{"id":416599,"date":"2026-01-18T03:30:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T03:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/416599\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T03:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T03:30:34","slug":"cfl-commissioner-stewart-johnston-bullish-on-expansion-would-love-tenth-team-by-2030","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/416599\/","title":{"rendered":"CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston bullish on expansion, would love tenth team by 2030"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Ted Pritchard\/Rattleboxmultimedia.ca\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Though he denied the CFL has a particular timeline set for expansion, league commissioner Stewart Johnston seems optimistic about reaching an even ten teams by 2030.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to see a tenth team join us by 2030. I think that\u2019s a great date to focus on,\u201d he told the media from the league\u2019s offseason winter meetings on Wednesday. \u201cI think most who\u2019ve been following the league have known that we would love to get to a tenth team. I\u2019m no different.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CFL has been stuck at nine teams since the Ottawa Redblacks hit the field in 2014. There was apparent momentum towards expanding to the Maritimes a few years later, though that momentum ceased during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Randy Ambrosie, Johnston\u2019s predecessor, spoke bullishly at times regarding CFL expansion. In 2023, he claimed there was \u201cvery strong interest\u201d from a potential owner in Halifax<\/a> and there had \u201cprobably never been a better chance\u201d for the league to expand out east.<\/p>\n

As we now know, the league\u2019s efforts to expand into the Maritimes have yet to bear fruit.<\/p>\n

Halifax is currently in the process of finalizing plans to build a permanent stadium at the Wanderers Grounds, a sporting complex that houses the city\u2019s popular Canadian Premier League team. The footprint is too small for a CFL stadium, however, which has led to pushback from city councillor Trish Purdy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seating count, the length and size of the field, it ought to be accessible for CFL if we\u2019re going to do a stadium,\u201d she told Saltwire in August<\/a>. \u201cIf we do a stadium and CFL is not even an option, then to me that\u2019s just wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quebec City is commonly viewed as a site for possible CFL expansion, though Jacques Tanguay, the deep-pocketed president of the U Sports powerhouse Laval Rouge et Or, doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s feasible with the school\u2019s existing infrastructure. He told the Journal de Montr\u00e9al in 2023<\/a> that having a CFL team in Quebec City would be unthinkable without new infrastructure and considerable investment from public coffers.<\/p>\n

The seating at Stade Telus is mostly benches, at least half of which are made of wood. The surface under the seating is crushed rock, not concrete. The venue has lots of positives but would need significant upgrades to house a CFL team.<\/p>\n

Johnston clearly recognizes the challenges surrounding infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cStadium issues continue to be the number one problem to solve,\u201d said Johnston. \u201cI think there are a couple of areas across the country where there\u2019s some opportunity. We certainly continue to receive a significant amount of inbound interest from individuals who are interested in being a part of our league. We\u2019ll continue to have those conversations, and I\u2019ll certainly update you as soon as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CFL has certainly fallen short of its goal of expansion in the past. If this effort ends up being any different, only time will tell \u2014 four years, to be exact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Ted Pritchard\/Rattleboxmultimedia.ca\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Though he denied the CFL has a particular timeline set for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,521,522,520,62411,22551,527,129703,82,84996],"class_list":["post-416599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-commissioner","tag-expansion","tag-football","tag-johnston","tag-sports","tag-stewart-johnston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416599","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=416599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}