CFL confirms discussions have taken place regarding Halifax expansion

TORONTO — The Canadian Football League has responded to a report by TSN’s Dave Naylor regarding the league’s interest in expanding to Halifax, NS in the near future.

The league said Thursday afternoon that it can “confirm the CFL has had discussions with a group interested in securing a Canadian Football League franchise for the city of Halifax.”

“We can confirm the CFL has had discussions with a group interested in securing a Canadian Football League franchise for the city of Halifax. While this group has been professional, enthusiastic and impressive, these conversations are relatively new and a very thorough process of due diligence must be put in place and completed before we can fully assess the viability of the project. We want to publicly thank this group for its passion for the CFL and we thank the members of the media for their interest.”

In his report, Naylor stated that “a group of businessmen with ties to Eastern Canada would like to make the Canadian Football League’s dream of a tenth franchise come true in Halifax.”

The talk of adding a 10th franchise in The Maritimes has been brought up before with the league even testing the market a handful of times over the last decade.


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A number of East Coast cities, including Saint John hosted pre-season games in 1986 and 1987 and then again in 2003.

In 2005, the CFL held its first Touchdown Atlantic game in a pre-season contest at Halifax’s Husky Stadium between the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats.  They would host three more — this time regular season contests — in Moncton in 2010, 2011 and 2013.