CFL finally caves with NFL-style changes. Will it actually work?

Over the seven-plus years that Randy Ambrosie was commissioner of the Canadian Football League, two things were clear: He loved the CFL. And he felt it needed to change.

Ambrosie, a former CFL player himself, was never quite so explicit about the latter as he was the former, but it was there in everything he did. Whether embarking on a curious - and arguably pointless - strategy to recruit players from across the globe, or a brief flirtation with the XFL, or even his ill-fated efforts to put a 10th CFL team in Atlantic Canada, Ambrosie was always trying to hustle up some new way of doing things.

Burbling beneath the surface was a question the CFL never quite dared to ask: What if just became more like the NFL?

Behind closed doors, the league governors reportedly discussed the topic fairly often. After all, the logic was simple. If the NFL is the most popular league in North America by some distance, and the CFL is struggling to attract young fans who are already familiar with NFL rules, why not mimic the much more successful league to the south?

The counterpoint, of course, was that the CFL's unique rules, with its goofy rouges and giant end zones and long field, were part of its Canadian identity. If you lost those elements, what would be left other than just being a lesser imitation of the NFL?

It seems we're about to find out.

Ambrosie's successor, Stewart Johnston, announced Monday that the CFL is phasing in some NFL-style changes. Starting in 2026, the single-point rouge will no longer be awarded on kicks that go out the back of the end zone. In 2027, the field will be shortened from 110 to 100 yards, with the end zones trimmed from 20 yards deep to 15. The league is also moving the goalposts from just beyond the goal line to the back of the end zone.

The CFL says it made the changes to open up scoring, but there's no avoiding the fact that the game will look a lot more American, even if the league keeps its three downs and extra-wide field for now.

The "for now" is there because even though Johnston, a former TSN executive, told reporters that the CFL intends to retain the rest of its peculiarities, it's easy to imagine a scenario where today's baby steps toward a more NFL-style game become tomorrow's large strides.

The fundamental question the league faced for years was whether it had to erase its unique characteristics to save itself. It wasn't just a theoretical question, either. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the CFL's shaky finances, as Ambrosie went to Parliament Hill to seek federal support and, in the process, disclosed that its nine teams lost up to $20 million in the 2019 season.

The four Prairie franchises have long been successful, and Ottawa and Hamilton have strong local support under their current ownership groups. That leaves the league's largest markets - Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto - as its biggest financial sinkholes. That's a problem.

For all of Ambrosie's eager salesmanship, he could never crack that nut. The big global expansion, where he recruited players from Mexico, Japan, Germany, and all points in between, didn't grow the CFL's fan base beyond Canadian borders. Most foreign fans weren't likely to seek out the league just to watch one of their own punt a ball or attempt a field goal. The XFL thing went nowhere - no one ever explained what the two leagues even talked about during their short romance - and the Atlantic Schooners became the exceedingly rare expansion franchise to die before it was even born. Ambrosie, in the waning days of his tenure as commissioner, was still discussing expansion to places like Victoria, Halifax, and Quebec City, despite the glaring lack of large football stadiums in any of them. He was definitely an ideas man.

Johnston, in his role at TSN, would know better than anyone how the NFL fares in the Canadian market relative to the CFL, and especially among younger fans and those outside its traditional Western base. The plain reality that has long been staring the CFL in the face is that entire generations of would-be fans in places like Toronto and Vancouver have not grown up with any attachment to that league. That kind of loyalty is impossible to create out of thin air, especially when so many Canadians already have viewing habits oriented around the NFL.

If all it takes to attract those key demographics is to make the league look a little more NFL-ish, then maybe it's time to finally smash that button.

There's no way to know if it'll work. But it's fair to say that the CFL is otherwise out of ideas.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.