Canadian Football League commissioner Randy Ambrosie has spent this off-season playing offence.

Last month, the league announced an alliance with Mexico’s pro football league, then held a combine and entry draft in Mexico City. Next came deals with national football organizations in France, Germany and Austria. So far this winter, the CFL has scored almost three times as many international partnerships (eight) as the Los Angeles Rams had points in the Super Bowl (three).

Ambrosie says a quest for revenue is helping drive the CFL’s international ambition. New audiences mean new broadcast deals, so partnerships in populous countries such as Mexico and Germany make sense.

But it’s also about filling rosters as upstart U.S. leagues compete for American players. The Alliance of American Football kicked off Feb. 9, and a reconstituted XFL is set to start next year. Either league could drain the CFL’s U.S. talent pool.

To stay ahead of that trend, Ambrosie says the league had to think beyond Canada’s southern border in crafting a strategy it calls CFL 2.0.

“We’re always going to have great American players, and we should always be their first choice if they’re not going to play in the NFL,” Ambrosie said during an interview at CFL headquarters. “But we can also open up another supply chain and welcome in players from around the world.”

It’s not clear how long competition from second-tier U.S. pro football will last. The original XFL scooped up Edmonton quarterback Marcus Crandell in 2001 but folded after just one season.

The AAF debuted to impressive TV audiences. Concurrent Saturday night broadcasts averaged 2.9 million total viewers on CBS, and a Sunday night game drew a reported 408,000 viewers on the NFL Network.

But those numbers only matter insofar as they lead to revenue, and two weeks into its first season the AAF faced a cash crisis. According to a report in The Athletic, the league had run out of money and was set to miss payroll before Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon invested $250 million U.S. this week. The move allowed the league’s eight teams to pay employees and earned Dundon a new role as chair of the board of directors.

Still, AAF executives think they’ve found a formula for sustained success: faster-paced broadcasts, teams in mid-sized markets and rosters stocked with local players.

“I know there’s a market for it,” said J.M. McKay, the league’s director of football operations. “We’re going to create stars. We’re going to create rivalries.”

The AAF has positioned itself as a feeder system for the NFL, and McKay acknowledged that objectives place his league in direct competition with the CFL. But the AAF’s contract structure might give it an edge. Players sign three-year, non-guaranteed deals worth a total of $250,000, and they’re free to sign with NFL teams each off-season.

Right now, CFL players don’t have that leeway.

Last winter, a bitter conflict simmered between running back James Wilder, who wanted to try out for the NFL, and the Toronto Argonauts, who had just exercised the option on his contract. The collective agreement forbade players entering their option year from NFL tryouts.

But even in the middle of a dispute with a star player, Argos general manager Jim Popp recognized that allowing CFL stars NFL auditions could actually strengthen both leagues.

“We’re in favour of bringing back the rule that allows guys to work out (for NFL teams),” Popp said last year. “It’s 10 times more positive than the one time you may lose a guy (to the NFL).”

Next year’s XFL reboot could put an even bigger strain on the CFL’s stateside recruiting, and Ambrosie said those trends helped inform the league’s strategy. He told the Star the league was open to even more partnerships, and wouldn’t rule out expanding to the southern hemisphere.

“We don’t know what this looks like in the long term, but it’s a rational business strategy,” Ambrosie said. “When you start seeing pressure put on a particular supply chain, you consider the possibility of others.”

Wide receiver Jair Viamontes is a link in that supply chain. He grew up in the suburbs north of Mexico City, where he witnessed a proliferation of gridiron football clubs during his youth. He joined one at 11, and at 28 he became the first player selected in the CFL’s Mexican draft.

In previous years, he attended CFL open tryouts — in California and Buffalo — and has spent three seasons in Mexico’s domestic pro league. From there, he earned an invite to the CFL’s Mexico City combine, where he ran a 4.71-second 40-yard dash.

The Mexican league plays by U.S. rules, but Viamontes says he’s ready to make the transition to three downs, and has a running start as a receiver.

“I’ve learned. I’ve studied (CFL football),” Viamontes said in a phone interview. “I’ve played arena football. I feel comfortable with the waggle.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

If Viamontes or another Mexican draftee makes a CFL roster, it’s still not clear where they’ll fit within the league’s collectively bargained mix of National and International players. Negotiations between the league and its players’ association on a new contract are scheduled to begin next month.

Viamontes plans to arrive in Edmonton in mid-May, days after his Mexican league season ends. He contends he won’t face a language barrier — he studied some English in school, and sharpened it by watching the NFL Network.

But if he fumbles for words sometimes, the CFL might not mind. The league is betting that the future speaks Spanish. And French. And German. And more.

Read more about: