Expansion. It’s a popular word when it comes to the CFL in its quest for a tenth team. The CFL’s last expansion came in 2010 with the Ottawa Redblacks. However, Frank Clair Stadium (now TD Place) needed to be renovated and the Redblacks did not start play until 2014.
The CFL has currently nine teams and plays an 18-week schedule for a total of 21 weeks. The CFL’s schedule is unbalanced and the league should not be playing an 18-week schedule with nine teams. The CFL has been around since 1958. The most teams the league had was 15 which included the American expansion in the mid-90s.
However, the American expansion did not last long, and the league returned to nine teams. At one point, the league went to eight teams after the Ottawa Rough Riders folded in 1996 before a new Ottawa team called the Renegades started in 2002. Like the Rough Riders, the Renegades lasted four years before folding and the league went back to eight teams.
The CFL schedule was balanced when it had eight teams before the third incarnation of Ottawa. Since then, the media and fans have wondered when that tenth team will come.
In recent years, the CFL has been trying to put a team in Halifax, Nova Scotia. On a January 11th episode of The Rod Pederson Show. Pederson described the situation as “Halifax has repeatedly said they don’t want the CFL. The CFL has repeatedly said we want Halifax.”
If Halifax does not want the CFL, why is the CFL continuing to push for expansion into a city that does not want them? Pederson later suggested that the CFL should place a team in Moncton.
Moncton is located in southeastern New Brunswick, Canada. Moncton’s population as of 2021 is 79,470. The metropolitan population in 2022 was 171,608. Moncton has a football stadium known as Croix-Bleue Medavie Stadium.
It is home to the Moncton Aigles Bleus men’s and women’s soccer teams. The stadium’s capacity is 8,300 but can expand up to 25,000 seats which meet the CFL’s requirements for hosting a football game.
Moncton has been the host of several Touchdown Atlantic games beginning in 2010 when the Edmonton Eskimos defeated the Toronto Argonauts by the final score of 24-6 in front of 20,725 fans. Moncton hosted three more Touchdown Atlantic games in 2011, 2013, and 2019 and the CFL has not been back there since.
The 2011 game between the Calgary Stampeders and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats saw a capacity of 20,153 fans. The 2013 game between the Montreal Alouettes and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats saw a decrease of fans to 15,123, and in 2019 10,126 fans watched the Montreal Alouettes beat the Toronto Argonauts by the final score of 28-22.
In 2022, the CFL moved Touchdown Atlantic to Raymond Field in Wolfville, New Brunswick. The Saskatchewan Roughriders defeated the Toronto Argonauts by the final score of 30-24 in front of 10,886 fans, a small increase of 760 fans. This year, the CFL will have the Touchdown Atlantic game at Huskies Stadium in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
You may say that the reason why the CFL is not going to Moncton is because of the decreased attendance in the last three Touchdown Atlantic games. Maybe, it’s because there is no ownership group around to put a team in Moncton. Moncton is a perfect city to set up the CFL’s tenth franchise.
I think there is someone out there with deep pockets that is looking to own a professional football team in Moncton but the league has not explored it. Furthermore, what about the people at Schooners Sports and Entertainment? They have been trying to put a team in Halifax for years and nothing has changed.
What if they could change course and attempt to put a team in Moncton instead of Halifax? I think if the right conversation takes place. They may give the green light and aim to become owners of the Moncton CFL team. It’s time to remove Halifax as a candidate and replace it with Moncton.
