{"id":492503,"date":"2026-02-22T18:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/492503\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T18:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T18:25:09","slug":"you-know-where-to-find-me-mike-morreale-would-be-interested-in-cfl-head-office-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/492503\/","title":{"rendered":"‘You know where to find me’: Mike Morreale would be interested in CFL head office job"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Canadian Elite Basketball League<\/p>\n

Former CFL receiver and seasoned sports executive Mike Morreale would welcome the opportunity to work in the league office if he were offered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say without a doubt. It is what got me to where I am today, and I owe everything to it. I would commit myself to whatever it took to ensure that the CFL is around forever, as long as I live. If the opportunity presented itself, ideally,\u201d Morreale told Bubba O\u2019Neil on CHCH\u2018s Sportsline podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody\u2019s offering, I\u2019m here. You know where to find me. Of course, I have a vested interest in the game, because I love it, and I know I could contribute in some way, but that would have to be a situation that just appeared when it appears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morreale has a wealth of experience in sports administration<\/a>. Following his retirement from the CFL, he served as director of marketing for the Canadian Football League Players\u2019 Association from 2007 until 2012. He was voted in as CFLPA president that year, holding the title until 2014.<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old branched out from football in 2017, co-founding the Canadian Elite Basketball League and serving as its commissioner. Morreale oversaw the growth of the CEBL into the top domestic league in the sport, garnering media deals with TSN, Next Level Sports in the United States, Fox Sports Australia, TapGo in the Philippines, SingTel in Singapore, and Astro in Malaysia. He formally stepped down from his role in October 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given his success with the CEBL, Morreale\u2019s name was floated by some as a potential replacement for Randy Ambrosie as CFL commissioner when the job became available last year. That never materialized, and the board of governors elected to hire former TSN executive Stewart Johnston for the position.<\/p>\n

While some of Johnston\u2019s decisions regarding rule changes<\/a> have since made that hiring controversial amongst fans, Morreale believes the league appointed the right man.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say, they\u2019re led well. Stew Johnston was an excellent choice for many reasons,\u201d
he said. \u201cI have such a different view now, having lived so many parts of sport, certainly domestic sport, that I understand when decisions are made, whether people like them or not, they\u2019re made for a reason. We may not know the exact reason \u2014 leagues have their own things to deal with independently. But sometimes change is inevitable, and whether you agree with it or not, it\u2019s the role of the commissioner and the board and the ownership group to ensure that, in this case, football is around for as long as it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morreale played 12 seasons in the CFL as a member of the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, recording 509 catches for 6,649 yards and 24 touchdowns. He was named the league\u2019s Most Outstanding Canadian in 1998 and won two Grey Cups.<\/p>\n

Despite his deep ties to the Canadian game, the McMaster product does not seem to be a CFL traditionalist when it comes to the structural changes that will be implemented by Johnston over the next two years<\/a>. In particular, he believes the altered play clock could help bring the broadcast product closer to that of the NFL, offering more enriching and engaging storytelling opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the replays, look at the commentary, look at the time between plays and where you can tell stories and when you can get into more details. The CFL never had access to that because it\u2019s just so quick, which also made it really cool,\u201d Morreale mused.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you balance the fact that the CFL is a game of speed and wide open and all this stuff, and at the same time want to be able to demonstrate that and show the content and tell the stories? It\u2019s hard to do it in the 20-second space. 35 seconds, maybe it offers you more. I like the idea of keeping it normal, the way it usually is, in the last three minutes, because that defines CFL football.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always an angle, and if you peel back the layers, you can kind of see why. I don\u2019t know why. I wasn\u2019t part of those meetings; nobody asked me. But I do understand, having lived experience, why people would take some of those decisions and run with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day, Morreale hopes that he can be in those meetings and give back to the league that launched his career. In the meantime, he\u2019ll continue to be a fervent supporter of Canadian sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cCEBL, CFL, PWHL, NSL, CPL \u2014 good Canadian domestic sports leagues, profitable leagues that can stand on their own two feet, are good for the whole community,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s good for this country.\u00a0 I wish them all a lot of success.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Canadian Elite Basketball League Former CFL receiver and seasoned sports executive Mike Morreale would welcome the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,521,522,197702,520,62411,527,3801,2002,197703,82,84996,43334,167300],"class_list":{"0":"post-492503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-3down","9":"tag-3downnation","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-canadian","13":"tag-canadian-football-league","14":"tag-canadianfootballleague","15":"tag-cebl","16":"tag-cfl","17":"tag-commissioner","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-hamilton","20":"tag-league","21":"tag-mike-morreale","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-stewart-johnston","24":"tag-ticats","25":"tag-tiger-cats"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492503","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=492503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}