Canadian Football League in the United States

The Canadian Football League (CFL) briefly expanded to the United States from the 1993 CFL season through the 1995 CFL season. Canadian football, a form of gridiron football differs from American football played in the United States, primarily due to its three-down structure and larger playing area.

The first American team, the Sacramento Gold Miners, joined in 1993. The league added three more American teams in 1994, after which two more teams joined, one relocated, and one folded to bring the total to five in 1995. That year, the teams were aligned into a new South Division. The three years saw numerous ownership debacles on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border. The Baltimore Stallions became the only American-based team to win the Grey Cup championship, in 1995. With the exception of Baltimore, the American teams consistently lost money.

Tension also arose between the American and Canadian contingents over rule changes, scheduling, import rules, and marketing. Accommodating the wider and longer Canadian field proved difficult, a problem at most non-Canadian sites. The league returned to being exclusively Canadian beginning with the 1996 season. Although expansion was the most notable CFL effort in the United States, the league had also made previous inroads. Eleven neutral-site CFL games (including exhibition games) have been held in the United States. In earlier decades, when the CFL season started much later than it does today (i.e., around the same time as that of the National Football League), NFL teams were occasionally invited northward for exhibition interleague play.