College football, NBA teams

CFL Stays True To It’s Brand…

It is certainly not the NFL…but it was certainly not the UFL this fall either. It is a pro football brand that has seen its ups and downs almost every late summer and spring, helped launch careers and resurrect others, and maintain its distinct nationistic feel every year. It is the Canadian Football League, and a secondary brand for professional football in North America, it is a brand that has weathered the storm, found a commissioner schooled in spin, and has positioned itself for stability in a tough environment.

The CFL’s most recent brand resurrection is led by an NBA-schooled Commissioner, Mark Cohon. Under his leadership Cohon has embraced the league position that makes itself distinctively Canadian, avoiding the pratfalls of earlier efforts to expand in the United States, while holding as firm and as supportive a hand as possible with the NFL’s entry into Toronto once a year (the next being this Thursday for Jets-Bills). The CFL has embraced social media, concentrated its effort on growing its television platform both in Canada and in the United States, improved its licensing efforts and worked with their clubs to improve community and business relationships and facilities in an effort to streamline the product and compete with other leisure activities for the discretionary dollar of the Canadian fan. Has it worked? Sponsor revenue sank with the economy and attendance leveled off, especially as late summer play turned to winter across central Canada, and the national sport, hockey, got its full push. However the league took a page from the NBA and accentuated their positive TV numbers, onfield parity and community relations efforts to show the media and its fans the value of the CFL product, all positive signs for a league in danger of folding less than a decade ago.

However what the CFL has done best recently is define clearly what and who it is…a competitive, exciting, regional brand of football with its own rules, style of play and home grown stars, with just enough American football nuances sprinkled in. The result is a good late summer alternative on TV and online for the American looking for a fix of quality football before the NFL gets cranking, and a brand that defines itself as much for the place where it is played as it does for the level of play itself. The CFL of today recognizes the power of the NFL and looks to coexist and grow its brand…it does not consider itself a feeder league or an American alternative. It speaks to its core fan and its traditions clearly, and from that hopes to cultivate both a casual fan and a new legion of brands looking to support a growing menu of support plans, from digital to broadcast to onfield and instadia.

Will the CFL grow beyond its eight teams? Maybe not. But instead of looking with expansive plans beyond its borders it is doing what smart brands do…refining its product, catering to its supporters and refining what it is as opposed to what others think it should be. The smart business and branding approach is what can make the CFL grow, whether it has eight healthy franchises or 18, and it appears they have the leader to make the business and the branding run.