{"id":283110,"date":"2025-11-14T18:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T18:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283110\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T18:45:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T18:45:12","slug":"united-states-expansion-not-objective-for-cfl-stewart-johnston-wants-canadian-tenth-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283110\/","title":{"rendered":"United States expansion not objective for CFL, Stewart Johnston wants Canadian tenth team"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Thomas Skrlj\/CFL.ca<\/p>\n

After CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston announced rule changes to be implemented in 2026 and 2027, speculation ran rampant that it could lead to expansion into the United States. However, he claims that was not a motivation behind the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not our objective,\u201d Johnston said during his State of the League address. \u201cWhen it comes to expansion, I\u2019ve often been asked that question. While it\u2019s not a top priority \u2014 I\u2019ve outlined what my three top priorities in the league office are \u2014 of course, it\u2019s incredibly important. We would love to have a 10th team in this league, but when I say 10th team, I mean a Canadian 10th team. That is our focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the three-down league is not looking to put teams south of the border, there are some long-talked-about markets in Canada where franchises might work. Johnston said he has fielded \u201cinbound calls\u201d over his seven months as commish from interested owners with the financial means to be able to operate a CFL team, noting there have been conversations in a number of different markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur strategy, as it relates to expansion, whether it\u2019s the East Coast, whether it\u2019s Quebec City that\u2019s been talked about a lot, or anywhere else in Canada, is to be pulled into a market,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want that interested group that\u2019s going to have the financial wherewithal, the political connections, and the infrastructure plan to pull us into a community because they\u2019ve done the work. We give them a lot of background in order to do so. Those conversations are happening across the country, I\u2019m looking forward to seeing where they go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quebec City has been viewed by many pundits as an ideal place for a CFL expansion team. Telus Stadium can seat 12,750 people with additional standing room taking the capacity up to at least 20,000. Laval University\u2019s football program has nurtured a large fan base in the city, as the Rouge et Or have won 12 Vanier Cups since entering U Sports football in 1996.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no doubt Quebec City is an incredible football market. You see what they\u2019ve done with Rouge et Or; they have a fan base there for the game of football, which is impressive. It\u2019s a great population base. I\u2019m excited about that as one of the potentials for expansion,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n

Rouge et Or president Jacques Tanguay has said publicly in the past he does not believe there\u2019s proper infrastructure in Quebec City for a CFL\u00a0 team, but he did acknowledge it\u2019s a project that could perhaps happen one day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Thomas Skrlj\/CFL.ca After CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston announced rule changes to be implemented in 2026 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-283110","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\/283110","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=283110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}