COVID-19 : How it could impact Lions/CFL

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The_Pauser
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maxlion wrote:
Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:52 pm
From the narrow point of view of 'saving the CFL season', the best case scenario would be a massive wave of infections across NA as soon as possible. The more effective the efforts to suppress transmission or "flatten the curve" are, the longer that social distancing rules and other will need to be enforced to avoid a sudden surge of infections. In the latter scenario, it seems inconceivable to me that there would be any sporting events before the end of summer at the very earliest, and probably beyond. In either case, the economic and social impacts will be significant and long-lasting. For a league that is as vulnerable as the CFL is, that is bad news.
That would lead to the deaths of thousands of people. Look at what is happening in Italy. Let's not go down that path.
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South Pender wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 1:03 pm
I wonder what happens to player and coach contracts under the present state of affairs. What of the guys signed for 2020 already? And I guess the television contract with the CFL goes away too or perhaps is pro-rated for the length of the season, assuming that there will be one (which looks less and less likely).

In the NFL, there are a lot of players with guaranteed money in their contracts. If there is no NFL season, it's hard to see them getting any of this money. Maybe there are "acts of God" provisions in these contracts that cancel them if something this catastrophic happens.
The standard CFL players contract effectively says players are to be paid 1/18th of the stated salary within 48 hours of every regular season game. I take that to mean they will get 14/18 of their salary if only 14 games are played. Most signing or roster bonuses are defacto advances on their total salary and treated as separate items on the contract. For instance a player getting $150K with $75K up front would show and annual salary of $75K in that part of the contract. And of course if the contract stipulated the bonus be paid say in February then the player has already received it. On the flip side many players have performance bonuses. Depending on how they are written some might be impossible to earn in a shortened season.

As for the TV contract I'd think there is all kinds of language written into it that will cover just about every situation. TSN will be protecting their legal and fiscal butts for just about any situation that potentially could reduce the content they are expected to provide.
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South Pender
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Hambone wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 3:07 pm
South Pender wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 1:03 pm
I wonder what happens to player and coach contracts under the present state of affairs. What of the guys signed for 2020 already? And I guess the television contract with the CFL goes away too or perhaps is pro-rated for the length of the season, assuming that there will be one (which looks less and less likely).

In the NFL, there are a lot of players with guaranteed money in their contracts. If there is no NFL season, it's hard to see them getting any of this money. Maybe there are "acts of God" provisions in these contracts that cancel them if something this catastrophic happens.
The standard CFL players contract effectively says players are to be paid 1/18th of the stated salary within 48 hours of every regular season game. I take that to mean they will get 14/18 of their salary if only 14 games are played. Most signing or roster bonuses are defacto advances on their total salary and treated as separate items on the contract. For instance a player getting $150K with $75K up front would show and annual salary of $75K in that part of the contract. And of course if the contract stipulated the bonus be paid say in February then the player has already received it. On the flip side many players have performance bonuses. Depending on how they are written some might be impossible to earn in a shortened season.

As for the TV contract I'd think there is all kinds of language written into it that will cover just about every situation. TSN will be protecting their legal and fiscal butts for just about any situation that potentially could reduce the content they are expected to provide.
I just ran across this discussion about NBA and NFL contracts on Pro Football Talk. The relevant language is regarding a 'Force Majeure Event’ which includes, among many other things, an "epidemic." Evidently, this language allows the NBA to cancel its entire CBA after a ’Force Majeure Event’.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2 ... ayers-too/
The author (Mike Florio) notes, however, that the NFL CBA contract does not include this language, meaning that

"this would support a fairly basic argument that the teams owe the players their money even if there’s no season. Which would result in roughly $200 million per team being paid to players, with no revenue to offset the expense." The players may be entitled to their entire 2020 salary, season or not.

We're really sailing in completely uncharted waters here, but I wonder whether the CFL CBA has the equivalent of 'Force Majeure Event’ language in it. If there is no 2020 season, can Mike Reilly still expect to receive his $725,000 (or whatever it is)?
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An alternative argument to force majeure is frustration, which is a common law concept that doesn't depend on anything written in the contract. Large gatherings are banned by law so the contracts cannot be performed. The contracts would be treated as if they never existed.

https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/insights/art ... rustration
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David
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Two things to consider if the CFL season goes down the tubes (doubtful, but I think peak reported cases in USA is still a ways away. When American players will be allowed to come up here to play is anyone's guess).

1) Extremely doubtful Braley/LeLacheur are holding talks with anyone right now on the sale of the team. Braley is very likely waiting for the team to turn its fortunes around in the standings, which means the sale will probably drag on another year and counting...

2) If we lose the season, that's another year wasted for Reilly in BC. Last year, he got stuck playing behind a porous line for most of the year (and bad coaching), then got hurt. This year could be COVID-19. He's 35 years old now. Just sayin'.


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I am really pissed off at the various levels of Govt that have responded too little way too late.

When I first heard of this virus going outside China, I was wishing that the feds would have immediately closed all borders and airports and ports to non residents. As for residents, everyone should have been immediately isolated, tested and mandatory supervised quarantine until cleared. Then we would not have so much of all that is being tried now. Less cases of the virus. Less closures of businesses and schools. Less cancellations of events, etc.
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KnowItAll wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 10:05 pm
I am really pissed off at the various levels of Govt that have responded too little way too late.

When I first heard of this virus going outside China, I was wishing that the feds would have immediately closed all borders and airports and ports to non residents. As for residents, everyone should have been immediately isolated, tested and mandatory supervised quarantine until cleared. Then we would not have so much of all that is being tried now. Less cases of the virus. Less closures of businesses and schools. Less cancellations of events, etc.
Well, hindsight is 20/20, isn't it. In the very early stages of the pandemic, national governments were in a bind--jump right in with widespread testing, isolating, etc., and watch the economy take a devastating hit or wait a bit to see how the disease would spread and at what speed and try to minimize the economic effects. At a time when the epidemiologists weren't quite certain about the shape of the "curve" of infections and how it would increase in height, it's not hard to sympathize with government health-care specialists wondering when they should be calling for really stringent measures (to "flatten the curve")--with all the negative effects associated with these efforts--and the inevitable criticism they would receive for the effects on the economy. A sort of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation.

So although the Canadian response hasn't been purrfect, it has been far more effective than that in the U.S., where Trump's bungling and bloviating has resulted in far greater infection and death rates from the disease. In fact, our infection and death rates are about 1/3 of that in the US (after adjusting for population-size differences). To be more specific, as of March 24, we've had 1739 confirmed cases, or about 3.3% of the 52,983 confirmed cases in the US. Since the population of Canada is about 37.6M and that of the US is about 8.8 times as large, or 331M, if our 1739 cases were multiplied by 8.8 to simulate the extent for a country the size of the US, it would be only 29% of the reported confirmed cases in the US. The same math holds for deaths. This shows a far more effective government response in Canada.

In fact, testing was scaled up much earlier in Canada than in the US and has been far more widespread. From the available data at this point (which data are changing by the hour), more people have been tested for the coronavirus in Canada than in the US, a country nearly 9 times as large. The phenomenon of insufficient testing kits has been far, far less pronounced in Canada than in the US. All things considered, I think I'd rate Canada's response just about as effective as could be expected, given all the competing factors involved in the overall decision-making.
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South Pender wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 3:07 pm
KnowItAll wrote:
Mon Mar 23, 2020 10:05 pm
I am really pissed off at the various levels of Govt that have responded too little way too late.

When I first heard of this virus going outside China, I was wishing that the feds would have immediately closed all borders and airports and ports to non residents. As for residents, everyone should have been immediately isolated, tested and mandatory supervised quarantine until cleared. Then we would not have so much of all that is being tried now. Less cases of the virus. Less closures of businesses and schools. Less cancellations of events, etc.
Well, hindsight is 20/20, isn't it. In the very early stages of the pandemic, national governments were in a bind--jump right in with widespread testing, isolating, etc., and watch the economy take a devastating hit or wait a bit to see how the disease would spread and at what speed and try to minimize the economic effects. At a time when the epidemiologists weren't quite certain about the shape of the "curve" of infections and how it would increase in height, it's not hard to sympathize with government health-care specialists wondering when they should be calling for really stringent measures (to "flatten the curve")--with all the negative effects associated with these efforts--and the inevitable criticism they would receive for the effects on the economy. A sort of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation.

So although the Canadian response hasn't been purrfect, it has been far more effective than that in the U.S., where Trump's bungling and bloviating has resulted in far greater infection and death rates from the disease. In fact, our infection and death rates are about 1/3 of that in the US (after adjusting for population-size differences). To be more specific, as of March 24, we've had 1739 confirmed cases, or about 3.3% of the 52,983 confirmed cases in the US. Since the population of Canada is about 37.6M and that of the US is about 8.8 times as large, or 331M, if our 1739 cases were multiplied by 8.8 to simulate the extent for a country the size of the US, it would be only 29% of the reported confirmed cases in the US. The same math holds for deaths. This shows a far more effective government response in Canada.

In fact, testing was scaled up much earlier in Canada than in the US and has been far more widespread. From the available data at this point (which data are changing by the hour), more people have been tested for the coronavirus in Canada than in the US, a country nearly 9 times as large. The phenomenon of insufficient testing kits has been far, far less pronounced in Canada than in the US. All things considered, I think I'd rate Canada's response just about as effective as could be expected, given all the competing factors involved in the overall decision-making.
not 20/20 hindsight with me. Trying to save economy up front has now led to bigger hit on economy anyhow. They needed to have the balls to be properly proactive on this, even if ignorance caused many to *beeotch* about it. That other countries like USA are worse does not matter. That's their problem. Ours is still what is here now

then there is this example of a Country that did it better.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/wh ... spartanntp
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KnowItAll wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 3:47 pm
not 20/20 hindsight with me. Trying to save economy up front has now led to bigger hit on economy anyhow. They needed to have the balls to be properly proactive on this, even if ignorance caused many to *beeotch* about it. That other countries like USA are worse does not matter. That's their problem. Ours is still what is here now

then there is this example of a Country that did it better.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/wh ... spartanntp
In fact, Canada has done much better than just about any other country--not just the US. I think that this context is necessary when evaluating a country's response. It rings a little hollow to complain about the COVID-19 situation in Canada when it's been better than just about every other country in the world. There's just no evidence that the hit to our economy will be worse because of the response by the three levels of government in Canada than it would have been had we been more draconian early on, as you advocate. In fact, that may have made things worse.

As for a country that you claim did this better than Canada--Germany--the fact is that, as of this date, Germany has had 32,986 confirmed cases of COVID-19 or about 19 times as many as we've had in Canada (1739), despite the fact that Germany's population is only about 2.2 times as large as ours. So 2.2 times 1739 works out to 3,826 cases for a country 2.2 times as large as Canada with Canada's infection rate, rather than the actual number of confirmed cases in Germany, 32,986. In addition, 157 Germans have died of COVID-19, compared to 25 in Canada, or a rate of 6.3 times ours. So has Germany really done it better than we have? I don't think so.
Last edited by South Pender on Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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I witnessed a verbal altercation about a man asking if he could take an extra litre of milk for his young children. Key word is he asked. A red neck couple jumped all over him for asking. A reasonable woman came to his rescue. The usual fuss but nothing else as social distances were adhered to. BB
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South Pender wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 4:34 pm
KnowItAll wrote:
Tue Mar 24, 2020 3:47 pm
not 20/20 hindsight with me. Trying to save economy up front has now led to bigger hit on economy anyhow. They needed to have the balls to be properly proactive on this, even if ignorance caused many to *beeotch* about it. That other countries like USA are worse does not matter. That's their problem. Ours is still what is here now

then there is this example of a Country that did it better.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/wh ... spartanntp
In fact, Canada has done much better than just about any other country--not just the US. I think that this context is necessary when evaluating a country's response. It rings a little hollow to complain about the COVID-19 situation in Canada when it's been better than just about every other country in the world. There's just no evidence that the hit to our economy will be worse because of the response by the three levels of government in Canada than it would have been had we been more draconian early on, as you advocate. In fact, that may have made things worse.

As for a country that you claim did this better than Canada--Germany--the fact is that, as of this date, Germany has had 32,986 confirmed cases of COVID-19 or about 19 times as many as we've had in Canada (1739), despite the fact that Germany's population is only about 2.2 times as large as ours. So 2.2 times 1739 works out to 3,826 cases for a country 2.2 times as large as Canada with Canada's infection rate, rather than the actual number of confirmed cases in Germany, 32,986. In addition, 157 Germans have died of COVID-19, compared to 25 in Canada, or a rate of 6.3 times ours. So has Germany really done it better than we have? I don't think so.
let us not forget that Germany's pop density is about 60 time that of Canada's. If they had been as slack as us, I surmise that their numbers would be much higher

regardless, I don't care if our response was the best in the world, it still wasn't good enough. It still wasn't what I hoped every country would do right in the beginning.
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TheLionKing
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It's about to become a lot worse in the States if Trump follows through with his muttering about relaxing some of the regulations to enable people returning to work as early as Easter.
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Helpful info from CFLPA President (Sol E) for the players. An interesting read: https://3downnation.com/2020/03/24/cflp ... 9-reality/
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right now I would be surprised if the NFL had a full season, let alone the CFL.
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maxlion
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As the days pass, the prospects for a CFL season seem increasingly unlikely. Even if the virus is under control and things are getting back to normal by the drop dead date (Labour day?), I can't see mass gatherings happening or even being permissible by law.

Hopefully the league can recover for next year, but the long term consequences for professional sports are pretty uncertain. Suddenly we all have a lot more important things to worry about.
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