Murray Wood The end of the great Canadian game as we know it
The last Roughrider home game was the last CFL game in Saskatchewan played on a CFL-sized field. Murray Wood thinks it's...
Brendan Taman remains among my favourite CFL executives, but in his new, part-time role as a Postmedia contributor he’s still thinking like a general manager who works for the league’s richest franchise. And he’s wrong saying the CFL should not impose a cap on administrative spending.
The CFL still exists because 30 years ago it implemented a spending cap. The original cap included players’ salaries, expenses for training camp and scouting and the costs of everyone who worked in football operations, specifically the coaches and general manager. To be blunt, the Roughriders would not have survived without the cost certainty, even while most of the items were no longer included in the cap.
Now the Roughriders’ bank account is overflowing; the community-owned team spends more, employs the biggest staff and has exceeded the players’ salary cap more than any other franchise, including when Taman was Saskatchewan’s general manager. The cap is intended to save the CFL, not just the Roughriders.
