The 2021 CFL season is around the corner, but it seems that CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie hasn’t closed the door on a possible partnership with the XFL just yet.
This past March, the CFL and XFL began serious talks about a potential partnership and how they could collaborate to grow football. Last month, news finally came out and the two leagues announced that negotiations had concluded.
“We both decided and agreed that we would go back to our respective businesses and focus on our own leagues, for now,” Ambrosie said. “We haven’t set any plans to reconnect.
“But because the relationship was positive, the door was left open for the possibility that we talk again down the road. But today and for the foreseeable future, it’s all CFL all the time.”
Following the end of negotiations, the XFL revealed its plans to return in 2023, which upset fans who were hoping for a 2022 return/
After Vince McMahon filed for bankruptcy due to COVID, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Dany Garcia and Redbird Capital purchased the XFL for $15 million.
Ambosie met with Canadian Press and didn’t say exactly what was discussed, but mentioned that they were very in-depth.
“It would be disingenuous to suggest that we didn’t talk about everything,” he said. “Now, we’ve got our game, our league and our own future to navigate and I think that’s going to mean having conversations about how do we take our league to the next level?
“How do we grow the game? How do we double, then double again and double again our success? We’ll have an opportunity for consultation with our stakeholders, our fans, with amateur football, with university football because we don’t need to grow the CFL, we need to grow football in Canada. We need to make our game stronger.”
Ambrosie looks at the challenge of working with organizations in and out of the country as thinking outside of the box.
“They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” he said. “We’ll be encouraging everyone to get out to look at where are the possibilities to grow and expand our game because what we really owe to the game is long-term success.
“I’d continue to encourage our board … certainly myself and my team that we keep our eyes open, we keep our ears open and we keep our minds open to new possibilities and that’s across the board.”
