Toronto Argonauts April Fool's Day 2015 Trick: Prank Fools Many
In one of the better April Fool's Day jokes perpetrated yesterday the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts posted a story to their official team website this morning announcing that they would play an exhibition game with the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium in May. The CFL and NFL have not played each other since the 1960s, but given the fact these two teams have shared Rogers Centre in Toronto over the last few years and new Bills Head Coach Rex Ryan grew up in Toronto, many believed the story.
However, some believe the CFL expanding makes sense from a business perspective. There is no football in the first five months of the year on either side of the U.S.-Canada border. It makes sense for the CFL to try and grow in U.S. markets, even though the Canadian league did try to invade American football markets in the mid-1990s. Few football fans seem to want to remember that an American team won the Grey Cup in 1994.
ESPN regularly shows CFL games on its family on stations and websites and the NFL network even has dabbed in broadcasting CFL games here and there.
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This should not be a call for the CFL to become a minor league for the NFL. The rules packages are just two different between the two leagues, but a few exhibition games a year -- possibly sandwiched around the NFL draft and played for bragging rights only -- could really become a staple of the football-barren spring.
The CFL expansion could possibly start off small, maybe with one game in American and one in Canada showcasing teams that have hired new head coaches, or teams that just want a shot at some glory. As it stand the Bills are the only NFL team to lose a game to a team from the CFL. A little cross-border rivalry never hurt anyone and there is a possibility that a game could be very popular.
