TORONTO — Yet another professional sports league is feeling the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Canadian Football League issued a statement Tuesday morning acknowledging its 2020 season won’t start before the beginning of July.
The statement attributed to CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie begins: “Like our fellow Canadians, we in the CFL are striving to meet today’s challenges with both pragmatism and hope. We are pragmatic enough to see our country still has sacrifice and hard work ahead of it. We urge everyone to heed the direction of public health officials in the fight to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
Ambrosie writes that the CFL respects decisions being made by all levels of government and will continue to follow directives, including those by municipalities which will not allow sporting events to take place before the end of June.
“While it is now clear that the 2020 CFL season won’t start before the beginning of July, we are committed to working with our teams, the Players’ Association, TSN and RDS to play a full season or as close as we can come to one. We recognize this may require some creativity and we are preparing for multiple scenarios,” Ambrosie writes. The CFL is a very important live sports summer property for the two Bell Media channels, a rights deal which was just renewed in the fall of 2019.
“We realize there are more important things on Canadians’ minds right now than games of any sort. But we also know Canadian football has long been a source of price and unity for our country and — when the time is right — we can play an important role in its recovery.
“Until then, let’s all be pragmatic enough to do what we need to do to stop the spread of this virus and protect one another. And, at the same time, let’s keep our hopes high,” Ambrosie’s statements concludes.
