The United Football League became the first professional football league to play a regular-season game on an active U.S. military base last Friday night at Fort Hood in Texas. A truck brought in the big screen, cranes handled sky cam tethers, players walked through military checkpoints, and professional football happened in front of service members and their families, televised nationally on FOX. It was a great TV product.
After that unique UFL game in Texas, I find myself thinking about Quebec City.
CFL expansion talks have become a tired topic. The hype has been little more than hype for over a decade. The UFL just showed what is possible with creativity and minimal permanent infrastructure. What if we just put a team in Quebec City to play at Telus Stadium by Laval Université?
The CFL already knows temporary and neutral-site models work
There were 20,725 fans in Moncton for Touchdown Atlantic to watch the Edmonton Elks take on the Toronto Argonauts. The next year, there were 20,153 as Calgary played Hamilton. The league skipped 2012, then returned in 2013 with 15,123 for Montreal vs. Hamilton.
The data proves two things. Interest in CFL football is high even in cities without a team. Second, momentum matters. When the league took a year off in Moncton, attendance dropped 25%. Fewer seats were available in 2013, but the bigger issue was stalled excitement. Expansion talk without momentum creates fatigue.
The league has run successful neutral-site games in Victoria for Touchdown Pacific and will play regular-season home games for BC at the Apple Bowl in Kelowna, which has a capacity listed of only 2,314 before temporary expanded seating is brought in. Toronto will be away from its usual venue frequently this year as well because of the World Cup. The Argos have only 6 home games this season while playing 12 on the road.
The CFL is already comfortable with temporary and neutral venues when it needs to be. If we can do it for an overpriced soccer tournament, we can finally give Quebec City the team it has deserved for years.
What’s a CFL Team's Cost to Run
The cost of a CFL team can vary greatly from club to club. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ expenses in 2023 ($44.85M) were significantly higher than those of the Edmonton Elks ($24.96M).
There are many ways to run low-cost operations. Some things, there’s not much wiggle room on cost, such as away game travel, which cost Edmonton $968 thousand in 2023. Other things like medical personnel, equipment. Some things you can find ways to save, such as Edmonton having a $2.737M administration expense in 2023 compared to $3.513.
Save Money With an Immigrant’s Mentality
One of the biggest hurdles to expanding since Ottawa returned in 2014 has been cost. A business can’t stay in the red forever, but what if we change the goalposts on what breaking even looks like by running the team lean from the start?
The goal in the early years is simple: survive and build the fan base. One constant in sports is that team value and fan connection grow the longer a franchise exists. If we start in a temporary venue for the first 3–6 years, the team can become part of the community’s fabric before it ever plays in a permanent stadium.
This is the mentality my great-grandfather brought to Canada from the Netherlands after the war. Work hard, keep expenses down, save every dollar. That discipline was the path from financial struggle to owning your own dairy farm on the beautiful Rainy River. That same scrappy, disciplined approach can build a CFL franchise.
The Salary Cap Makes a Competitive Roster Realistic
On the surface, financing a CFL team looks daunting. But the numbers tell a more encouraging story.
The 2026 salary cap sits at roughly $6.28–6.33 million. The TSN television deal, reportedly worth around $50 million per year league-wide, already covers the majority of that player payroll when divided across the teams. Add the league’s expiring deal with CBS Sports worth $1 million, and there’s possible room for growth in revenue for a TV deal south of the border.
While some established clubs carry higher total operating expenses, those numbers don’t dictate what a new expansion team must spend. A startup franchise can and should design for efficiency from day one.
Master the Cap, Find Diamonds, Thrive on High-Value 2-Year Contracts
You don’t always need to chase what the market is dictating to be successful, sometimes it’s better to go to where the puck is going rather than where it is. In 2023, Montreal had brought in quarterback Cody Fajardo, who had the 7th highest paying quarterback contract with $371K per Justin Dunk with 3DownNation. Montreal saw him lead them to a Grey Cup.
A similar story happened that year in the NFL when Baker Mayfield was pulled off the free agent scrap pile by Tampa Bay and signed to a $4M contract, peanuts for an NFL starting quarterback, and led the team to a playoff win as he by far outplayed the value of his contract.
The winning strategy is to stock the team with high-upside diamonds signed to 2-season team friendly deals rather than chasing players who are at the peak of their market value.
Target the right talent pools aggressively: standout UFL players who just proved they belong, CFL players looking for a bigger role, indoor leagues are chalked with talented guys who would love a chance to play in the CFL, and developmental pieces other teams overlooked. The UFL has been silently moving away from some veteran players, and some quality players have even come forward publicly saying they are blacklisted. There are so many wells of talent to find good players in football.
Every season, there are great players overlooked who are available. WR Saiosi Mariner was passed up on by CFL teams and went south for 2 seasons, where he led the UFL in receiving yards in 2025. DE Jackson Jeffcoat was a phenomenal player, but retired when he just wasn’t getting much interest in his services ahead of the 2024 free agency.
In a league where not every team even spends the full cap every year, a disciplined production-per-dollar approach can create a roster that significantly outplays its collective payroll. It’s Moneyball for Canadian football.
This lean, high-value roster model pairs perfectly with a temporary venue. Lower fixed costs on the stadium side give you more room to stay ruthless about cap efficiency. You’re not carrying the overhead of an aging building while you figure things out.
In 2024, I put out an article that highlighted how you could build the initial bones of a roster based on players available after free agency in the middle of the preseason: Assembling a CFL Expansion Roster Composed of Players Not Currently on a CFL Team Mid Preseason.
The Laval Advantage + The 3–6 Year Lean Launch Plan
Starting in Quebec City at Laval gives a built-in advantage that almost no other expansion market can match. The Rouge et Or have dominated U Sports for years. Leveraging that ecosystem for practice facilities and the foundation of a community that loves football are great ingredients. Fans in the region already care deeply about football, you’re tapping into existing passion.
Expand the seating at Laval in a similar fashion to how Hamilton expanded seating for the 23,218 to 31,000 as Grey Cup hosts.
Years 1–2: Survive and compete. Play in an upgraded Telus Stadium that increases seating from 12,750 to around 20,000. Build attendance momentum, build team identity and culture, revenue from tickets, sponsorships, and national TV exposure. Play against the Alouettes like your life depends upon it, the Quebec City, Montreal rivalry would be fierce from the first play.
Years 3–6: Prove the model with winning and fan interest or playoff contention. Revenue and team value grow. The franchise already feels like it belongs to the community. Now you have the momentum and proof-of-concept to secure the capital and partnerships for a dedicated CFL-ready stadium.
By the time you move into a permanent home, the team is already synonymous with Quebec City pride.
Build the Team First, Ownership Can Come Later
One of the longest-standing roadblocks to expansion has been waiting for the perfect owner with deep pockets and strong local ties. We don’t have to wait anymore.
The league can move forward with the expansion team structured to operate independently from day one. Design the front office, roster strategy, temporary venue operations, marketing, and revenue model to be self-sustaining and professional.
Use the cap-efficient approach outlined above to build the culture and the fanbase in Quebec City. Prove the concept works with real attendance, growing revenue, and competitive football.
Once the team has demonstrated viability and momentum, it becomes a highly attractive. The risks of a CFL expansion team seem to scare away most prospective owners from being interested in paying the expansion fee for a team. This path presents a de-risked asset that would have a much greater value and willingness to invest in for potential owners.
At that point, sell it to a great owner with local roots and a genuine passion for the Quebec market on owner-friendly terms. The league gets its tenth team launched without delay. The new owner gets a proven franchise with an established identity, a hungry fanbase, and a more viable path to a permanent stadium where taxpayers are more on board with funding a project that will house a non-hypothetical team.
No More Excuses. Just Do It.
The CFL has already shown that neutral-site and temporary models can draw strong crowds. The salary cap, combined with smart, flexible contracting, makes fielding a competitive roster realistic from opening day. We do not need to wait for the perfect owner to get started. At some point you need to seize the day and expand in this lifetime.
Quebec City at Laval is obvious starting point.
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I discussed CFL Expansion in October in a previous article I wrote in response to the CFL’s initiatives to modernize the Canadian game, presenting an alternative pursuit to draw modern fans without abandoning any unique elements in Canadian football. If you want to see my “dumb ideas”: Opinion: CFL Leadership Moved the Wrong Goal Posts… How I Would “Modernize” the CFL and Save Canada”