I shared my thoughts the other day on why it’s time to retire the Kiss Cam, an outdated and inappropriate game day video board presentation.
Teams are always looking for time fillers, so what could you do instead? Here’s an idea.
What if you showed some videos that (humourously) attempted to explain the game?
You need to welcome people who’ve never seen Canadian football before, or who are casual fans that don’t appreciate the nuances of the game. Let’s help them out!
Frankly I’ve been to almost every Argos home game in the past 22 years and there are still a lot of things I don’t understand.
Let’s help me out too!
How about showing some fun vignettes that explain …
- The basic idea. We’re going that way, they’re going this way, we’re trying to stop them, we get 3 chances to go 10 yards…
- Why are they called “downs”?
- What “offside” is
- What “illegal procedure” is. Is that different than “offside?” Show me what it looks like.
- How come some players are “ineligible receivers”?
- Why are there so many referees on the field? What do they all do?
- The people holding up the sticks at the side of the field. What are they doing? Who are they? What attracted them to this unusual job?
- What is a “rouge”? Why is it called that?
- Safeties. Why are they called “safeties”? Why is it a good idea?
- What is the deal with “onside kicks”? They hardly ever work. Why is that?
- Sometimes the ref says there’s been an illegal formation. What’s that all about?
- Tiger-Cats is redundant, isn’t it? Why does our big rival have such a stupid name?
- Explain pass interference. (OK this is a huge can of worms.)
- Why do we have slightly different rules than the NFL?
- The Obscure CFL Rule of the Week: Did you know that Article 7 of the rule book, “Ball Fumbled Out Of Goal Area” says that a team can actually decline a score? Has that ever happened?
- Teach me some of the referee hand signals. What’s going on here? Are they doing the YMCA or does this mean something? (Note, these are all actual signals from the CFL rule book.)
- Stump The Experts: A kicked ball strikes an official on the head and then clanks into the upright. Is it a dead ball? Stay tuned for the answer!
Here’s the thing. Sophisticated fans know all this stuff and will roll their eyes. But if there’s one thing we’ve learned, there aren’t enough sophisticated fans to fill the stadium. We need people who are unfamiliar with football to come, and enjoy, and learn, and become rabid fans. Let’s help them out.
I bet you could make this fun and engaging and it would be something people would enjoy.
Unlike the Kiss Cam.