The CFL Draft Spectacular?

As I'm sure many of you weren't aware, the annual CFL Canadian draft was held this week. I say this not to question your sports knowledge but more as an indictment of how lame the CFL draft really is. What percentage of people drafted actually make a name for themselves in the league...2%, 3% - it's definitely less than 5%.

So it's understandable then why there is almost zero excitement and fanfare around this draft - compare this to say, oh I don't know, the NFL draft (not fair, I know, I know). However, in an attempt to actually create some buzz about the draft this year the CFL decided to broadcast it live on the Internet. I think in previous years it was just done by way of a conference call.

As far as I'm concerned they should have kept this out of the public eye. For as little interest as there is in the draft, why not just save the league the embarrassment of putting out an extremely low-budget broadcast. But if the CFL is going to put the draft out for public consumption, they're also putting it out for public critique. Guess which avenue I went with.

So my intention here was to have a running commentary of the entire first round - that's right, the entire first round - these are the kind of sacrifices I make for you the public (who am I kidding the first round of the CFL draft is only 8 picks and lasts about 35 minutes).

However, due to the fact that it is the CFL draft, I totally forgot about it, and was 35 minutes late tuning in to it. And after watching it for 15 minutes I'd seen and heard enough. It's maybe a good thing I tuned in late because there was just nothing happening.

From the 15 minutes I watched the best thing I can say about the 2007 CFL Draft broadcast is that I'm glad I only watched it for 15 minutes. It looked like an extremely low-budget cable access show that would air at 2:30 in the morning. Let's just say it was not good and call it a day. But then again look at the subject matter - it's the CFL draft! There's no way this thing should have ever been the light of day. It should have been kept in the backrooms and on the phones, where it was for so many years. Does a draft where most teams don't even use their latter-round picks because of lack of talent really need to be broadcast.

I don't know if the league got caught up in all the NFL draft hype and tried to create a little of their own or what. But one thing is for certain, you know your league probably isn't top shelf and shouldn't be broadcasting its draft when a kicker, a KICKER, is taken 2nd overall.

It's a long road to respectability.