Hello all – after almost six months away, the CFL Beat makes its glorious return this week! I’m looking forward to another year of covering the ridiculous sport of Canadian football for all of you; I have sincerely missed my writing responsibilities this past little while. With the concert calendar looking slightly lighter during these next few months, I look forward to jumping back into things full swing. Without further ado, let’s get you all prepped and up to speed on what to expect from north of the 49th parallel this year in the world of football.

WELCOME (BACK) TO THE CFL!

The first-ever CFL Beat, from 2016, provides more specifics than what I will be listing below, but if you’re unfamiliar with the sport or are looking for a quick refresher, here are some of the most important things to know:

• The league was founded in 1958, though teams have competed for the Grey Cup, Canadian football’s top prize, since 1909.
• There are nine teams organized into two divisions, each playing an 18-game regular season. The division winners each get a bye into the second round of the playoffs.
• Among the most important rule differences between the NFL and CFL: only 3 downs, field is 110 yards long by 65 yards wide, each team plays 12 players a side instead of 11, defense starts 1 yard back from the line of scrimmage, kicks/punt returners get 5 yards of buffer zone to make a catch, missed field goals that leave the end zone are called rouges and are worth one point – they are hilarious when they occur. (You can check out the full list of rule differences in 2016’s welcoming article, or here on Wikipedia if you’re curious.)

Next week, I’ll be giving the preview for all of the East Division teams, followed by the West Division teams the week after. Week 1 of the regular season kicks off on Thursday, June 5th, with the Ottawa REDBLACKS and Saskatchewan Roughriders squaring off 9:00 PM EDT at Mosaic Stadium in Regina.

The 112th Grey Cup is being hosted in Winnipeg this year at Princess Auto Stadium; the Blue Bombers organization lasted hosted the title game back in 2015, when Edmonton defeated a surprising upstart Ottawa side by a final score of 26-20. With Winnipeg long being a competitive team but likely drawing towards the end of their championship contending window, I remain curious to see just how they intend to load up for a potential title run on home turf this season.

As for your favoUrite team? Well, just hang on for the previews coming out over the next two weeks! Hopefully you’ll be all up to speed very soon.

2025 POINTS OF INTEREST

• The CFL will have a new commissioner for the 2025 season; taking over the top job from Randy Ambrosie is Stewart Johnston, an Ottawa native with extensive sports media experience at TSN (the CFL’s official Canadian broadcast partner) and its parent company Bell Media. Johnston does not have a history of playing the game, unlike many previous top executives, but he’s been an integral part of the league having its $50 million a year media agreement with TSN and Bell Media; with those rights set to expire at the end of the 2026 season (as well as the league’s American broadcasting agreement with CBS), I expect Johnston to be a key figure in renegotiating a deal to further boost the league’s fortunes. It’s too early to tell what the path forward will be for the league under his stewardship, but with his important list of media connections, I can only hope that we can see the expansion of non-ticket revenue streams for the CFL. One notable break from his predecessor is that Johnston has been on record stating that expansion to a tenth team is not a current priority for him; I still think the league is definitely open to the concept, but without a suitable market, venue, and deep-pocketed owner to make all of the necessities of an expansion franchise happen – particularly in the Maritimes region of Canada – I don’t see this changing any time soon.
• The CFL Players’ Association will have some new leadership this year as well; former BC Lions fullback David Mackie, recently retired, will join his former teammate Solomon Elimimian, current president of the union, as its executive director.
• Thanks to an overall increase in football-related revenue, including stronger ticket sales at every venue across the league, the salary cap for the 2025 season jumped by almost $400,000 – a significant boost – and now sits at just over $6 million CDN per team. That’s the highest in league history, of course, and with broadcast deals coming up in the next couple of seasons, I expect that we’ll see this climb even more rapidly in short order if the league can leverage their media-savvy commissioner properly to help with negotiations.
• The league will take a break in 2025 from hosting its Touchdown series of neutral-site games that have been fairly successful over the last few years; last year’s Touchdown Pacific game in Victoria, BC was sold-out with a great atmosphere, as was 2023’s Touchdown Atlantic game in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. This is in part due to the fact that this year’s schedule took so long to get released, largely in part to not having a new commissioner hired when it was released in mid-winter, but perhaps a little of scarcity will help to maintain the special feeling that these games have to the fans.
• The Edmonton Elks successfully completed their transition from a community-owned team to private ownership last season, and with Larry Thompson now at the helm, the team hopes to rebound from what has been a very tumultuous few years, with both the on-field product being downright dreadful at times and with attendance way down in the league’s largest venue, Commonwealth Stadium. Late last season, initial designs for a stadium reno were released on the city of Edmonton’s website, but with significant tax revenue required to bring these plans to fruition, in a nation that is traditionally very loath to do so, even in rather conservative Alberta, it seems unlikely that this will come to pass.
• Elsewhere in Alberta, the Stampeders will host next year’s Grey Cup at aging McMahon Stadium, and with renewed attention on city infrastructure with the NHL Flames currently constructing a (long-overdue) new arena, questions also abound as to whether the Stampeders’ home, built in 1960, will also get a replacement. There are a few proposals floating around as to the future of McMahon, though the added complication is the stadium and land are owned by the University of Calgary, rather than by the city; while there will be new field turf for this season and next, it’s hard to say exactly what other measures will be taken to improve the facilities ahead of next year’s title match.
• There were three teams fined last year for violating the CFL salary cap, but by far the most egregious of those was the BC Lions; in their quest to make a Grey Cup title game on home turf last year, they went over by more than $300,000 – the biggest amount in league history – and received a significant fine as well as the loss of their first- and second-round picks in the 2025 CFL Draft. Besides the dollar amount of the fine, I will say, in an odd way, that this is an oddly comforting discovery for me, at least – to me it signals that ownership is committed to winning in BC, and is willing to spend good money in order to make it happen. We have to remember that the CFL is never going to compete on the same financial level as any major North American pro sports league – which even in the early 1990s was still true to some degree – but it’s nice to see that after a very tough period dealing with the fallout of the Covid pandemic that there’s renewed interest in the game and the league across the entire country.

2024 STANDINGS AND STATS

East Division Standings

West Division Standings

Passing Yards

1. Mitchell, HAM – 5451
2. Collaros, WPG – 4336
3. Brown, OTT – 3959

Passing TDs

1. Mitchell, HAM – 32
2. Bethel-Thompson, EDM – 24
3. Maier, CGY – 22

Rushing Yards

1. Oliveira, WPG – 1353
2. Stanback, BC – 1175
3. Carey, TOR – 1060

Receiving Yards

1. McInnis, BC – 1469
2. Hardy, OTT – 1343
3. White, HAM – 1164

Defensive Tackles

1. Anderson, EDM – 116
2. Morgan, EDM – 112
3. Beverette, MTL – 112

Sacks

1. Wakefield, OTT – 8
2. Mauldin, OTT – 8
3. Brown, EDM– 8

Interceptions

1. Milligan, SSK – 8
2. Ford, WPG – 7
3. Webb, OTT – 5

Field Goals

1. Ward, OTT – 58
2. Hajrullahu, TOR – 55
3. Lauther, SSK – 53

2025 PICK POOL

I will be running a pick pool again this season – it’s open to readers from anywhere in the world! If you’re interested in playing, just register here through the link below:

https://www.pooltracker.com/join.asp?poolid=243178

Congrats again to our 2024 winner, Balls, who led all contestants with 48 points last year – it was a less predictable season than in years past and the final race ended up being very tight! Maybe one of these years I’ll finally win my own pool. Maybe one of these years I’ll also remember to get all my picks in on time each week as well…

2024 Pool Results

And with that, tune in next week to check out previews of the East Division teams – Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Hamilton. Maestro out!