Cfl Vs Nfl

On Sept. 2, 2003, the Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats played each other in a matchup that was unofficially called the 'Bankruptcy Bowl.'

The official source of CFL news, opinion, video highlights, schedules, scores, stats, game day coverage and more. The official source for NFL news, video highlights, fantasy football, game-day coverage, schedules, stats, scores and more. So historically, there are three mergers that I know something about - the AAFC with the NFL in 1950, the AFL with the NFL in 1970, and the WHA with the NHL in 1980. I don't really know much about basketball or baseball, but there have been merger.

Both teams had been taken over by the Canadian Football League after their owners failed to pay bills. The news didn't come as a surprise to fans of the teams or the league, as there had always been a fine line between making a small profit and losing money.

But things have changed thanks to a reported $40 million (Canadian dollars) per year TV deal with TSN that started in 2014 and runs through 2021. Split among the league's nine teams, it's a C$4.4 million per year infusion in a sport that has a C$5.1 million team salary cap for 56 players.

A strong businessman, Bob Young, bought the Tiger-Cats. He was motivated in part by the death of his brother, a huge fan of the team.

'When I went to buy the team, there were throngs of people and reporters who wanted to talk to me,' Young said. 'I've run $100 million businesses and I would beg to have this many people waiting for me.'

It's a far cry from NFL teams, which draw at least two times the in-stadium audience, pull in more than 13 times the sponsorship money (about $40 million per team), have 38 times the cap space ($155 million) and take in more than 70 times the television revenue ($250 million).

'We don't have $1 billion teams, and that means we're on our own a bit more; we have to be more entrepreneurial and innovative,' Young said. 'We really are nine different businesses.'

Young said the difference between the position the league was in a decade ago and now is night and day. His staff has gone from 10 to 50 and revenues are up five times. Two-thirds of the league's teams are playing in new stadiums, including the Tiger-Cats, whose venue is sponsored by Tim Hortons, the massive Canadian coffee and donut brand.

Financial restraint through the collective bargaining agreement is what guarantees the league's future.

Aside from the cap, the league's minimum salary is C$52,000 and, unlike the NFL, which has different minimums for years accrued in the league, it does not exclude veterans. And unlike the NFL, in which teams charter flights, CFL players stay in a city after a game and board planes with common folk.

Three teams that are publicly owned give us a rough idea of the financials. For their last reported year in revenue, the Winnipeg, Edmonton and Saskatchewan teams earned profits of between $1.56 million and $4.4 million.

Of the 24 starters on the field (the league plays 12 a side), seven must be Canadians, which means teams pay more for good Canadian players.

Toronto Argonauts offensive lineman Josh Bourke, for example, makes C$230,000 as a Canadian, whereas a star running back from the U.S. could be paid as little as C$65,000.

That's Canadian dollars, which equals $51,000 if a player brings that money back to the States.

The devaluing of the loonie, a coin worth one Canadian dollar, relative to the American dollar hasn't hurt the league because all teams are located in Canada, and American players haven't left the league because of it.

'Those guys still want to make money playing football,' said CFL super-agent Darren Gill, who represents roughly 13 percent of the league's talent. 'What has changed is that because of the conversion, guys seem more willing to live in Canada rather than go back to the States.'

Second jobs are also fairly common for the players. Spending the offseason in the oil business can make players an extra C$10,000 per month. Others get jumps on their next career, knowing that their CFL salary will never make them independently wealthy.

Getting a call from the NFL is always a dream, but elite CFL players often don't get the chance.

Eyes will be on Eric Rogers, the league's leading wide receiver last year who had 13 NFL offers and eventually signed with the San Francisco 49ers. The most recent poster child for the Canadian call-up has been Cameron Wake, who played on the BC Lions for a couple of years before being signed by the Miami Dolphins and emerging as a Pro Bowl defensive end.

American interest in the game, Gill believes, will continue to be driven by fans who want to see their favorite college stars play. With the CFL on ESPN for another year -- the CFL's regular season began Thursday -- the league also is more accessible than it has been in the past.

CFL vs. NFL

Football, not to be confused with Soccer, which is called football in the rest of the world outside of North America, is played in both Canada and the United States. You are probably familiar with the differences between the two versions of football - the three downs vs. four downs, 110 yard field vs 100 yard field, the single point (rouge) etc. For the most part, the two versions of Football don't intersect. Canadian teams play in Canada using Canadian rules, and American teams play in the Unites States using American rules. But every now and then over the years, the two solitudes do meet. This article is a (probably incomplete!) attempt to chronicle some of those meetings.

The myth, or at least the Canadian version goes that it was Canada that introduced the United States to football at the university level. The story goes that a team of McGill football players went down to Harvard in 1874 to play a game on May 14 against the Ivy League school. Apon arrival, the two universities found out they were not using the same rules, and the story goes on to say that they played one game under Canadian rules and one half under American rules. It is all kind of vague as to what the differences in rules actually were. One account I have read about the game is that it was not so uch a difference in rules, but a difference in games. To Harvard, the word Football mean the game with the black and white round ball that you can't pick up with your hands. To McGill, the word Football meant Rugby, the game with the ovoid ball that you could pick up with your hands and run with it until someone gave you a good smashing. The story goes on to say that Harvard so liked the Canadian game of Football (Rugby), that they adopted it and it spread to the other Ivy League schools and eventually to universities across the United States. Over time, rugby in North America morphed into the modern game of Football. That morphing process happened just a bit differently in the United States and Canada and resulted in the tow similar but distinctly differnt flavours of Football.

The Canadian account doesn't seem to jive with what those at Harvard remember. Harvard claims to be the starting point for football in the United States, citing the 1874 game against McGill. Ivy League rivals Princeton and Rutgers claim they played the first game of football in 1869. They also cite the formation of the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1873 which included Yale, Princeton, Rutgers and Columbia but not Harvard who declined to join. Harvard contends that what the other Ivy League schools were playing was really soccer.

Leaving behind that first mythical game(s) between Canadian and American teams, the interaction between the two versions of football has taken three forms:

• Two American / NFL teams playing games in Canada. A recent example of this being the the Buffalo Bills playing games in Toronto. This isn't much of an interaction at all as the only thing Canadian about the game are the fans.
• Two Canadian / CFL teams playing games in the United States. Of course, this happened most recently with the CFL expansion into the United States, but there are other games that predate that experiment. This is a bit more fun than the first kind of interaction, as at least you get to see the confused looks on the American faces as they try to figure out why a team is punting on third down.
• Canadian / CFL teams playing American / NFL teams. This is is probably the most interesting of the possibilities since some accomodation has to be made for the difference in rules.

Three teams that are publicly owned give us a rough idea of the financials. For their last reported year in revenue, the Winnipeg, Edmonton and Saskatchewan teams earned profits of between $1.56 million and $4.4 million.

Of the 24 starters on the field (the league plays 12 a side), seven must be Canadians, which means teams pay more for good Canadian players.

Toronto Argonauts offensive lineman Josh Bourke, for example, makes C$230,000 as a Canadian, whereas a star running back from the U.S. could be paid as little as C$65,000.

That's Canadian dollars, which equals $51,000 if a player brings that money back to the States.

The devaluing of the loonie, a coin worth one Canadian dollar, relative to the American dollar hasn't hurt the league because all teams are located in Canada, and American players haven't left the league because of it.

'Those guys still want to make money playing football,' said CFL super-agent Darren Gill, who represents roughly 13 percent of the league's talent. 'What has changed is that because of the conversion, guys seem more willing to live in Canada rather than go back to the States.'

Second jobs are also fairly common for the players. Spending the offseason in the oil business can make players an extra C$10,000 per month. Others get jumps on their next career, knowing that their CFL salary will never make them independently wealthy.

Getting a call from the NFL is always a dream, but elite CFL players often don't get the chance.

Eyes will be on Eric Rogers, the league's leading wide receiver last year who had 13 NFL offers and eventually signed with the San Francisco 49ers. The most recent poster child for the Canadian call-up has been Cameron Wake, who played on the BC Lions for a couple of years before being signed by the Miami Dolphins and emerging as a Pro Bowl defensive end.

American interest in the game, Gill believes, will continue to be driven by fans who want to see their favorite college stars play. With the CFL on ESPN for another year -- the CFL's regular season began Thursday -- the league also is more accessible than it has been in the past.

CFL vs. NFL

Football, not to be confused with Soccer, which is called football in the rest of the world outside of North America, is played in both Canada and the United States. You are probably familiar with the differences between the two versions of football - the three downs vs. four downs, 110 yard field vs 100 yard field, the single point (rouge) etc. For the most part, the two versions of Football don't intersect. Canadian teams play in Canada using Canadian rules, and American teams play in the Unites States using American rules. But every now and then over the years, the two solitudes do meet. This article is a (probably incomplete!) attempt to chronicle some of those meetings.

The myth, or at least the Canadian version goes that it was Canada that introduced the United States to football at the university level. The story goes that a team of McGill football players went down to Harvard in 1874 to play a game on May 14 against the Ivy League school. Apon arrival, the two universities found out they were not using the same rules, and the story goes on to say that they played one game under Canadian rules and one half under American rules. It is all kind of vague as to what the differences in rules actually were. One account I have read about the game is that it was not so uch a difference in rules, but a difference in games. To Harvard, the word Football mean the game with the black and white round ball that you can't pick up with your hands. To McGill, the word Football meant Rugby, the game with the ovoid ball that you could pick up with your hands and run with it until someone gave you a good smashing. The story goes on to say that Harvard so liked the Canadian game of Football (Rugby), that they adopted it and it spread to the other Ivy League schools and eventually to universities across the United States. Over time, rugby in North America morphed into the modern game of Football. That morphing process happened just a bit differently in the United States and Canada and resulted in the tow similar but distinctly differnt flavours of Football.

The Canadian account doesn't seem to jive with what those at Harvard remember. Harvard claims to be the starting point for football in the United States, citing the 1874 game against McGill. Ivy League rivals Princeton and Rutgers claim they played the first game of football in 1869. They also cite the formation of the Intercollegiate Football Association in 1873 which included Yale, Princeton, Rutgers and Columbia but not Harvard who declined to join. Harvard contends that what the other Ivy League schools were playing was really soccer.

Leaving behind that first mythical game(s) between Canadian and American teams, the interaction between the two versions of football has taken three forms:

• Two American / NFL teams playing games in Canada. A recent example of this being the the Buffalo Bills playing games in Toronto. This isn't much of an interaction at all as the only thing Canadian about the game are the fans.
• Two Canadian / CFL teams playing games in the United States. Of course, this happened most recently with the CFL expansion into the United States, but there are other games that predate that experiment. This is a bit more fun than the first kind of interaction, as at least you get to see the confused looks on the American faces as they try to figure out why a team is punting on third down.
• Canadian / CFL teams playing American / NFL teams. This is is probably the most interesting of the possibilities since some accomodation has to be made for the difference in rules.

The following is a picture of a plaque in the Profession Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio that lists some (but not all) of these games.

The plaque, however, is not complete. The earlies (?) case of two Canadian teams playing a game using Canadian rules in the United States happened on December 11, 1909 when the Hamilton Tigers and the Ottawa Rough Riders played a game in New York.

Another account of the game is found in the New York Herald on December 12, 1909.

The game would have resembled rugby more than modern football as teams prior to 1921 played 14 men on a side and the forward pass didn't become part of the game until 1929. You might also be wondering about the name of the Hamilton team. Hamilton didn't adop the name Tiger-Cats until 1950 when the Tigers merged with another Hamilton team, the Wildcats.

Cfl Vs Nfl Game

Of course the 1909 game was between two Canadian teams, but what about the first game between an American team and a Canadian t eam? The Canton plaque lists the 1950 game between the New York Giants and the Ottawa Rough Riders, but there were games before then t hat didn't make the list.

Ihe first game between an American professional team and a Canadian team seems to have happened nine years earlier in 1941 (thanks to Chris Sinclair for sending me this). On August 26, 1941, the Columbus Bulls of the AFL lost to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers by a score of 19 to 12 in Winnipeg. The teams played two other games that year, with Columbus winning the tother two. On September 1, 1941, the Bulls beat the Blue Bombers 6-0 and on September 10, 1941 Columbus crushed Winnipeg 31-1. Both games were in Winnpeg. Here is an account of that first game.

The account of the game doesn't address the rules problem, but the line-up included have 12 players, so presumably Canadian rules were used.

Cfl Vs Nfl Ball Size

Winnipeg played two more exhibiton games against American teams in 1941. The Blue Bombers played a home and home series with the Kenosha Cardinals. On October 4, 1941, Kenosha beat Winnipeg in a close 18-16 game at Winnipeg. On November 2, 1941, Kenosha won the game in Kenosha 35-6. You can read an account of the second game via the following link.

The Kenosha Cardinals were an independent football team, one of many in the United States prior to World War II. Some of these independent teams were on a par with the NFL teams and played them in exhibition games. Kenosha lost to the Green Bay Packers in a game a week after the Bomber game by a 65-2 score. If you are interested, here is an excellent article on that era and the independent teams.

Another game missing from the Canton list is from August 19, 1948 when the Montreal Alouettes played the Brooklyn Dodgers. No, they didn't play a baseball team. Back then, there was a football team in the AAFC (All Amercian Football Converence) named he Dogers. The AAFC teams eventually were incoroporated into the NFL with the Dodgers merging with the New York Giants in 1950. There is a baseball conneciton to the game, however, as the Dodgers kicker was Pepper Martin, now in the baseball HOF. For more information on this game, check out the following links. The preview features a John Collins cartoon.

The actual report on the game was downplayed in the paper as it was overshadowed by the funeral of Babe Ruth.

Cfl Vs Nfl Images

Still another game missing from the list on the plaque in Canton is a game between Ottawa and Hamilton played in Philadelphia in 1958 which you can read about via the following link:

For an account of the Pittsburgh - Toronto game in 1960.

One of the few victories for the CFL clubs agains NFL opposition was the Hamilton Tiger-Cats beating Buffalo 38-21. Check out an account of the game below.

Cfl Vs Nfl Exhibition Games

Here is the program cover from the Montreal Alouettes - Chicago Bears game in 1961. It was drawn by John Collins (1917-2007) who was the editorial cartoonist for the Montreal Gazette from 1937 to 1973.

Cfl Vs Nfl Salaries

For an account of that 1961 game click on the following link: