Thursday Night Football Scheduling Conundrum

[Walt67]

And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out all three BC/Winnipeg games will have first place implications given what happened a year ago in a fricken 9 team league. Yet let’s give one team a huge rest advantage for game 2.

Not saying it would have reversed yesterday’s result as the Bombers’ game plan and performance was outstanding. But if BC lost back in week 3 as well the October game here easily could have been meaningless

I totally agree, Sammy. This game has to be a learning exercise for schedule makers. For the good of the league, the season, and compelling games that will actually help network ratings, you must not schedule a top team on a short week vs another top week coming off a bye. It won't be pretty and it won't be watchable.

[Belize City Lion]

I agree that the CFL would do better at the gate with Sunday (games before the NFL season starts) rather than Thursday nights. But TSN must believe they will get better ratings on Thursday nights vs. Sunday afternoons. And TSN has 50 million reasons per season why they get their way.

Reducing the schedule to 16 regular season games would help fix the early start vs. late finish schedule conundrum, as well as the unbalanced schedule. Every one plays everyone twice, only one bye week, and the schedule can be condensed by 3 weeks. They could kick off the season on Canada Day, which I think would be a great idea. It would cost each team 1 home game worth of revenue, but if it resulted in utimately bringing more fans to the league teams would only need to increase attendance by 12.5% to replace lost revenue. However, TSN would lose 8 broadcasts and they will never agree to that unless the TV rights deal is reduced accordingly.

[Hambone]

A lot more to it than that Belize. I assume you think players will receive the same salary for 16 games as they get for 18? As a ST holder it's bad enough I have to eat 1 preseason game out of my 10 game package (10% wasted). Cutting to 16 would make that even worse. When they went to from 16 reg & 4 ex-games to 18 reg and 2 ex-games I was ecstatic as it meant 10% of my money was going towards meaningless games I never attended as opposed to 20%.

I don't know why CFL fans are so obsessed with the idea of a balanced schedule. If they did have a balanced schedule they'd be the only league in existence in North America to do so.

[MacNews]

I don't know why CFL fans are so obsessed with the idea of a balanced schedule. If they did have a balanced schedule they'd be the only league in existence in North America to do so.

Baseball does the home and home series, why not football? 18 games allows you to play each team twice. I find it boring to play all the Western teams 3 times each. The football season is not as long as the hockey season so the result becomes predictable.

[B.C.FAN]

I don't know why CFL fans are so obsessed with the idea of a balanced schedule. If they did have a balanced schedule they'd be the only league in existence in North America to do so.

Baseball does the home and home series, why not football? 18 games allows you to play each team twice. I find it boring to play all the Western teams 3 times each. The football season is not as long as the hockey season so the result becomes predictable.

Disagree. I'd rather see the Riders, Bombers or Stamps at B.C. Place twice than see Hamilton, Ottawa and Montreal every year. Lions' attendance figures would back that up. I'm not sure about TV viewership though. In the 1960s and '70s, interlocking games would be televised nationally. Divisional games would only be televised regionally due to limited national interest.

[Lui05]

I know BC got the short end of the stick with their Thursday game, but for the last few weeks, I think the schedule for these games has been really good.
Team coming of the bye is always playing the team that came off the bye the week before. So neither team has a short week.

Not saying other parts of the schedule couldn't be improved. I'll take that Thursday game every year over having 3 byes by mid season.