CFL Expects To Adjust Schedule for 2024 Season
The Canadian Football League is out to restore balance to its schedule for the 2024 season, according to commissioner Randy Ambrosie.
He made the comment during his address to the media in the lead-up to the Grey Cup between the Montreal Alouettes and Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Montreal won 28-24.
For the past two seasons the CFL has prioritized divisional matchups and in some cases geographic proximity in its scheduling. Some of that was an effort to trim costs for all teams as a result of COVID canceling the 2020 season.
But it has also created some imbalances, even in divisional play. The East Division, with four teams played 10 division games out of 18 total games. In the West Division, with five teams, the Calgary Stampeders played as few as 10 division games while the BC Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders each played 12.
The schedule also didn’t allow for as many cross-divisional matchups, and in some cases free agents that had moved from one division to the other didn’t always get a return trip the next season.
Based on Ambrosie’s comments, it appears the CFL will be returning to a schedule that more closely resembles the schedule it used in 2019 before COVID.
That season, with nine teams, each West Division team played 10 division games and eight non-division games, while the East Division played eight division games and 10 non-division games.
Barring a sudden expansion of the league — Ambrosie said the league’s work to put a new team in Atlantic Canada needs to be brought to a “conclusion” — that appears to be the schedule the league is headed toward in 2024.
The CFL traditionally releases the next year’s schedule in mid-December.
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