Ratio
The ratio is only a problem due to the salaries associated with the ratio.
A Canadian just has to be good not great and he can ask for a kings ransom, which leaves less money for a great American player. Which leads to players moving on from team to team and not relating to the market or heading to the NFL to hang around on practise rosters.
If you reduce the ratio I think you're increasing the problem. Now that same good player will ask for an even bigger piece of pie since you still have to start them but now they think they're worth even more due to few of them being used.
How do you fix the salary problem? I'm not sure to be honest. NBA has a cap on player salary, they can make certain amount of the cap, same with the NHL. If you do that in the CFL then the QB salary has to come way down which may or may not be a great thing.
It's a good thing because CFL isn't a league where any player should be making $700K+ for a season. That will not be sustainable. The bad think is $300K might not be worth for a QB to stick around with the XFL coming around again and again.
They need to find a happy medium, maybe not cap QB salaries or cap it at $500K and have remaining player salaries capped at a lower amount, like $200K but the PA will blow a gasket over this but basically you need to control National salaries.
Numbers of Downs
The CFL needs to stay with 3 downs, thats what makes it unique. 4 downs isn't necessary any more exciting. With more and more coaches going for it on 4th down in the NFL the defences really have no chance. That's why teams are giving up record yards. The game has to be fair, in the NFL it really isn't fair to defensive players right now.
3 downs also gives teams a lot more possessions and probability of a back and forth scoring increases. The probability of comebacks, more exciting games, last second wins all increase.
Shorter season and/or move it up
I'd be more for a shorter season and move it up as well. 6 out of 9 teams make the playoffs, do you need 18 games to determine which 6 are the best? No, don't think so.
This ties back to capping salaries, if you have a shorter season you can afford to offer reduce salaries. Teams like Sask and Win will be against this since they want to generate as much as they can from their new parks but couple extra games aren't going to make a difference especially when the operating cost is high too.
Again this is a bit of outside the box thinking that the CFL, teams, players will likely not even consider.
3 Other things to consider for attracting younger generation:
- Make contracts longer, at least 2 years plus restricted rights for another year. If you want to grow the fan base amongst the youth then they need a player who's on their roster for longer than a year.
-I've said this before stop living in stone age. Besides the major sports, Golf / Cricket / Snowboarding / Skateboarding / UFC etc etc all have video games. CFL NEEDS A VIDEO GAME and a proper one. I tried playing what they made for phones, it was awful. Spend the money and get on that, partner with an upcoming firm if its not EA.
-Fantasy Football. They had a lame platform with TSN. What other league uses TSN for fantasy purposes? No one. Plus the game was no good. They need to get on Yahoo for a similar experience like the NFL.
Sorry for the long post.
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