108th Grey Cup

108th Grey Cup
Date TBD
Stadium TBD
Location TBD
Broadcasters
Network English: TSN/TSN HD
French: RDS/RDS HD

The 108th Grey Cup (known as the 108th Grey Cup presented by Shaw for sponsorship reasons)[1] will be played to decide the Canadian Football League (CFL) championship for the 2020 season. The game will be televised in Canada nationally on TSN and RDS.

Date

As speculated with the 107th Grey Cup, the date for this game could come much earlier than in previous years. Currently, the Grey Cup is played on the fourth or fifth Sunday of November, as has been the case since 2007. During the CFL's State of the League address on November 24, 2017, League Commissioner Randy Ambrosie suggested that the league could potentially move the date to the third week of October.[2] This would easily surpass the previous earliest date of November 16 (occurring in 1997 and 2003). Reasons in favour of this were the weather being warmer in October as well as a potential television deal with the American-based NFL Network.[2] The league's current American broadcasting agreement expires after the 2018 CFL season and the season schedule is thought to be worked around this agreement.[3][4] Reasons against would be the increased overlap of the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup playoffs in May and June (since the season would also have to start one month earlier) as well as the CFL's playoffs overlapping Major League Baseball's playoffs in October.[2] If no major scheduling changes occur, the game would take place on either November 22, 2020 or November 29, 2020.

Host city

As of August 2018, three teams were interested in submitting bids as the league met with representatives of those unnamed clubs in Hamilton.[5] Based on the location of the meeting and their previously-stated desire to host, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats were speculated to be one of the teams.[5] The previous obstacle of the lawsuit over the construction of Tim Hortons Field was settled on May 31, 2018, which had prevented the Tiger-Cats from bidding on a Grey Cup game.[6] The Tiger-Cats had previously expressed interest in submitting a bid for the 107th Grey Cup and with litigation cleared, they can move forward with bidding to host their first championship game since the 84th Grey Cup in 1996.[7]

The first club to openly confirm their plans to bid were the Saskatchewan Roughriders, as stated by the club's president and CEO, Craig Reynolds, on October 1, 2018.[8][9] The game would coincide with the 110th anniversary of the club and would be the fourth time the game would be hosted in Saskatchewan, if successful.[10] The Roughriders' new facility, Mosaic Stadium, opened in 2017 and the Roughriders last hosted the Grey Cup in 2013.[8]

The CFL's Grey Cup director, Céline Séguin, had previously stated that the league would like to announce hosts sooner. With the previous year's game being announced 19 months prior, this game could be declared much earlier.[11] As stated in the Roughriders' press release, the announcement is expected later in 2018 (at most, 23 months prior).[10]

Trivia

As part of an April Fools' Day joke in 2016, the league had announced that the 2020 Grey Cup would be hosted in a secret Arctic location on November 29, 2020.[12] A stadium would have been airlifted in by helicopter to seat 50,000 spectators in what would have been the most northern Grey Cup in history.[12]

References

  1. ↑ "Shaw, CFL announce Grey Cup sponsorship deal". Global News. Shaw Media. May 8, 2015. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 "Grey Cup in October? NFL Network TV deal could follow for CFL". Ottawa Sun. November 24, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  3. ↑ Baines, Tim (February 2, 2018). "Q and A with CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie on Randy's Road Trip". Sun Media. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  4. ↑ Baines, Tim (November 24, 2017). "Grey Cup in October? NFL Network TV deal could follow for CFL". Sun Media. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  5. 1 2 "CFL taking collaborative approach to Grey Cup planning". Standard-Freeholder. August 31, 2018. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  6. ↑ "Tim Horton's Field stadium lawsuit officially settled, says Hamilton mayor". Global News. May 31, 2018. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  7. ↑ "No Grey Cup bid until stadium legal issues solved". Hamilton Spectator. March 24, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  8. 1 2 "Rob Vanstone: Saskatchewan Roughriders' 2020 Grey Cup bid should be a lock ... but then what?". Leader Post. October 1, 2018. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Riders confirm plan to bid on 2020 Grey Cup". CJME. October 1, 2018. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  10. 1 2 "The Roughriders want to stage another Grey Cup". Riderville. October 2, 2018. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
  11. ↑ "For the CFL's Grey Cup director, the big game is a calling". Theglobeandmail.com. November 24, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2018 – via The Globe and Mail.
  12. 1 2 "CFL Announces 2020 Grey Cup to be Most Northern Grey Cup Ever!". cfl.ca. April 1, 2016. Retrieved October 2, 2018.
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