• COHON AND CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE COMMIT TO THE FUTURE

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    CFC Staff
    Published on 2012-02-10 01:50 PM
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    Commissioner Cohon to guide our league through 2015

    TORONTO -- Mark Cohon has signed on to serve the Canadian Football League as its commissioner for at least another three years, providing the league with strong and stable leadership as it gears up to celebrate the 100th Grey Cup in 2012.


    "Our Board of Governors is unanimously pleased to have Mark at the helm at a time of positive growth and enormous potential for our league," said John Butler, Chairman of the CFL's Board of Governors.

    "We have come a long way together and all want our forward momentum to continue and accelerate."

    Cohon credited the league's Board of Governors, teams, and fans for the renaissance the league is enjoying across the country.

    "The CFL in general, and the Grey Cup in particular, have a unique bond with millions of Canadians, and our mission is to strengthen and expand that connection," Cohon said.

    "I'm thrilled to continue this work because I know there is so much more we can achieve, and our teams, and most importantly our fans, are counting on us to elevate our league to yet another level."

    Cohon became the 12th Commissioner of the CFL in 2007. Working together, he and the CFL's Board of Governors have:
    • Seen television ratings soar, under an exclusive broadcasting agreement with TSN.
    • Watched attendance remain strong, at an average of about 28,000 per regular season game.
    • Seen corporate partnerships hit record levels.
    • Ushered in a new collective bargaining agreement with CFL players without any work stoppage.
    • Successfully enforced a hard salary cap which has created parity and fostered fiscal responsibility.
    • Announced that Ottawa will be rejoining the league with a strong ownership group following the construction of a new stadium project.
    • Renewed its infrastructure, with new stadiums planned for Hamilton and Winnipeg, as well as Ottawa, the complete refurbishment of BC Place in Vancouver, and significant improvements to several other existing CFL stadiums including Edmonton and Montreal.
    • Introduced the league's first ever drug testing policy, targeting performance enhancing drugs and is the first league in North America to test for HGH.
    • Celebrated Touchdown Atlantic, the first ever CFL regular season games played in Atlantic Canada.
    • Unveiled its Command Centre for officiating, streamlining and centralizing video replay review.
    • Launched a concussion awareness program, targeting young athletes, parents and their coaches.
    • Expanded access for fans through initiatives that include the annual Fans' State of the League gathering, Grey Cup TweetUps, fan initiated rule changes and an aggressive social media campaign.
    • Introduced the CFL's "This is Our League" campaign that has resonated with Canadians across Canada.
    • Brought greater attention to CIS athletes through the introduction of the CFL Canadian Draft on TSN.
    • Funded the launch of the CFL Alumni Association to celebrate the great past players of Our League


    "We know we have exciting work to do, to grow our support in southern Ontario, work towards our next broadcast agreement, and lead Canadians in a stirring celebration of the 100th Grey Cup," Cohon said. "We see these as tremendous opportunities and see a bright future ahead for our league. I'm proud to be a part of that future."
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    Comments 2 Comments
    1. anchoRAGE's Avatar
      anchoRAGE - 2012-03-01, 05:00 PM
      If he brings a team to Ottowa and Anchorage . Ill give him props .
    1. cflsteve's Avatar
      cflsteve - 2012-03-26, 11:05 PM
      team #9 in Ottawa will bring the league back to its status quo. The hard work in bringing TD Atlantic to Atlantic Region was mostly the doing of Moncton and their efforts to build an almost CFL acceptable stadium. With the Games in Moncton the CFL and COhon have finally got Halifax interested in building a stadium Post the 2012 100th Grey cup season the CFL will be at its all time popularity in the age of TV.
      In 2013 i would hope the the top order of busisness would be to get involved in helping Halifax to get that stadium built and finally get the CFL to the Maritimes and a whole other region of fans. The TV deal with TSN has helped to bring CFL to the french quebec population by showing all montreal games on sister french sports channel RDS. That was almost 4 million more fans in Montreal and almost 6 million a together in Quebec. With Ottawa coming in the same deal will most likely be extended to the Ottawa_gatineau Metropolitan region in RDS showing all the Ottawa games to the 1.3 million french canadians in Ontario.
      Getting the CFL more officially involved cohon will bring football to a whole other region of fans. Giving the CFL a lot of bargaining chips for the Next TV deal.
      More teams means more Canadian football players with jobs. it also means more US imports with jobs as theNFL Network Increased its coverage to two games a week Nationally in the US via tsn boadcasts, meaning more US viewers.
      Hopefully a lot of this will be put in motion during the 2013 season enabaling higher TV revenue for each team and a restructuring of the current salary cap to give players higher salaries and in perks.
      One perk that the UFL had used was to give players housing if the CFL canmake a deal with national or regional hotel sponsors at least the imports would give the CFL a real option when signing out of college and let young CIS players focus on football and not off season jobs to let them reach their full potential before they lleave for better paying and less dangerous jobs