Saskatchewan Roughriders<\/a>: celebrating four of the franchise\u2019s five Grey Cup wins, crying as a kid when Tony Gabriel\u2019s late touchdown cost them the 1976 Grey Cup, and sitting stunned in an empty McMahon Stadium after the infamous 13th-man penalty in 2009.<\/p>\nWins and losses still matter, but over time the CFL came to represent something larger to me: a distinct mix of community and belonging. It\u2019s Canada\u2019s oldest surviving national pro sports league still played by its own rules.<\/p>\n
My son is part of that. He\u2019s grown from a little boy clutching his mascot Gainer the Gopher stuffie, to attending games with me, to watching his exuberance as he celebrated with friends on Regina streets after the 2025 Grey Cup win.<\/p>\n
Traveling to other stadiums and enjoying laughs and camaraderie with opposing fans, you appreciate that CFL fanhood isn\u2019t blood sport. You almost feel you are participating in something bigger than the game itself.<\/p>\n
I get that same feeling every home game, the summer and fall ritual of walking, adorned in green, with thousands of other fans. First, it was Taylor Field, the unofficial Holy Grail of Canadian football, and then later the new Mosaic Stadium, decked out with beautiful amenities and nods to Rider history, a welcoming mecca for new and casual fans alike.<\/p>\n
The CFL\u2019s appeal has always been wrapped up in the reality that it is not the NFL. Its aficionados recognize the best calibre of football rests south of the border, but the best game of football is firmly north \u2013 with its larger fields, three downs, unique rules and radically different gameplay. The last two minutes of any CFL game can yield multiple possessions and scores, as compared to kneel downs which sometimes end NFL games.<\/p>\n
It is admittedly often quirky, wild, unpredictable and unabashedly Canadian. Long missed field goals can be run back over 100 yards for touchdowns. Singles, or the rouge, scored for missed field goals or end zone punts, pepper the scoring. The goal posts, currently located at the front of the end zone, become a strategic \u201c13th man\u201d for the offence and defence.<\/p>\n
The CFL has always felt like a wild ballet on grass, compared to the highly manufactured and elaborately promoted precision chess of the NFL game. Whatever the motives, when Stewart Johnston took the commissioner\u2019s chair last year, he took square aim at some of these uniquely Canadian features.<\/p>\n
No. 3: A crossroads<\/p>\n
His moves are not without reason. The CFL may not be dying, but it\u2019s in a state of existential crisis. Not in Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, two well-run and profitable franchises that have captivated their fanbases, but certainly as a country-wide entity.<\/p>\n
Traditionalists resisting the changes and Johnston\u2019s supporters may disagree on the cure, but they agree on the diagnosis: the patient is in trouble.<\/p>\n
Last November, as I spent Saturday evening at the Grey Cup festival in Winnipeg, the signs were visible in the age of the fanbase. Old couples adorned in team colours danced gingerly to bands peddling 80s music. Walkers could be seen, and while in some places the energy was still high, the biggest risk felt like an impromptu coffee party breaking out.<\/p>\n
The CFL is today a niche sporting property. Walk into a sports bar in Toronto or Vancouver, you\u2019ll see the Blue Jays, U.S. college football, a basketball game or even golf on the multitude of screens rather than a CFL game. The sections of empty seats in previous CFL hotbeds like Edmonton and Calgary are another flashing warning sign.<\/p>\n
The CFL has lost a generation of fans as the NFL evolved into the premier sports marketing organization, not only in North America but perhaps the world. The NFL offers endless presence, continuous hype, constant tie-ins to fantasy football and gambling and a massive barrage of content which floods sports channels and social feeds.<\/p>\n
Traditionalists part company with Johnston\u2019s allies on the remedy. To traditionalists, the CFL\u2019s problems are mostly outside the game itself: poor marketing, mediocre broadcasts, awkward scheduling, weak social media and little local visibility.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s evidence that the problems aren\u2019t the on-field product. In 2025, the league reached a two-decade scoring high, with 53.6 points per game in the regular season, as opposed to an average of 46.0 for the NFL. Half the games were decided in the last three minutes, and the playoffs produced incredibly compelling theatre.<\/p>\n
To the owners, the answers mattered more than the questions. Seven of the nine CFL franchises are said to lose money, though because they are privately owned, there\u2019s no proof to see that. After years of struggle, they believed it was no time for timidity or half measures.<\/p>\n
Enter Stewart Johnston, appointed in April 2025, a deliberate departure from the CFL\u2019s past choices for commissioner.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t project the same sort of relaxed everyman and every fan presence, dressed up in a business suit, like Tom Wright or the most popular and successful CFL commissioner of the 21st century, Mark Cohon. But he also doesn\u2019t have the imposing and occasionally brusque authority of his predecessor, former football player Randy Ambrosie, who tried to contain the meddling nature of the board.<\/p>\n
Johnston worked his way up through the ranks of TSN, becoming president in 2010. He was instrumental in adding TSN\u2019s additional streams (TSN3, TSN4 and TSN5). He views the games through the lens of television, an asset in these content-driven days, but to some, he is almost better understood as something else. A football wonk.<\/p>\n
Johnston arrived at a moment when even renewed nationalism and tension with our southern neighbour could not revive the old pitch: support the CFL because it is different, Canadian and ours.<\/p>\n
The owners gave him an urgent mandate for change. His television sensibilities and his penchant for detail came together for one big swing. Getting it done took priority over keeping everyone happy.<\/p>\n
Some say Johnston is exactly the kind of leader a desperate league needs now: smart, unsentimental, fluent in television and comfortable with disruption. He is clear, bold and in the minds of those owners, brave. Brave enough to proclaim the CFL product is a big part of the problem.<\/p>\n
No. 4: Johnston\u2019s announcement<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericanization.\u201d That was the word circulating in CFL circles when it was learned the commissioner planned to make a major announcement about the future of the game barely 150 days into his term.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 22, Johnston took the stage in a dark suit and striped red tie, declaring a \u201cwatershed moment\u201d for the CFL. The CFL had branded the announcement as \u201ctradition meets innovation\u201d \u2014 a corporate-sounding phrase that warned long term fans something big was about to change.<\/p>\n
While not charismatic, the TV man-turned-commissioner spoke with a deliberate, composed tone, occasionally scrunching his features for emphasis.<\/p>\n
He explained that the goal posts obscured scoring plays for viewers, and ticked off a list of 2025 plays. The game\u2019s Canadian oddities \u2014 or \u201cidiosyncrasies,\u201d as he called them \u2014 had been around for a long time, but did not have to remain there forever.<\/p>\n
In 2027, the goalposts would move to the back of the end zone, similar to the NFL. The end zones would shrink from 20 yards to 15. The field itself would be shortened from 110 yards to 100 yards, like the NFL. In 2026, the rouge would be curtailed to balls downed in the physical end zone and the play clock would move to 35 seconds, closer to the NFL\u2019s 40 than the CFL\u2019s current 20.<\/p>\n
Johnston said the changes would increase completed passes by 10 per cent, produce roughly 60 more touchdowns, modernize game presentation and \u201cclean up the canvas\u201d of the CFL game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe status quo is unacceptable,\u201d he said. \u201cWe as a league are going to move at pace. I want urgency on the field and urgency in our business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reporters zoned in on what many fans online, including myself, were thinking \u2014 this looked a like a deliberate move to a more American-style game.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo percentage of these changes were made because of any kind of comparison to the NFL,\u201d Johnston said. When Justin Dunk with 3DownNation asked whether the CFL might eventually consider moving to the NFL\u2019s four downs, Johnston was coy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t offer guarantees,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t say the word never.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps this was executive flexibility. CFL loyalists, however, heard it as a warning shot.<\/p>\n
Many players and commentators were supportive, or at least willing to wait and see. But a PR dilemma happened immediately when the league\u2019s most important Canadian quarterback and its most successful active coach expressed their unhappiness.<\/p>\n
It was almost shocking to hear it from Nathan Rourke, normally known for polite, thoughtful interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew rule changes are garbage,\u201d he said bluntly. But it was something beyond field and rules changes that deeply irked Rourke, who had become an unofficial ambassador for the Canadian game after an unsuccessful stint in the NFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rule changes, to me, make it sound like we want to be that league down south,\u201d Rourke said. \u201cThe CFL game has existed for longer than the NFL, and there\u2019s a reason for that. It\u2019s unique. The fans love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then struck a chord that resounded with much of the football community. \u201cThe worst part,\u201d he said, was that the people with football knowledge \u2014 players, coaches and management \u2014 \u201cwere not consulted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winnipeg Blue Bombers coach Mike O\u2019Shea, a burly man not given to cheap sentiment, stepped up to second his comments. \u201cYou could feel the passion coming right through the TV,\u201d he told 680 CJOB. \u201cI\u2019m a purist. I like the game the way it is. It\u2019s exciting, it\u2019s stood the test of time. There\u2019s things about our game that are so unique, that make it so special.\u201d<\/p>\n
The league underestimated that for many, a Canadian football field represents more than just markings. The vanishing 55-yard line that denotes centre field was shorthand for Canada. The goalposts aren\u2019t just some unnecessary clutter on TV. The rouge is not just a scoring \u201cquirk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Traditional fans who love the game carry decades of memory, meaning and national pride. The field change was also a culture change.<\/p>\n
The announcement clearly left a feeling the league wasn\u2019t interested in bringing its wider football community along. Instead, it was a project built largely in isolation and unveiled as a finished product. One club president acknowledged that the changes had been developed by a board subcommittee operating under confidentiality.<\/p>\n
What was done was one thing. How it was communicated was quite another.<\/p>\n
The league did not release the data behind its 60-touchdown projection. There was no visible market research, no transparent fan consultation, and no obvious effort to prepare the broader Canadian football ecosystem \u2014 minor football, junior football, U Sports, coaches, officials, facilities and communities \u2014 for the practical implications of changing the field beneath them.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s 27 university football programs, many facing their own financial pressures, were left to assess whether they would have to adapt their fields for 2027 \u2014 a cost estimated in some cases at $800,000 to $1 million. Tom Sterling, a former McMaster player and host of the \u201cAt the 55\u201d podcast, called it \u201ca huge burden\u201d and suggested costs could reach $2 million at some facilities.<\/p>\n
This is without even broaching the minor, high school and junior football programs across Canada. It seems probable that they will stay with the existing field dimensions. Is creating two sets of rules desirable?<\/p>\n
It was more than just asking to accept Johnston\u2019s new \u201ccanvas.\u201d It was asking everyone else in Canadian football to deal with their own, at their own expense, and after the decision had already been made.<\/p>\n
No. 5: How companies behave<\/p>\n
A few days after Pinball\u2019s presentation, I am walking on a brighter, more springlike day. Training camps are underway, and in other years I would be scouring reports on new prospects, injuries and depth-chart battles, full of optimism for the season ahead. Instead, I am stuck in my own head, still trying to understand the changes \u2014 and the top-down way they were unloaded on everyone.<\/p>\n
I am well removed from the 17 years I spent in executive roles for two companies. I do not spend much time dwelling on the boardroom machinations I saw and participated in. But I recognize the pattern.<\/p>\n
Companies make unsentimental decisions for reasons of logic, cost containment or financial self-preservation. People or projects, it sometimes did not matter.<\/p>\n
Companies in crisis go to a different level. If they believe they are right and must move fast, consultation looks like delay, dissent like obstruction and past loyalty like history. Authority gets vested in one person. In this case, that\u2019s Johnston.<\/p>\n
I initially saw the CFL\u2019s changes as random and unpredictable. But they now look more like a deliberate pattern of corporate disruption \u2014 an attempt to reset the playing field, to use the obvious sporting analogy. And if the CFL was willing to go after the identity of the game, it was not a big step to radically change the meaning of the season itself.<\/p>\n
No. 6: The CFL\u2019s new playoff system<\/p>\n
The next step came in late April when Johnston announced that beginning in 2027, eight of the CFL\u2019s nine teams \u2014 89 per cent of the league \u2014 would qualify for the playoffs. For other pro leagues like the NFL or MLB, the percentage is half or less.<\/p>\n
The new playoff system is a Frankenstein hybrid of the Page playoff format used by Canadian curling with the play-in system popularized by the NBA and college basketball. The CFL went from an easily understood playoff system that put a high premium on regular-season finish, to a complex and convoluted system.<\/p>\n
Reaction online was rapid. The league was adding four more playoff games, a potential financial and ratings bonanza quickly endorsed by the CFL Players Association.<\/p>\n
But the optics of watering down the regular season, and the potential nightmare scenario of allowing teams with two to four wins making the playoffs, was quickly attacked. In one widely-spread and bracing meme, Oprah Winfrey, famous for once having a promotion where everyone in her live audience got a car, is seen with arms wide open exclaiming \u201ceverybody gets a playoff spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playoff games bring in money. But season tickets bring in even more. Fans buy them knowing there are real stakes in most games. But regular-season games in the new system are less important. If you have a poor, low performing team, getting a virtual automatic bye to the playoffs won\u2019t make you want to attend an October game anyway.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen how many existing season ticket holders will want to be part of Johnston\u2019s latest disruptive tactic.<\/p>\n
The CBC contacted the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, which tried a similar gambit, allowing 10 of 12 teams to make the playoffs between 2004-05 and 2018-19 before moving on. Then-president Bill Chow said he didn\u2019t \u201cthink anyone ever believed\u201d in the SJHL\u2019s system, which included a play-in wildcard.<\/p>\n
The SJHL\u2019s current president Kyle McIntyre, also a big football fan, brought his perspective to the debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if people understood what the big picture was, if the commissioner came out and said, \u2018This is all about economics, this is about making all our teams viable, this is about making our league viable,\u2019 I think it would be more palatable,\u201d he told CBC.<\/p>\n
No. 7: Betting on the future<\/p>\n
However, telling fans explicitly that it\u2019s all about the money is a surefire communications loser.<\/p>\n
Fan attachment to a brand, a team, or a league is much more complicated than that. It\u2019s familiarity, joy, excitement, disappointment, ritual, memory and social experience all wrapped together. Johnston and the owners may be pushing against one key boundary of that attachment \u2014 tradition \u2014 but they are clearly delivering change.<\/p>\n
Johnston scored a big revenue win in June when the league unveiled a new six-year deal with TSN and DAZN, with a reported value of $500 million. The deal itself surfaced the tension between the existing fan base, who will have to pay more to watch every CFL game, and the new ones these moves are meant to attract.<\/p>\n
While the CFL has never made it clear, we can assume the lowest-hanging fruit are existing NFL fans. They are younger, avid, and already immersed in fantasy football, gambling, social media content and the endless churn of football conversation. They will now be exposed to a CFL game that, strategically and tactically, looks more like the football they prefer.<\/p>\n
Some will tune in, and a smaller portion may even stay. But there is likely no big enchilada there. The CFL will never replicate the compelling spectacle and relentless content machine that keeps the NFL ecosystem humming. And making the CFL more familiar to NFL fans may not make it more appealing. It may simply make the comparison easier \u2014 a comparison the CFL is unlikely to win.<\/p>\n
There are also plenty of NFL purists \u2014 and, yes, NFL snobs \u2014 who view Canadian football as inferior, minor league and not worth their time. People in Toronto are not going to show up in droves because the goalposts are at the back of the end zone at BMO Field.<\/p>\n
As for existing fans, the younger and casual fans may be the best bet for acceptance. They watch for the experience, not necessarily the Xs and Os or the niceties of strategy. But even there, without a much more sustained investment in marketing, social media, gambling tie-ins, local visibility and improved game presentation, it\u2019s hard to draw a straight line from rule changes to meaningful new revenue.<\/p>\n
And then there are the traditionalists.<\/p>\n
Nobody knows how large this group really is, but from those I know, they have a larger financial investment in the league \u2014 buying tickets, merchandise, Grey Cup trips and television packages, and following the league closely. Many are older, retired, and they have both money and time.<\/p>\n
Some are taking a wait-and-see attitude, believing the league will walk back the changes if they do not work. Others are angry and outraged. They see Johnston as a remote corporate suit who does not understand or care about what made the league special. Some are cancelling season tickets and vowing never to come back.<\/p>\n
And I belong to a third group. Call us disappointed and disengaged.<\/p>\n
We believe the CFL went about this completely the wrong way \u2014 without sufficient research, without persuasive data, and without meaningful consultation with the stakeholders who might have helped the league find a third way: lasting change without the monumental disruption coming in 2027.<\/p>\n
Coming off a Roughriders Grey Cup victory, I do not feel the same passion and engagement. I am asking myself hard questions. Am I confusing my own memories with the league\u2019s future? Am I asking a struggling league to honour my nostalgia at the expense of its survival?<\/p>\n
If the CFL had made a persuasive case \u2014 with research, testing, consultation and a clear explanation of who these changes are meant to attract \u2014 I might have felt differently.<\/p>\n
I feel ambivalent about renewing my season tickets for the 2027 regular season, where the new playoff format risks making too many games feel like seeding exercises rather than meaningful contests. Maybe someone will even drag me to a playoff seeding game, something that feels completely artificial to me right now.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the least likely outcome is the CFL suddenly imploding.<\/p>\n
If the changes work, the league may grow its modest business and manage to replace me and my cohort of older fans. It may carve out a new niche in a crowded sports ecosystem. I would be happy knowing there is a Grey Cup in 2050 and beyond, even if I am not there to see it.<\/p>\n
But the true nightmare scenario is more gradual erosion. It is fans feeling a little less engaged, then a little less obligated, then a little less in love. It is the CFL sacrificing its cultural differences and quirks in pursuit of money, only to become a minor, inferior league not just in calibre, but in people\u2019s hearts and minds.<\/p>\n
Stewart Johnston will tell you that is not going to happen. In announcing the playoff format changes, Johnston echoed the familiar line that people will get over it.<\/p>\n
But in that, he is making a dangerous calculation with the future of the league at stake.<\/p>\n
Anger might not turn to acceptance. It may instead migrate to apathy.<\/p>\n
Ron Podbielski is a former communications executive and has been a Saskatchewan Roughriders<\/a> season ticket holder since 1988.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 1: Pinball On an unseasonably cold, blustery night in early May in Regina, the stage of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,947,89647,178645,11139,514,4400,82,84996],"class_list":["post-739562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-cfl-commissioner","tag-cfl-game","tag-michael-clemons","tag-nathan-rourke","tag-nfl","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-sports","tag-stewart-johnston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739562","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=739562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}