Negotiating window puts beneficial twist in CFL free agencyOn Sunday, for the first time ever, a free-agency negotiating window will be flung wide open, a full nine days before the signing period begins on Feb. 11. While the window is open, pending free agents can negotiate with all CFL teams, any team can make a binding contract offer to a pending free agent, and all offers must be filed with the league and CFLPA. Once the negotiating window closes Feb. 9, teams are able to negotiate exclusively with their own free agents for 48 hours. Those teams will have been apprised of all offers made to their pending free agents by other CFL teams.
Once that 48-hour period expires, pending free agents will have exactly two hours — from 10 a.m. to noon ET on Feb. 11 — to accept any offer on the table, including one from their own team. If a player chooses not to accept any offer, he becomes a free agent at 12:01 p.m. ET. All previous offers made to that free agent are rescinded and the normal free agency process unfolds as before.
“The primary motivation to do this is that it’s elegant and has advantages to the player,” said commissioner Randy Ambrosie. “Kudos to the PA for their efforts to bring this together with us. It also has an advantage to the incumbent team.
“In some respects this is the classic win-win. This is where everybody gets something good. This is one of the elements of the CBA that both the players and the league can feel proud of.”
All major sports leagues in North American employ a version of the negotiating window, and there are a couple of obvious benefits to this new CFL system. Tampering, which has unduly influenced previous free agency periods, should become a moot issue. And both player and team gains an accurate sense of what the market thinks he’s worth, which could lead to increased roster continuity.
CFL free agency - negotiating window open
Moderator: Team Captains
Dan Barnes of Postmedia offers a great explanation of the new CFL free-agent negotiating window, which opened Sunday.