Foster’s group is all about, visit argosdevelopment.com.