Shawn Lemon retires from CFL, jumps into DAZN broadcast booth

3DownNation

Shawn Lemon helped the Argonauts beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Friday night in Week 17, flew back to Toronto, and made a guest appearance for the CFL on TSN panel on Saturday afternoon.

That led to DAZN reaching out the next day and him becoming the streamer’s colour commentator.

“We’ve been in talks and meeting with them before I would go to work with the Argos in the morning time because they’re based out of the UK,” Lemon told 3DownNation.

“You go through different screen tests. You go through an interviewing process in the first part, if you make it past that one, you’ll have a second interviewing process. If you make it past that one, you’ll have a few rounds of screen testing. You start calling a few games, doing some colour on a few games, and that was it.”

Lemon was calling screen test games with veteran Canadian broadcaster James Cybulski. The now-retired pass rusher said the chemistry between the two was electric. He estimated the pair called between 15 and 20 games together, ranging from regular-season to playoff match-ups.

“We met Shawn at several stages of our process, and he was engaging, entertaining, informative, and extremely professional, especially for someone new to broadcasting. We screen tested him in a range of scenarios, and in the commentary role his energy and passion for the game created great chemistry with James,” DAZN Canada vice president Deidra Dionne in a statement to 3DownNation.

“Deidra saw something in me because originally we were just doing a lot of panel stuff,” Lemon said. “They love the way that I articulate and I break down games. She’s like, ‘You ever thought about doing colour? I think you’d be really good. I can see a twinkle in your eye when you start to break stuff down.’ We tried it out, and the rest was history from there.”

The 38-year-old made 19 defensive tackles, nine sacks, two forced fumbles, and one pass knockdown during 11 regular-season games in 2026. He could have continued to play football, but fell in love with doing colour commentary and felt the offer was too good to pass up.

“It feels like you’re still playing (when you’re in the booth),” Lemon said. “You’re articulating it to fans, our amazing fans in the CFL. I’m excited to give a different view from a different lens, how I see the game, explain the why and the how it happened.”

TSN has been the exclusive CFL rights holder since 2008, airing preseason, regular season and Grey Cup games. Standout match-ups, including the Grey Cup, have recently started also being carried on Bell Media affiliates CTV and Crave.

DAZN will be the first new company in the mix since CBC broadcasted the 2007 CFL championship game between Saskatchewan and Winnipeg.

“TSN has been doing a great job, but bringing in competition and new energy is always good for the league. The league’s growing in the right direction. I learned a lot from the guys on TSN on how they go about things and put my own unique spin on it, that’s how I go about things,” Lemon said.

“Of course, you always want to have the best broadcast out there, but I don’t look at it as us-versus-them. Our main focus is covering the players, getting their story out there, and highlighting the amazing work that our players and our league’s doing.”

DAZN plans to have the panel, hosted by Brit Dort alongside Chris Streveler and Simoni Lawrence, live on location at the stadium for every Saturday Night Football in Canada broadcast.