The Canadian Football League is considering various ways to potentially play in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest possible scenario has the league considering six regular season games, but a larger post-season field.
TSN’s Farhan Lalji tweeted that a six-game season with an eight-team playoff format is under discussion.
As the @cfl & @cflpa work through clarifications of the league’s initial framework via email, I’m hearing one of the options being discussed is a 6-game shortened season, with an expanded 8-team playoff format. Rationale is to keep the bubble as efficient as possible. @CFLonTSN
— Farhan Lalji (@FarhanLaljiTSN) July 5, 2020
In May commissioner Randy Ambrosie announced the CFL was moving to a win and host Grey Cup system, if the league can return to play this year. The team that qualifies for the CFL championship and has a superior regular season record to its opponent will host the title game.
Lalji added in another tweet:
In a perfect world, the teams would return to their home markets for playoffs (with some fans), depending on how things are going with the virus at that point. But again, a long ways to go before we get there. Many other priorities need to be worked through first.”
The CFL Players’ Association has learned the conditions the league office would want the union to play under in a hub city model and set a deadline for agreement of Thursday, July 23.
Thursday, June 11 was originally scheduled as the CFL regular season kick-off but Ambrosie has stated the earliest the league might return to play is September due to the coronavirus crisis.