CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie was a recent guest on the 2 and Out CFL Podcast. They talked about all things CFL, including the CFL Ratio Rule, and went into detail on what’s to come in from their partnership with Genius Sports.

Ambrosie talks about the controversy with the CFLs Ratio Rule.

“I think the mistake we make is thinking that the C in Canadian is there because we protect Canadians. I think it’s there because Canadians are great… We have more Canadians playing in the NBA now than ever before. We have Canadians performing incredibly well in golf. We have Canadians, of course, in the great game of hockey.

Canadians aren’t protected in the game of hockey. They are in the game of hockey because they represent some of the best players in the world.

We have more players playing in the NFL Canadians than ever in our history. We have more than 20 Canadians that are in the NFL.

They’re not there because they’re protected. They’re there because they are more than capable of competing. I think that’s the more important storyline.”

Ambrosie discusses the partnership with Genius Sports and what is to come.

“They have been hard at work 24/7, building that foundation on which the next phase will come. What comes next? The cameras being installed in our stadium’s second spectrum cameras will capture data in images in a unique and powerful way. It will allow us to augment our broadcast and share that technology with TSN as an example and our broadcast partners worldwide. But that has to get installed, it has to get tested, and then they have to teach the technology how to read the images they’re receiving and how to interpret them. All of that work is being done.”

He talks about the marketing aspect Genius Sports brings to the CFL.

“We’re working on marketing strategies that will be highly, highly targeted, highly customized, highly personalized, so that we can observe the behavior of football fans and then tap. Into that behavior, where we see a fan who is a fan of the University of Manitoba athlete. And now we show them the University of Manitoba athletes that are playing in the league.

It shows them an Ohio State fan. And then we tell them that you’ve got two Ohio State Alum playing this weekend, one in Toronto and one in Ottawa, for example, and you can tune in and watch them. So their technologies are spectacular. But in order to harness their technologies, we’ve got to do that. We got to do the foundation building. And that’s what’s going on right now.”

They talk about how the rule changes are doing this season: improving officiating, the new leadership in the CFL, improving in-game experiences, expansion, neutral site games, TSN, Sunday games, and more. Worth a listen.

Stay with CFL News Hub for the 2022 season.