Professional football in Canada
Only one professional football league has a permanent presence in Canada: the Canadian Football League (CFL), an organization founded in 1958 to accommodate the ongoing trend of professionalism in the Canadian football ranks since the 1940s. The CFL, like most amateur Canadian football leagues, plays on a larger field using a rulebook with several significant rule differences compared to the game as it is played in the United States. The league is composed of two divisions and nine teams in most of the largest Canadian markets, with at least one team in each province between British Columbia (BC Lions) and Quebec (Montreal Alouettes) inclusive. The only presence in Atlantic Canada is a semi-regular series of games in Moncton (Touchdown Atlantic) and a smattering of earlier preseason contests. The CFL operates a two-week preseason beginning in June, an 18-game season from July to October, and a six-team playoff tournament, culminating in the Grey Cup on the fourth weekend of November.
List of American and Canadian football leagues
Major League Football was founded in December 2014 with the intention of a being a spring football league in an attempt to fill the void left by minor or development football leagues. The MLFB is a single-entity business model where the league owns and operates all of the teams with franchises in cities that are absent of NFL or Major League Baseball teams. The MLFB's goal is to have franchises be individual owner and operated by 2019 or 2020. Average attendance is expected to be between 12,500 and 15,000 fans by the end of the first season and run from April to July..