It's not exactly the NFL draft extravaganza that took place in New York City on the weekend on the NFL's own television channel and network, but it's a start.
For the first time in the history of the CFL, TSN will be covering the CFL draft tomorrow, providing interviews and in-depth coverage, and will be broadcasting it not on television but on their website alongside the CFL.
It's really been a season of firsts for the CFL coming off of the 2007 season and about to enter the 2008 campaign. A salary cap is in place that is being enforced, a former CFL head coach is now the director of officiating, the Ottawa franchise has been conditionally sold for an unprecedented franchise fee, a drug policy is in the works, and now the always overlooked CFL entry draft is becoming a full-scale production.
All new coverage and exposure of the players in the CFL is a good thing, but the entry draft provides some unique access for the diehard fans and active players that we have never been exposed to before.
For the players that will be tuning in -- and I imagine there will be quite a number of us -- we finally get to see some footage of the rookies that will be joining our teams in training camp. So often as training camp kicks off, as a veteran player, every day you walk amongst countless numbers of new bodies without any idea of who they are, where they came from, or what they have accomplished to this point. New American and Canadian recruits become these faceless entities without pedigree that you simply line up with or against in the pre-season and see whether they stick or ship when the smoke clears.
With the advent of a CFL draft show, not only will we now be able to recognize and learn about the new additions that are soon to be joining our teams, but give our own estimations and evaluations of their skill sets and try to get a sense of the needs our teams are trying to fill and who is going to go about attempting to fill them.
For the fans of the Canadian Football League, this is also an unprecedented opportunity to get some in-depth information on the new recruits and a chance for the league to begin to establish the stars of tomorrow with the fan base.
Too many times the exploits and talents of the young up and coming stars like Jesse Lumsden, Andy Fantuz, and Chris Bauman are only realized once they have stepped into the pros and turned some heads in the regular season.
Most of us sit there and wonder what our GMs and scouts are all worked up about and salivating over because they are the only ones that have seen the collegiate resumes of these players and understand what they may one day be capable of achieving.
Of course draft day television, or in this case webcasts, are not for everyone, including some of your run-of-the-mill fans. Most of the players you will see taken in the CFL draft tomorrow may not start for multiple seasons and many will never even make it out onto the field. But in the early rounds when the highest echelon of talent is available, fans and players alike will be able to tune in and learn about the few elite prospects that may one day reshape the Canadian football landscape.
This webcast tomorrow will not only provide insights and opinions never disclosed before in the CFL, but marketing and exposure opportunities for the league and its newest additions that have never been tapped in Canadian football.
And who knows, after the positive response I'm sure the draft coverage will produce, maybe next year they will even go live and have a few of the top prospects preening in their suits in the green room in Toronto as it all goes down.
Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.
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