Cohon mum on exact Grey Cup year for Winnipeg

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This article was published 25/11/2011 (5254 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER — CFL commissioner Mark Cohon said Friday morning that the CFL has every intention of living up to its earlier commitment to stage a Grey Cup in Winnipeg by 2015.

But Cohon wasn’t ready to use his annual Grey Cup Week State of the League Address here this morning to announce a date just yet.

“We’re not prepared yet to announce when they’ll get it, but we’re supportive of the team getting a Grey Cup very soon,” Cohon said in response to a question on the issue. “We want to make sure we negotiate a contract with them before that’s announced, but I’m confident there will be a Grey Cup soon in Winnipeg.”

The league committed to award the Bombers a Grey Cup by 2015 as part of the negotiations to build the new stadium on the grounds of the University of Manitoba. Next year’s Grey Cup — the 100th renewal — is in Toronto and the 2013 Grey Cup has been awarded to Regina.

The 2014 Grey Cup was tenatively awarded to Ottawa back in 2008 in anticipation of a team returning to the nation’s capital. But the necessary renovations that will need to first take place at Frank Clair Stadium haven’t yet begun and remain tied up in legal disputes.

Cohon said the ownership group in Ottawa has recently won some key court rulings and he remains optimistic that construction at Frank Clair could begin next spring and a franchise still could be in place in time for the start of the 2014 season.

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If that happens and the league remains committed to the 2014 Grey Cup in Ottawa, that would appear to narrow the window for a Winnipeg Grey Cup to 2015.

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In other matters, Cohon revealed that the CFL Board of Governors has agreed to pump $1 million of league money into marketing the league in southern Ontario, where franchises in Hamilton and, in particular, Toronto continue to be the weak links on the circuit.

Pressed on why the league was giving money to franchises that have long struggled to make any money, Cohon emphasized neither team will be getting a blank cheque. He said any league cash outlays to helping market the two clubs will have to first be specifically approved by the Board and will be closely monitored.

“The board of governors and myself and the league office vets those, approves those and then we try to execute against those and hold them to metrics,” Cohon said.

In other league news:

• Scoring was down slightly this season, from 53 to 50 points ber game, but excitement was probably up, with exactly 50 percent of regular season games decided in the final three minutes. The average time to play the games was also shortened a couple minutes to 3 hours, 2 minutes and 25 seconds. The average number of penalty flags declined from 19.3 to 18.2, but objectionable conduct penalties were up 37 per cent and and no yards was up 12 per cent, the latter increase being attributed to a rule changes that now penalizes teams for punting out of bounds between the 20-yard lines.

• Attendance was up 2.4 per cent from a year ago to 27,799 per regular season game, but TV ratings were down dramatically.

The average audience for CFL broadcasts on TSN and RDS this season was 701,000, down sharply from 876,000 per broadcast in 2010. Cohon repeated his mantra that a new television ratings system in place this season, coupled with struggling franchises in Toronto and Regina and a poor start for the Lions in Vancouver all contributed to the ratings decline.