Eternal optimist

As an avid cable-cutter myself, I would just like to add my two cents that TVO is a not for profit run out of Ontario that often has pretty decent thought-provoking documentaries. It's free to use, and has a lot of it is Canadian content. They even have some National Geographic documentaries! https://www.tvo.org/documentaries/browse/strands/National Geographic

Timeline of his career, to-date 1. Stamps drafted him in 2014, didn't get into CFL really until 2015 when he was on Stamps PR. 2. Stamps traded him to Saskabush and a third round pick for Jerome Messam (wow, nice trade SSK) in 2015. Stamps also got a 5th-rounder in exchange. 3. ** Career highlight** Kicked game-winning field goal post at New Mosaic Stadium July 1, 2017. 4. Missed 2018 season, released by SSK 5. Cut in Argos 2019 training camp, but re-signed after Derek Brown performed poorly 6. Argos traded him to Als in exchange for Boris Bede. Still under contract for 2020, I think? Who cares. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Crapigna

As is often the case, I think it really just comes down to money, unfortunately. Having a season could provide quite a bit of positive exposure for the CFL, if done right. If the NFL isn't considering operating, it could really help get some more market share down south. I agree though that they've really dropped the ball on this right from the proposal to the Feds, and arguably even before that. As for a season, I'm also somewhat indifferent, I'd love to see them play but the health risks are too much and even then, even if they were to hypothetically allow fans to watch, it'd be 10,000 at most - all with masks sprinkled throughout the stands in a venue with 30,000 capacity. To me that's just not what I'd consider a fun "outing". Also, sure, there would be fans for Bomber games, but what about the rest of the teams? If Winnipeg is a hub, who is seriously going to watch a BC/Toronto game live in Winnipeg?

Sure, labor disputes enable the QBs and other players to have some bargaining power, but most of the QBs in the CFL reside in the USA. Since they don't reside in Canada they aren't eligible for CERB... there is a lot of people hurting in the US for jobs, especially football players where life's become a standstill. There would absolutely be a drop off in offensive output, my point was that in this case the QBs have more to lose (their livelihood) as opposed to the owners. Owners have more viable substitutes such as using their backup QB, airlifting in a new one, or even trading for one from another CFL team. I'll concede that offensive output would likely decline, but I just think the QBs don't have as much bargaining power as is currently perceived.

Except GAAR is under ITA, which is federally regulated whereas the Minister for Manitoba (I'm assuming that's whom your referring to) is at the provincial level... seeing as how the feds have already said they wouldn't be funding, why wouldn't they go after those for-profit entities trying to bend tax rules? Especially to hide taxable income?

General anti-avoidance rule of the Income Tax Act says hi.

This eerily feels like the start of the 2012 Bomber season and the "give us another month to complete the stadium" fiasco.

Sure, but I would think that of the two group, the owners are in better a bargaining position. If a QB wants to walk off the job, owners could still find someone else willing to step up and play QB for the reduced rates. Does get to a tipping point though, where the talent at QB (or any other position for that matter) is so bad that the owners have to pony up. As for the CBA - I agree, if I was on the CFLPA, I'd be negotiating a shorter-term deal, simply given the really weird situation COVID has caused.

Couldn't you just adjust it based on the number of games played? Take whatever the regular season amount was and divide it by three (assuming 6 of 18 games played in shortened season)... It'd be harder for QBs to overcome one bad game but, I mean that's really the best they could do.

This statement is an egregious insult to Brandon.

I'm surprised the even understand the concept of currency over there. Do they have running water yet?

Winnipeg tentatively announced as hub city for 2020 season https://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/cfl/winnipeg-cfl-hub-city-1.5657988 Just like most players, Saskatchewan offered more ($3 million) than Manitoba ($2.5 million) to subsidize operations but Winnipeg was picked based on ... qualitative factors (such as not being Saskatchewan)

In other news... Regina still sucks, we could keep ripping on them?

Sorry, I wasn't accusing you of prescribing to that narrative, just pointing out that it does also fit that narrative. You make a good point though that the media has been hammering COVID quite a bit and impacts may be overblown... the biggest problem here though is the uncertainty surrounding it. Viruses mutate all the time.. the concern with COVID is its' highly contagious infection rate, the virus isn't very deadly right now, but if it mutates into something more sinister, with its high infection rates, it would be devastating. That's because the Spanish Flu did kill millions! More people died from the flu itself (particularly after it mutated) than were killed in World War I. Estimated death tolls from the Flu range from 50 million to 100 million1, by comparison WWI killed between 20 and 40 million. Correlations are often drawn to the Spanish Flu because given the era, it is a perfect example of what happens when no preventative measures are taken. It's also the most recent pandemic, so it's the one we have the most information about. Sources: 1: https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu

Content moved to more depressing thread.

Bo-gey-man: noun: An imaginary evil spirit or being, used to frighten children If you buy into the whole "COVID is a scam/conspiracy" logic, it unfortunately fits right in to that narrative.

Seriously? Just put all the anti-vaxxers on a shuttle to the sun like that episode of The Simpsons...

Shout-out to all the other savers that paid off their house and are fiscally responsible millennials!... In all seriousness though that would be catastrophic.

Wait... American players don't regularly use forward foreign exchange contracts to hedge and minimize their risk to match their risk appetite? Reckless... simply reckless....

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwji8a_MpdzqAhWxLn0KHXOjAl0QFjAAegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fd3ham790trbkqy.cloudfront.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F3%2F2019%2F05%2F2018-Annual-Report-FINAL.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2voazgzshYcL_LztpFSPmV For anyone else who is interested - above are the public audited financial statements (2018) for Edmonton's team, keep in mind they hosted the Grey Cup that year, so there's a boatload more revenue in 2018 because of that. EVEN THEN though - their financials indicate cash on-hand hovers above $8 million, and that's not even including their investments. They show positive operating cash flows, and not only that, they have a rainy day fund of $12M ("stabilization fund") that could be drawn upon for dire situations .... like a pandemic. Of course, 2019 was a decent year on the field for Edmonton, they made the Eastern Final despite a losing record... there were certainly other teams (Toronto, Ottawa) that did a lot worse. Assuming the $1M estimate to rebrand is correct, the question isn't if they have the cash to rebrand, it is if they want to.

He's got nothing on the legendary Paul Woldu... guy was also a 3x Grey Cup champ and is automatically better... apparently.

Man, this time of year we should be arguing about whether or not it is important for our quarterback to throw for 300 yards... Strange times.

Pfft jokes on you guys I'll be dead from morbid obesity well before COVID-19 ever gets to me. Checkmate, pandemic.

Can't find any reference to it, but I remember hearing Terry Gilliam (animator for Monty Python) had a similar situation arise, BBC at the time had a policy of reusing old tapes, so they'd frequently just rewrite over older content. When he heard of this, he purchased his own work from them (at cost), which later, when Monty Python really took off, BBC asked for back, since they had no backup copies of it...