The winningest coach in Canadian Football League history still harbours dreams of expansion south of the border.
In a sit-down interview with TSN’s Farhan Lalji this week, Hall of Fame head coach and executive Wally Buono was asked what he would do if made CFL commissioner for a day. The 74-year-old’s answer to that hypothetical surprised many, including his interviewer.
“Honestly, you ask that question, I would expand in the States,” Buono said. “I believe that if the Cleveland Browns didn’t move to Baltimore in 1996 — because Baltimore had a great franchise, San Antonio had a great franchise, Birmingham was a good franchise — if expansion had had an opportunity to continue and Vegas had gotten behind the league, I think this league would have exploded.”
The CFL’s U.S. expansion era, which lasted from 1993 to 1995 and featured franchises in seven different American cities, is widely regarded as a dysfunctional and comedic footnote in the league’s long history. The project was a logistical nightmare that was bogged down by disreputable ownership and financial challenges for the new teams. It is estimated that the five U.S. teams active in 1995 lost a combined $20 million USD in their final season before the plug was pulled.
However, Buono, who will be honoured on Sunday with induction into the Calgary Stampeders’ Wall of Fame, has fond memories of leading the Red and White across the 49th parallel. He believes there was an appetite for the CFL product in certain U.S. markets that was never allowed to fully blossom.
“I experienced it. I played in Baltimore when there were 46,000 screaming people and Doug Flutie and Tracy Hamm were going at it. We played in San Antonio, Texas, and the stadium was full. David Archer and Doug Flutie, we go into overtime and that place is just as loud as can be,” he recalled.
“Same thing in Birmingham. I never went to Memphis so I can’t say but those three cities, I can remember the amount of excitement and the amount of pleasure that was taken in being at a CFL game.”
The Baltimore Stallions were the crown jewel of the expansion project, as fans aggrieved by the relocation of the NFL’s Colts a decade prior rallied around the return of professional football. The team attracted an average crowd of 37,367 in 1994 and 30,111 in 1995, going a combined 28-8 over two seasons while becoming the only American team to win the Grey Cup.
However, no other U.S. franchise averaged more than 18,000 at the box office in a single season, with sweltering summer heat and competition from both high school and college football providing significant hurdles in the Deep South. With no major U.S. television contract to float them through financial difficulties and the arrival of the Baltimore Ravens destroying any interest in the flagship Stallions, the five remaining teams folded ahead of the 1996 season.
Though disastrous in its execution, U.S. expansion did help to see the CFL through one of its darkest financial chapters thanks to the roughly $15 million it generated in ownership fees. It also saw the revival of the defunct Montreal Alouettes, who were created from the remnants of the reigning champion Stallions.
Commissioner Randy Ambrosie has made clear that expanding the CFL is again a top priority in the modern era in the hopes of increasing revenue and improving scheduling. Thus far, multiple attempts to put a 10th team in Halifax have been rebuffed due to the absence of an interested ownership group and no desire for a publicly funded stadium, while the prospect of a Quebec City franchise remains a pipe dream.
With that in mind, Buono, who boasts 282 career wins and five Grey Cup victories, hopes that the prospect of expanding south isn’t dismissed outright due to past failures.
“I’m a great believer in the Canadian Football League. I think it’s a tremendous product,” he said. “I think the only thing that is a negative is that we’ve never allowed it to leave the borders of Canada.”
