The Canadian Football League (CFL) (Ligue canadienne de football (LCF) in French), is a professional sports league located in Canada that plays Canadian football. Its eight teams, located in eight cities, are divided into two divisions of four teams each (East and West). The league's nineteen-week regular season runs from mid-June to early November. Each team plays eighteen games with one bye week. Following the regular season, six of the eight teams compete in the league's three-week playoffs, which culminate in the late-November Grey Cup championship, the country's largest annual sports and television event. The CFL, officially founded in 1958, yet tracing its origins to the 1860s, is the highest level of play in Canadian football, the most popular football league in Canada, and most popular sports league in Canada after the National Hockey League. The Grey Cup trophy and game predate the league by many years, just as does the NHL's championship trophy, the Stanley Cup.
Although ice hockey is Canada's most popular sport, the CFL is highly popular in Quebec and Western Canada, and along with Canadian football played at amateur levels (ie. youth, high school, CJFL, QJFL, CIS and senior leagues such as the Alberta Football League), has increased in popularity in recent years. In Southern Ontario, the CFL is recovering from the bankruptcy that plagued the Toronto and Hamilton teams in the 2003 season; having come under new ownership, both teams have improved their attendance figures dramatically since then. The BC Lions have also seen a recent resurgence of fan support, which many attribute to improved on-field and off-field management. The Lions now compete with the Edmonton Eskimos for top attendance numbers; the Eskimos average as many as 40,000 people per game (Vancouver's BC Place Stadium, Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, and Toronto's Rogers Centre are the only stadiums that seat 40,000+). Saskatchewan Roughriders fans are known for their loyalty and for attending Roughriders games at stadiums across the country.
