An Open Letter to CFL Commissioner Stewart Johnston

By Chris Lawton

Following the unpopular announcement of a playoff format change scheduled for the 2027 season, The Touchdown’s CFL correspondent Chris Lawton has written an open letter to CFL Commissioner Stewart Johnson:

Dear Commissioner Johnston,

You don’t know me. Why should you? I am just one fan of the great league you represent. Still, I write this open letter to you as a passionate advocate of the Canadian Football League. A fan who has followed, promoted and championed the great 3-down game from the United Kingdom. The Touchdown gives me a great platform to do so and so I am using that now as I write not to tear down the league I love, but precisely because I love it, and because I believe it either deserves better than the direction some recent decisions appear to be taking it or fans as stakeholders need to be given a better picture of your overall strategic direction.

The announcement of the new playoff format, effective 2027, has left me, and many fans I see online, genuinely troubled. Eight of nine teams qualifying for the postseason is not an expansion that has me excited right now; it feels more like a near-elimination of consequence. The regular season is the heartbeat of any league. It is where rivalries are forged, where standings should matter, where every game should carry weight. When only one team is set excluded from the playoffs, that heartbeat becomes faint. What does it mean to finish first in your division if your reward is a home game against the team that finished second? What does finishing fifth or sixth really say about a club’s season if they are still playoff-bound? And how on Earth does the team and their fans feel about being the only team to miss out?

I understand the stated goals. Of course I do. More games, more drama, more entertainment. I respect that the league and the CFLPA worked together on this, and I recognise that growing the postseason schedule has commercial merit. But I would ask you this sincerely: is there a plan for expansion that would make this format make sense? With ten or twelve teams, an eight-team playoff would carry much more genuine legitimacy. With nine, it simply does not. If expansion is genuinely on the horizon, and the rumours around markets like Halifax, Quebec City and Atlantic Canada have circulated long enough to deserve a direct answer, fans deserve to know that. It would transform this announcement from a puzzling decision into a bold piece of long-term strategy, and we would celebrate it as such.

This brings me to a broader concern that I think underpins all of the above: the absence of any clearly communicated long-term vision for the league. Fans, and particularly speaking as an international fan, who has made a conscious and deliberate choice to invest their passion in a league that exists thousands of miles away, but mostly fans generally, are, in a very real sense, stakeholders. We are not casual observers. We subscribe, we stream, we buy merchandise, we write and podcast and advocate. We do so because we believe in this league’s future. But belief requires something to hold onto. Are there attendance strategies being developed for franchises that continue to struggle to fill their stadiums? Is there a coherent plan to grow the international broadcast footprint? Is the CFL financially healthy enough that these changes reflect ambition rather than anxiety? A published strategic vision, even a broad one, would not be a sign of weakness. It would be an act of respect toward every fan who has chosen to make the CFL part of their life.

I also want to raise something that I suspect has gone unremarked in official circles but has not gone unnoticed by fans: the timing of this announcement. Dropping a seismic structural change to the league’s playoff format in the days immediately before the CFL Draft feels, at best, like poor scheduling. At worst, like a deliberate attempt to slip a controversial decision in behind one of the most celebrated events in the Canadian football calendar. The Draft is a moment of genuine excitement and optimism. Young players realising their dreams, fans imagining the future of their teams. That story and particularly those players deserved the full spotlight. Instead, they found themselves competing with a debate about whether the league has fundamentally undermined the value of its own regular season. Whether that was the intention or not, the effect was to take the shine off a day that belongs to the players, and that should be reflected on.

This concern does not stand alone. It follows the September 2025 announcement of sweeping rule and field changes that were met, in many quarters, with frustration. Not because fans are resistant to change, in fact many fans recognise a need for change to drive growth and sustainability. But instead because the communication around those changes left much to be desired.  The league promised that decisions were data-driven and evidence-based. Many of us are still waiting to see that evidence in any meaningful, transparent form. Projections of 60 additional touchdowns per season and a 10% increase in end zone completions are cited, but the underlying research has not been made available to the fanbase in a way that invites genuine scrutiny or builds genuine trust.

We are not asking for perfection. We are asking to be treated as intelligent partners in this league’s future. Not as it has felt since your arrival like we are passive recipients of decisions handed down from on high.

With that in mind, I’d like to put a direct and genuine request to you, Commissioner: would you consider sitting down for an unscripted conversation with one of the independent CFL podcasts like 2 and Out, or one of the other fan-led voices that have done so much to grow this league’s community. Or you could go in-house with The Waggle for comfort. But either way could we see you do that and fielding questions on both the rule changes and the new playoff format from an audience that hasn’t been curated in advance? Not a press conference. Not a prepared statement. A real conversation, with real fans, asking the questions that are on people’s minds? It would go a long way to restoring some faith in a long-term vision. It would signal that the league trusts its supporters enough to engage with them honestly, and it would give you the opportunity to make the case for these changes in a forum where convincing a sceptic would mean something.

The CFL is unique. It is gloriously, defiantly, beautifully, wonderfully its own thing. Three downs, twelve players, the waggle, the wide field. None of these are quirks to be apologised for. Rather they are what makes the soul of the game. From thousands of miles away, a fan like me has fallen in love with that soul. I, like so many others, want to see the CFL thrive. We want to help build its profile. But that work becomes harder when we find ourselves defending decisions we ourselves do not fully understand.

I respectfully ask the league for three things: provide transparent access to the research underpinning the 2027 rule and field changes; give the fanbase a clear and honest answer about whether the new playoff format is tied to an expansion strategy, and if so, what that timeline looks like; and share with us a vision for where this league is going, so that those of us who have chosen to come along for the ride know that the destination is worth believing in.

The CFL has an extraordinary story to tell. Please trust your fans enough to tell it fully.

Yours in football,

Chris Lawton

CFL Contributor, Touchdown.co.uk

CHRIS LAWTON

CFL ANALYST

Chris originally started following the NFL with the ‘first wave’ of fans when it was shown on Channel 4 in the 1980’s. He has been a keen supporter of the Miami Dolphins since 1983. Chris first encountered the CFL in 2016 and instantly fell in love with the Canadian game. He has been writing about the CFL 2017. Chris has a degree in history, postgraduate degree in librarianship and can be found on twitter as @CFLfanUK

Rated 5 out of 5