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The term CFL USA refers to the abortive expansion of the Canadian Football League (CFL) into the United States in the early-to-mid 1990s. The 1993 CFL season saw the addition of the first American team to the league, the Sacramento Gold Miners. By the 1994 CFL season, there were four American teams, and in the 1995 CFL season, there were five, which were then split off into their own South Division. However, following the 1995 season, the only American team remaining was the Baltimore Stallions, which were moved to Montreal and renamed the Montreal Alouettes for the 1996 CFL season.

Although the league originally intended to only place teams in the areas within driving distance of Canada, it turned out to be the exact opposite. All but two of the CFL USA teams were based south of the 37th parallel north; the northernmost team was based in Baltimore, Maryland, 375 miles (600 km) from the Canada–United States border.

1992–93: Origins

The league first began exploring American expansion in June 1992 with an exhibition game between the Toronto Argonauts and Calgary Stampeders, held in Portland, Oregon.^[1] The league planned on launching a few teams in the northern United States.^[2]

In 1993, the league admitted its first U.S. franchise, the Sacramento Gold Miners (formerly the Sacramento Surge of the WLAF), in an attempt to broaden Canadian football's popular appeal and boost league revenues. The ultimate plan was to have a league of 10 Canadian and 10 American teams. Some cities that were being considered were Columbus, Ohio; Rochester, New York; Hartford, Connecticut; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Boise, Idaho; Portland, Oregon and Minot, North Dakota. Spearheading the efforts were two former World League of American Football owners, Fred Anderson and Larry J. Benson, who would each receive a franchise. While Benson's team, the San Antonio Texans, would not play a single down, the Gold Miners would see action, finishing a respectable 6-12 (but remaining at the bottom of the West Division). Also during this time, Ottawa Rough Riders owner Bernard Glieberman began discussing the possibility of moving his team to the United States, although he opted to sell the existing Rough Riders franchise and launch a new American franchise instead.

1994

The following year would see more expansion: the Las Vegas Posse, Glieberman's Shreveport Pirates, and the Baltimore CFL Colts (who were forced to change their name to the Stallions after a long legal battle with the Indianapolis Colts of the NFL). Baltimore was the most successful of any American CFL team, having finished second in the East and making it to the 1994 Grey Cup game, becoming the first American team to play for the Grey Cup. At the other end of the spectrum, the Las Vegas Posse were an abject failure, becoming a road team after attendance dropped to under 3,000 in Las Vegas; the team folded at the end of the season.

1995: Turmoil and termination

In 1995, the American franchises were split off into their own South Division. The Gold Miners' problems with Hornet Stadium prompted a move to San Antonio, where they were reincarnated as the San Antonio Texans, while the Birmingham Barracudas and Memphis Mad Dogs (previously the Memphis Hound Dogs, a rejected NFL franchise), were added. Teams were also considered for Orlando and Miami, the latter to have been nicknamed the Manatees, and an exhibition game between Birmingham and Baltimore was held in Miami to gauge support. The Miami expansion was eventually abandoned.

However, American fan interest in Canadian football, with the exception of Baltimore, was sparse at best. Teams like Birmingham and Memphis began with promising crowds comparable to their Canadian counterparts, but saw attendance plummet with the onset of the college football season. At the end of the year, which saw the Stallions become the first non-Canadian team to win the Grey Cup, Birmingham and Shreveport's teams had already announced that they were leaving their hometowns before the Grey Cup had even been played.^[3] Cities such as Montreal, Los Angeles, and Norfolk were mentioned as possible sites for the relocated franchises, with the Birmingham team being moved to Shreveport. However, shortly after, commissioner Larry Smith ordered the Barracudas, Mad Dogs and Pirates shut down.

Only a few months after the Stallions' Grey Cup triumph, the NFL's Cleveland Browns announced they were moving their roster to Baltimore to play as the Ravens. While the Stallions had been a runaway hit, Speros knew they could not hope to go head-to-head with an NFL team and decided to move elsewhere. He began talks with Richmond, Virginia, but nothing could be worked out. The Stallions team moved to Montreal and became the third incarnation of the Montreal Alouettes. Unwilling to remain as the sole U.S.-based team in the league, the Texans voluntarily folded soon afterward. By the 1996 CFL season, the entire league was once again based in Canada.

The last vestiges of the CFL's American experiment were erased when Speros sold the Alouettes to Bob Wetenhall after the 1996 season. The fact that Baltimore, an American team, had won a championship that was a symbol of Canadian culture, was the subject of much consternation and lamentation at the time. As such, the CFL has refused to acknowledge the Alouettes' Baltimore connections and reckons the Stallions as a separate team from the current incarnation of the Alouettes. It does, however, reckon the Alouettes as the successors of the original Alouettes franchise.

One of the often cited reasons for the CFL South Division's failure, and part of the reason why the CFL fell behind the NFL in terms of quality players, was the state of the league's American television contract. The league, which had held a U.S. network TV contract in the 1950s and again briefly in 1982, was then being carried on ESPN2, at the time a nascent channel devoted to extreme sports that was not nearly as widely available as its parent network and only carried a limited number of the league's games (with ESPN itself airing some late-season games and the Grey Cup on tape delay). It was not until after the 1995 season that the CFL, mainly through the action of its American franchises, began negotiating with CBS Sports (at the time the only of the Big Four that did not have rights to NFL broadcasts) to see if they could get coverage.^[3] It would not be until several years later that the CFL got a TV contract in the United States, on a much smaller network (America One).

Proposed revivals

World Wrestling Federation chairman Vince McMahon was given a chance to buy the Toronto Argonauts in 1999. He countered with an offer to buy the entire league and eventually "have it migrate south" (either adding teams in, or relocating teams to, the United States). The league refused McMahon's offer, but these proposed American teams became the basis of the XFL, which played one season in 2001.^[4]

In February 2009, former NFL receiver Oronde Gadsden (cousin of former CFL star John Avery) proposed that, due to the discontinuation of other spring football leagues such as the Arena Football League (which has since returned) and NFL Europa, the league consider expanding back into the United States, with potential markets being Detroit-Windsor and Rochester, New York.^[2] Wetenhall was open to the idea, but league offices have been unwilling to hear the proposal, with an Ottawa franchise set for launch in 2013, and both Halifax and Moncton angling for a maritime franchise in the future.

CFL USA teams

Teams that played

Proposed teams that did not play

1. Would have had to move to a larger stadium, as CFL mandates required a minimum 20,000 seats.

See also

• CFL USA all time records and statistics

References

External links

• The CFL in America