![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/media-cdn.socastsrm.com\/application\/theme\/images\/loaders\/indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\n\u201cThe best way that we thought to do it next year was to put it in Hamilton and Winnipeg and in Saskatchewan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Vancouver and Toronto will combine to host 13 World Cup matches. Toronto\u2019s BMO Field will stage six, including Canada\u2019s first-ever World Cup game on home soil on June 12.<\/p>\n
Seven games will be played at Vancouver\u2019s B.C. Place Stadium, including Canada\u2019s group matches on June 18 and 24. The first contest at the venue is slated for July 13 with Vancouver also hosting knockout stage games July 2 (round of 32) and July 7 (round of 16).<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, the World Cup takes over the venues for its games 30 days before the first match at that stadium.<\/p>\n
The full 2026 CFL schedule is scheduled to be released during the off-season. The 2025 campaign ends with the Grey Cup on Nov. 16 at Princess Auto Stadium.<\/p>\n
Last month\u2019s announcement that Toronto would play only six true home games in 2026 drew the ire of Argos fans, but Pelley defended the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to host a game with 5,000 or 7,000 fans. That was predominantly why we made the decision,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know we could\u2019ve probably easily have gotten 7,000 or 10,000 at a game but we didn\u2019t want to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t think that was great for the brand.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were suggestions that Toronto might\u2019ve been able to open next season at the University of Guelph, where it stages its training camp. In 2013, Hamilton played all of its home games there while then Tim Hortons Field \u2014 now Hamilton Stadium \u2014 was being built.<\/p>\n
Pelley said MLSE looked at the option of expanding Alumni Stadium for home games next season, as well as other potential venues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did all that research, we did all that analysis and we looked at it very, very closely,\u201d he said. \u201cWe thought the best thing for the Argos brand long-term was to do exactly what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Canadian Football League (was) 1,000 per cent behind it, so I think we made the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelley said whatever funds are generated from the games in Hamilton, Winnipeg and Regina will go back to enhancing the six contests at BMO Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re taking the extra marketing money that we have for the games that have moved on and we\u2019ll put those into the six games to try to make those as big as we possibly can next year,\u201d Pelley said. \u201cThen we\u2019ll come back the following year hopefully even bigger and stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2025.<\/p>\n
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe best way that we thought to do it next year was to put it in Hamilton and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-132758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}