Canadian Football League (CFL) Expands US Broadcast Presence For 2023 Season

by James Murphy in CFL on Aug 11, 2023 6:23am

The Canadian Football League (CFL) season began on June 9, 2023.
The league is now in Week 3 of their regular season.
Individual game broadcasts are now more widely available to US fans.

The Canadian Football League (CFL) has started their 2023 season and there’s good news for US fans. The league has announced expanded availability of CFL games to fans in the US and worldwide. In the US, CBS Sports Network will exclusively carry 24 games. CFL+–the league’s new free online live streaming platform–will broadcast the remaining regular season games, the Grey Cup Playoffs and the 110th Grey Cup Championship.

The CBS Sports Network is well known to US sports fans. It’s available through most every cable and satellite provider in the US as well as via the big streaming services including YouTube TV, fuboTV, DirecTV and Hulu. A live stream is available online through CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports App. The network will carry 34 games including the 2023 season opener between the BC Lions and Calgary Stampeders, the opening game for the defending Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts and the July 1 Canada Day game.

The remainder of the schedule will be broadcast on CFL+, the league’s new over the top (‘OTT’) streaming platform. For US fans, anything not shown on CBS Sports Network will be broadcast on CFL+. For fans outside of North America, the entire season will be available on CFL+ including the playoffs and Grey Cup Championship. Kudos to the CFL for not making fans jump through hoops with login information or additional downloads–you can just access the game with little effort. In Canada, all matchups will be shown on TSN.

Worth noting that games *aren’t* available as a video on demand option after their conclusion. You’ll have to tune in live. Here’s the particulars about the CFL+ platform from a league press release:

Featuring the award-winning CFL ON TSN broadcast
Games available to be streamed live
Available on desktop and mobile devices with no additional downloads or logins
In the U.S.: 47 regular season games (and 34 exclusively on CBS Sports Network)*
International: All 81 regular season games
U.S. and International: Grey Cup Playoffs and 110^th Grey Cup*
Full U.S. and international broadcast schedule to be announced prior to the season

* Broadcast schedule in the U.S. may be subject to change

You *will* have to enter your email info to watch CFL+. Here’s the process:

Each week’s offering of games is made available early in the week. When they become available, click on the game you want to watch.
Sign up with your first name, last name, and email address to access in-season games.
You will not be asked to login in again so long as you continue to watch on the same device.
The stream will start no later than five minutes prior to kickoff. You will see a screen that says “this broadcast will start soon.”
Once the game ends, you will see a screen that says “this broadcast has ended” and the feed will end shortly after.
You will not be able to rewatch the game, pause, or rewind/fast forward through any point in the stream.

James Murphy

James Murphy is a preeminent authority on the international gambling industry and has made frequent appearances in the mainstream media including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, CNBC and NPR. He has previously worked as a radio and podcasting host where he broadcast to an international audience that depended on his expertise and advice. Murphy also serves as an odds making consultant for sports and ‘non-sport novelty bets’ covering the entertainment industry, politics, technology, financial markets and just about everything else.

Author Profile