2024 B.C. Lions Schedule

[Hambone]

Kind of an odd thought and wondering if it would work to schedule a complete bye week in week nine or ten and fill the void with a skills style competition similar to what they did years ago. It would all have to be non contact and so forth but fun for the fans to know who the fastest, strongest players are. Players competing would need to be compensated

Not sure if a complete bye week would shorten the season or not. Main concern would be days between games.

Interesting concept. Are you talking adding a 4th bye week for everybody in the middle of the season or making this the 3rd bye week for everybody? Definitely not my cup of tea to view anyways. I have no interest in watching guys run some of the combine drills along with other hokey events. Maybe I'm in the minority but the more I see the NHL and NFL try to add new things to their All-Star and Pro Bowl events in the name of making them more entertaining the less entertaining they come across as to me.

BCF raises some great points. Biggest I think is the idea of asking some of the most important players to surrender their bye week of resting/recharging and opportunity to spend time with family. Players really do value their bye weeks for those reasons. A second byproduct of that is that some team will be getting a bye the week before this week and another the week after. That means those teams are taking two weeks of downtime going 3 weeks . Using Week 9 this year as an example BC has the Week 8 bye. With this concept they'd play July 21st and not again until August 11th. That is not a good thing. Injury risk is real because the only way to find out who the fastest and strongest are is to ask them to strain themselves to their limits if they want to win..

My bigger concern though would be about the timing. Weeks 9 & 10 are right when the NFL starts televising their exhibition games. That is not the time to take the pedal off the metal by replacing 4 games = 12 hours of live game action with an hour or two of some made for TV event. This sort of event might best be suitable for sometime in the offseason like either the week after Grey Cup or in conjunction with the CFL Combine.

[don corleone]

The thought was to continue with three byes with each team getting one on either side of the big bye. It would still need to be at least 19 weeks of football and the tenth team will be a welcome addition to the schedule when that time comes. As is the byes are all over the place and not equally spaced.

Also know there would be all kinds of issues with the players and CFLPA but thought I would throw it out there as many people read the forum and maybe someone comes up with a better idea of how to do it. Maybe a H.O.F. weekend although that sounds a little dry without a game.

[Hambone]

They already have what they consider a HOF weekend and HOF game. This past year the induction happened on Sept 15 with the HOF Game being the Bombers @ Hamilton the following day.

They always make a big deal of the inductees at the game day after induction ceremonies. I know John Bowman was unable to attend that aspect as the Lions were playing the same day. I don't recall if he flew out for the Friday induction ceremonies and straight back to Van or had to skip them.

[don corleone]

Possible that TSN will come up with something new this year but I can also see another year of Glenn Suitor providing commentary. That said the H.O.F. game is one of the most distracted broadcasts of the year having to interview the inductees during the game with the extended half time ceremony for the fans in attendance.

As Hambone mentions they have a dinner the night before that would be a more suitable venue imo which is where the suggestion of an event that could be scheduled during the dedicated off week came from. Just spitballing,

[don corleone]

Looking at the schedule Lions have a tough first 5 games. Opening in Toronto will not be easy and it will also be important imo to beat Winnipeg in Week 3. Reality is every game will be a dog fight.

Shaping up to be a good season though with all teams fairly equal.

[Hambone]

The first 5 or 6 don't concern me as much as the stretch after that. At least the first 6 are split down the middle 3 home and 3 away. After the Rider game on July 13 and on until the Argos sail in on Sept 13 they have 5 road games and only 2 at "home" with one of those 2 being over in Victoria. The first 6 are hugely important in large part because of the murderous stretch that follows and takes them thru until mid Sept.

[SammyGreene]

Looking at the schedule Lions have a tough first 5 games. Opening in Toronto will not be easy and it will also be important imo to beat Winnipeg in Week 3. Reality is every game will be a dog fight.

Shaping up to be a good season though with all teams fairly equal.

They deserve a TON of credit for resurrecting VA's career to return to the West Final after losing the league's most exciting young player at an impact position. Now they look to try and take the next step after losing their most dominant player on the other side of the ball to the NFL and their best receiver out until at least early September.
That's on top of walking away from Rhymes' contract and electing not to re-sign Whitehead.

I have plenty of faith in their ability to recruit and we should see a better running game in 2024 but my expectations, out of the gate at least, will slip a notch.

[don corleone]

TSN announcing they will only be televising two exhibition games including an Elks vs Lions Friday night game. Sheds a little light on the lack of interest when only 2 of 9 games are aired and must have been something agreed upon during the last negotiation for broadcast rights.

Hopefully CFL+ will air the games for anyone interested.

[Hambone]

TSN announcing they will only be televising two exhibition games including an Elks vs Lions Friday night game. Sheds a little light on the lack of interest when only 2 of 9 games are aired and must have been something agreed upon during the last negotiation for broadcast rights.

Hopefully CFL+ will air the games for anyone interested.

The challenge is this year outside of the 1st game which goes early to balance off the need for 9 games they've chosen to play the other 8 on 2 calendar days; 4 on Sat May 25 and the other 4 on Friday May 31.

There are overlaps on all 4 games on the 25th. First game goes at 10:00am PDT, next 2 both start 2 hours later at noon PDT and the 4th starts 2-1/2 later at 2:30pm PDT.

On May 31 they can at least air a FNF double-header. The other 2 games would also overlap the FNF.

I suspect there could be reasons for the CFL lumping the 8 games onto the 2 dates. For sure it puts most of the teams in the same level playing field in terms of number of practices between games and leaves 8 of the teams with the same number of days to make final cut decisions.

As for the lack of telecasts I think purely from a viewership perspective they would be going head to head vs Stanley Cup playoffs. Their worst TV ratings last year were for the first game of the season which went up against a Stanley Cup finals game. It makes for a nasty combination when production costs wouldn't be much lower than for a regular season game while viewership will definitely be much lower than their worst regular season draw.

Overall if it doesn't make financial sense for TSN to air most or all games then there is no reason for the CFL to spread the preseason schedule out.

However I suspect your wish for streaming on CFL+ will come true. Cost for that is fairly minimal as they rely on some sort of bare bones in stadium feed and local radio simulcast combination. I don't recall watching that last year but seems to me feedback was that while it was nowhere near normal telecast quality it was good enough.

[don corleone]

With the early Monday game followed by the Saturday, Friday schedule they have the pre season wrapped by the end of May with roughly equal rest for all teams heading into the season opener which was likely the target they set. Tells me that the teams still want to play the games and given the lack of contact in practice would be a good measure of the players potential under fire. It would be nice to see them play their anticipated starters more for the fans paying full price for the ticket.

Alternatively, to have the exhibition games dropped from the season ticket package and to have the team use them to creatively market the team and attract new fans could help. I'm not a big fan of the rock band idea because I think it takes away from the football but will admit the Lions do that well.