Canadian Football League Research Articles

Professional Team Sport and Twitter: Gratifications Sought and Obtained by Followers

Without exception, all professional sport teams in North America use social media to communicate with fans. Sport communication professionals use Twitter as one of the strategic tools of engagement, yet there remains a lack of understanding about how users are motivated and gratified in their Twitter use. Drawing on a specific sample from the Twitter followers of the Canadian Football League, the researchers used semistructured in-depth interviews, content analysis, and an online survey to seek an understanding of what motivates and satisfies Twitter followers of professional sport teams, measured through the gratifications sought and the fulfillment of these motives through the perceived gratifications obtained. The results add to the sport communications literature by finding 4 primary gratifications sought by Twitter users: interaction, promotion, live game updates, and news. Professional sport teams can improve strategic fan engagement by better understanding how Twitter followers use and seek gratification in the social-media experience.

THE RELATION BETWEEN SELF-EFFICACY, INJURY AND FEAR OF INJURY AMONG ELITE ATHLETES

BackgroundA growing body of research recognizes the significance of the psychological response to injury among athletes. Yet, to date there is paucity of research that conceptualizes the role which self-efficacy...

The legitimacy of new assurance providers: Making the cap fit

According to Bourdieu, legitimacy is a scarce symbolic resource that is subject to struggle and (re)negotiation. Focusing on the emergence and operation of the salary cap audit programs in the National Rugby League (NRL) in Australia and Canadian Football League (CFL) in Canada, this article explores the way in which auditors compete for legitimacy in new audit spaces. We highlight the way that capital from intersecting semi-autonomous fields were drawn upon to generate legitimacy for the new roles. We also draw attention to a range of practical strategies, including conscious ingratiation, sanctioning, and fairness appeals, which were mobilised to impose the auditors in their roles, populate the field with new rules and confer a new order. The contrasting case studies reveal the importance of contextual elements and the configuration of the field of power in each case. Implications for the claims of the accounting profession to new audit spaces are discussed.

Heritage sport tourism in Canada

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the opportunities and challenges of heritage sport tourism by examining (1) the Arctic Winter Games and (2) the Canadian Football League as heritage sport tourism attractions in Canada. A review of the heritage sport tourism literature provides the context for this assessment. Key opportunities were found in (1) the manifestation of sport as a meaningful form of culture; (2) sport's impact on collective identity and by extension – destination image and (3) unique connections of sport heritage to place that can be positioned for competitive advantage. The central challenges include those associated with (1) processes of globalization and (2) the fragmented nature of the heritage sport tourism industry.

Toronto's SkyDome: the world's greatest entertainment centre†

In the mid-1980s, the Ontario government partnered with some of the most powerful corporations in Ontario to build a stadium for Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Canadian Football League. I opposed the creation of the SkyDome (so named because of its retractable roof) on the grounds that corporate sport did not need public subsidy and that a publicly enabled showcase for men's-only sport would further the marginalization of women. Then in 1990, with a change in government, I was appointed to the stadium board with instructions to limit or end the public financial risk from the facility. ‘Sometimes poachers make the best gamekeepers’, said Ontario treasurer Floyd Laughren. During the next four years, working closely with labour leader Bob White and others, I helped sell off the stadium to the corporate interests that most benefited from it, while contributing to its management. It was a heady time: the negotiations for the sale were constantly in the media spotlight, and in 1992 and 1993, the stadium's principal tenant, the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club, won back-to-back MLB championships. I learned a lot that subsequently stood me in good stead when I became responsible for the management of the University of Toronto's athletic facilities. This article, written in 1994, places the development and sale of the SkyDome in the history of Toronto urban development and North American commercial sport and shares the thinking that led us to initiate and complete the sale. To the best of my knowledge, it constitutes the only time in North America when a money-losing, publicly subsidized facility has ever been sold to the corporations that use it.

Exploring the experiences of female sport fans: A collaborative self-ethnography

Hegemonic masculinity would suggest that sport fandom is the exclusive domain of men and women are subordinate. Yet, it is apparent that women make up a significant portion of the professional sport spectator market. As such, it is important to systematically examine the role of hegemonic masculinity in the female sport fan experience. The purpose of this paper was to document, explore, and reflect upon personal experiences of female sport fans using a collaborative self-ethnography approach. Over a period of 3 months, we documented our experiences attending professional sport events (e.g., Major League Baseball, Canadian Football League) in the United States and Canada. Analysis of the data occurred through a process of sharing and critical reflection of our narratives. We identified three common themes that defined our experiences as female sport fans: (a) negotiating our definition of being a sport fan, (b) female sport fan as “the outsider”, and (c) marginalisation of other women. Our work provides some insight into the lived experiences of female sport fans. Discussion of the findings is intended to shed light on the conversation regarding hegemonic masculinity within the sport fan literature.

Absence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in retired football players with multiple concussions and neurological symptomatology

Background: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is the term coined for the neurodegenerative disease often suspected in athletes with histories of repeated concussion and progressive dementia. Histologically, CTE is defined as a tauopathy with a distribution of tau-positive neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) that is distinct from other tauopathies, and usually shows an absence of beta-amyloid deposits, in contrast to Alzheimer's disease (AD). Although the connection between repeated concussions and CTE-type neurodegeneration has been recently proposed, this causal relationship has not yet been firmly established. Also, the prevalence of CTE among athletes with multiple concussions is unknown.Methods: We performed a consecutive case series brain autopsy study on six retired professional football players from the Canadian Football League (CFL) with histories of multiple concussions and significant neurological decline.Results: All participants had progressive neurocognitive decline prior to death; however, only 3 cases had post-mortem neuropathological findings consistent with CTE. The other 3 participants had pathological diagnoses of AD, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Parkinson's disease (PD). Moreover, the CTE cases showed co-morbid pathology of cancer, vascular disease, and AD.Discussion: Our case studies highlight that not all athletes with history of repeated concussions and neurological symptomology present neuropathological changes of CTE. These preliminary findings support the need for further research into the link between concussion and CTE as well as the need to expand the research to other possible causes of taupathy in athletes. They point to a critical need for prospective studies with good sampling methods to allow us to understand the relationship between multiple concussions and the development of CTE.

CRT Rewind: Teaching toward (the elusive) social justice

The key event around which this paper is built is the 2010 absolute discharge granted to Eric Tillman, a former (and current) Canadian Football League executive, who pleaded guilty to a sexual assault charge involving a teenage girl in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada (Pruden, 2010). Drawing on critical race theory as applied to pedagogical spaces (Knaus, 2009; Earick, 2009), it offers a reverse chronology, autoethnographic response to the ruling in the Tillman case, as well as to “public” discourse produced by, and informing, the case itself. Combining autoethnographic reflections and a bricolage of artifacts, it interrogates (im)possibilities of teaching toward social justice with/in pejoratively gendered and racialized social spaces such as those of the Canadian Prairies and offers pedagogical possibilities for speaking to disrupt.

A Decision Support System for Scheduling the Canadian Football League

The eight-team Canadian Football League (CFL) features an 18-game regular season played between late June and early November. The regular-season schedule is manually created using an iterative process involving league management, teams, and a television sports broadcaster. We developed a mixed-integer program-driven decision support system that provided league officials with multiple schedule versions relatively quickly. Our approach informed the development of the regular-season schedule by offering league management a neighborhood of potentially solid solutions. We demonstrated the impact of specific schedule requests to decision makers. Such sensitivity analysis was impossible under the previous manual creation method.

A youth perspective on Leisure, livability, and Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park

Residents of the Canadian Capital City – Ottawa − have been caught up in an intense debate about the transformation of Lansdowne Park, a multi-purpose city-run open space that is home to heritage buildings, an arena and stadium as well as several weekly and annual community events. In the last decade, the Canadian Football League (CFL) franchise and the south side of the stadium crumbled and then collapsed. In 2009, a group of local business owners presented the Lansdowne Live ! proposal to raise the CFL franchise and to build a large-scale hotel and shopping centre at the park. This proposal, the only one to be considered by the City Council, has become a lightning rod for debate about the park’s ‘potential’ and ‘real’ contributions to the livability of the city, the quality of life of its inhabitants, and the experiential environment for visitors. The transformation of Lansdowne Park has split the community, heritage supporters, sports fans, leisure experts, city planners, political leaders, and citizen advocates who have long worked together to contribute to the livability of the City of Ottawa. During a period of active community debate in 2009, leisure students at the University of Ottawa developed their own transformation plans based on the key issues revealed by the community discourse. Apart from being future experts in the field, the students are past, present and future stakeholders in whatever the park’s fate may be. A content analysis of the student briefs, informal review of their transformation plans and informal focus group discussions, reveals that the support and opposition for Lansdowne Park is directly linked to the livability of the city and that the youth perspective could inform the development of a solution for Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park.

The Migration of African-Americans to the Canadian Football League During the 1950s: An Escape from Racism?

It is the argument of this paper that the literature on mid-century racial discrimination in sport is incomplete in that it ignores the experiences of a small, but relatively significant, group of African-American football players who actually chose to leave their own country – and correspondingly leave the racially-charged environment of mid-twentieth-century USA – to head north to play professional football in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Beginning in 1946, a steady flow of African-Americans began to migrate to the CFL which, at the time, was a legitimate competitor league to the NFL. This paper attempts to test a perception seemingly held by some that, by moving to Canada, African-American football players were able to escape the racial injustices they often suffered in the US. This view appears to have its roots in the notion that Canada is a ‘gentler’, more tolerant society, without the divisive socio-political history that characterizes much of the race relations in the US. This paper tests these notions using a variety of empirical approaches. The results indicate that, while African-Americans were better represented in the CFL relative to the NFL, African-Americans still faced some level of entry discrimination in the CFL. In particular, African-American players in the CFL outperformed their white counterparts on numerous performance dimensions, indicating the overall talent level in the CFL could have been further improved by employing an even greater number of African-Americans. Additionally, the paper finds that those CFL teams that employed the highest percentage of African-Americans were those teams that had the most on-field success. Finally, the paper analyses prices of player trading cards from that era, and finds that cards of African-Americans were undervalued, relative to white CFL players of equal talent.

Crabs in the grey cup: Baltimore's Canadian football Sojourn, 1994–95

During the early 1990s, Baltimore had a problem: replacing its professional football team, which moved to Indiana in 1984. Fans, politicians, and entrepreneurs plotted, begged, and spent millions trying to gain a replacement. But the National Football League was diffident. With scads of ardent civic suitors, the NFL played hard-to-get. By 1994, Baltimore remained on the outside, feeling desperate. At the same time, North America's “other” professional football operation, the Canadian Football League, faced troubles, too. Older than the more high-profile NFL, the CFL lagged behind its media-savvy American counterpart. Across Canada, the CFL discerned disturbing signs of ennui in its fan base. The solution came suddenly: expand the CFL into the United States, injecting elements of nationalistic competition into the staid league, and granting pigskin-hungry American cities teams to call their own. What followed was a brief, bizarre, and culturally significant episode pin North American sport history. The CFL added five American franchises, while fretting that its distinctively Canadian identity might dilute or evaporate. Most American franchises met scant fan approval. Only in Baltimore did the experiment succeed, because there singular conditions brewed a blend of civic parochialism matching Canadian nationalism.

The Canadian Football League: The Phoenix of Professional Sports Leagues

The Canadian Football League: The Phoenix of Professional Sports Leagues

Analysis and evolution of head injury in football.

To review head injury in football through historical, anatomic, and physiological analysis. We obtained data from a thorough review of the literature. The reported incidence of concussion among high school football players dropped from 19% in 1983 to 4% in 1999. During the 1997 Canadian Football League season, players with a previous loss of consciousness in football were 6.15 times more likely to experience a concussion than players without a previous loss of consciousness (P < 0.05). Players with a previous concussion in football were 5.10 times more likely to experience a concussion than players without a previous concussion (P = 0.0001). With the implementation of National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment standards, fatalities decreased by 74% and serious head injuries decreased from 4.25 per 100,000 to 0.68 per 100,000. Significant declines in both the incidence and severity of head injury have been observed. The enhanced safety records in football can be attributed to the application of more stringent tackling regulations as well as the evolving football helmet. The role of a neurosurgeon is critical in further head injury prevention and guidelines in sport.

Mediated Nostalgia, Community and Nation: The Canadian Football League in Crisis and the Demise of the Ottawa Rough Riders, 1986–1996

Mediated Nostalgia, Community and Nation: The Canadian Football League in Crisis and the Demise of the Ottawa Rough Riders, 1986–1996

The prevalence of reversible airway obstruction in professional football players.

To determine the prevalence of reversible airway obstruction in a group of professional football training camp participants. All attendees at a Canadian Football League team rookie preseason training camp were invited to participate in a protocol designed to elicit symptoms and signs of reversible airway obstruction (asthma) during the initial preparticipation examination. Those agreeing to the protocol completed a questionnaire containing standardized inquiries about a past history of asthma and the presence of symptoms. Participants then underwent spirometry testing to determine lung function before and after receiving a standardized dose of bronchodilator medication. Players showing evidence of airway obstruction during initial testing and still on the team roster underwent repeat spirometry testing and formal pulmonary function testing during the football season. The follow-up pulmonary function tests were performed to determine those that might benefit from treatment for asthma. Nineteen of 34 (56%) players agreeing to participate had significant reversible airway obstruction as defined by a 12% or greater reversibility in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR), and/or forced expiratory flow rate between 25 and 75% of forced vital capacity (FEF 25-75). In most participants, the diagnosis was made on the basis of spirometry alone. Of those testing positive during initial inquiry, 88% remained positive on repeat spirometry, and 73% had reversible airway obstruction during more stringently controlled hospital-based pulmonary function testing. Those players treated for previously undiagnosed asthma noted an improvement in subjective athletic performance during the football season. Based on the remarkably high prevalence of undiagnosed asthma in this group, it may prove worthwhile to test elite football players using lung function parameters.

Concussions During the 1997 Canadian Football League Season

To examine the incidence and characteristics of concussions for one season in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Retrospective survey. 289 players reporting to CFL training camp. Of these, 154 players had played in the CFL during the 1997 season. Based on self-reported symptoms, calculations were made to determine the number of concussions experienced during the previous season, the duration of symptoms, the time for return to play after concussion, and any associated risk factors for concussions. Of all the athletes who played during the 1997 season, 44.8% experienced symptoms of a concussion. Only 18.8% of these concussed players recognized they had suffered a concussion. 69.6% of all concussed players experienced more than one episode. Symptoms lasted at least 1 day in 25.8% of cases. The odds of experiencing a concussion increased 13% with each game played. A past history of a loss of consciousness while playing football and a recognized concussion while playing football were both associated with increased odds of experiencing a concussion during the 1997 season. Many players experienced a concussion during the 1997 CFL season, but the majority of these players may not have recognized that fact. Players need to be better informed about the symptoms and effects of concussions.

Survey of Strength and Conditioning Services for Professional Athletes in Four Sports

This study surveyed the strength and fitness conditioning services offered to professional athletes in Canada and the U.S. The information thus gathered also provides baseline data for comparing the sports. A total of 118 surveys were mailed to general managers for the teams in Professional Baseball (PB), National Football League (NFL), Canadian Football League (CFL), National Hockey League (NHL), and National Basket-ball League (NBA). The response rate was 63% (74 of 118 surveys) and revealed that 74% of the teams have a full-time strength and conditioning coordinator. All NFL teams have full-time coordinators, NBA has 86% coverage, PB has 78% coverage, NHL has 63% coverage, and CFL has 14% coverage. Most teams conduct fitness testing of their athletes, mainly during the preseason, and generally use this information to design training programs for their athletes. Concerning educational background, most coordinators have at least a bachelor's degree in physical education or a related field.

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN NICOTINE AND ALCOHOL USE AMONG PLAYERS IN THE CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE 1658

A group of fifty-five players in the Canadian Football League (CFL) completed a survey regarding current and previous usage of smokeless tobacco(ST) as well as current use of smoking tobacco products and alcohol consumption. The purpose of this study was to establish baseline prevalence rates for ST and alcohol usage as well as smoking tobacco products. Association between nicotine and alcohol use was investigated. Among those athletes, 88% had never smoked while 65% had never used ST. Only 12% of the CFL players smoked while current ST usage was 22% and current alcohol use was 75%. Significant associations were established between those who drink alcohol and those who previously used or are currently using ST (P=.011), as well as among those athletes who currently drink alcoholic beverages and those who are currently ST users (P=.020). This study concludes that the use of smokeless tobacco among this group of CFL players was notable. Additionally, a significant association between the consumption of alcohol and the use of smokeless tobacco was established.

Survey of Strength and Conditioning Services for Professional Athletes in Four Sports

This study surveyed the strength and fitness conditioning services offered to professional athletes in Canada and the U.S. The information thus gathered also provides baseline data for comparing the sports. A total of 118 surveys were mailed to general managers for the teams in Professional Baseball (PB), National Football League (NFL), Canadian Football League (CFL), National Hockey League (NHL), and National Basket-ball League (NBA). The response rate was 63% (74 of 118 surveys) and revealed that 74% of the teams have a full-time strength and conditioning coordinator. All NFL teams have full-time coordinators, NBA has 86% coverage, PB has 78% coverage, NHL has 63% coverage, and CFL has 14% coverage. Most teams conduct fitness testing of their athletes, mainly during the preseason, and generally use this information to design training programs for their athletes. Concerning educational background, most coordinators have at least a bachelor's degree in physical education or a related field.