It’s early, and Mexican players haven’t made much of an impact in the Canadian Football League yet.
But there is apparently plenty of interest in them back home, and officials with the Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional are on the verge of closing a streaming deal with Claro Sports to show the bulk of CFL games in Mexico.
Last year, the LFA and CFL announced a partnership that essentially kicked off the global outreach initiative known as CFL 2.0, which has been the pet project of commissioner Randy Ambrosie.
And earlier in June, the CFL announced a deal with Mexico City-based media conglomerate MVS Comunicaciones to broadcast a CFL game of the week for 21 weeks of this season.
“We are very excited and happy to see the Mexican players in the CFL and we are making the effort so that another television company transmits the games by streaming and thus (we will) be able to have all the CFL games available in Mexico,” LFA commissioner Alejandro Jaimes said in an email on Monday.
“I hope we can close this contract this week … We think that we can do more in order to have a major impact on the Mexican fans and we will work with the CFL staff to develop a strategy to achieve this goal.”
Jaimes and LFA president Oscar Perez will be in Toronto next week to get a firsthand look at some of the Mexican talent on CFL rosters, including kicker Gabriel Amavizca, who made history with the Tiger-Cats by kicking two converts and becoming the first global player to score a point in the CFL.
That accomplishment was celebrated in a series of tweets sent out by the LFA Twitter account, which has been issuing a steady diet of CFL-themed content, most of it hash-tagged with #MexiCANstars.
“We are very happy that Gabriel Amavizca was the first global player to score a point in the CFL. He is writing history!” said Jaimes.
Other Mexican players who are or have been on active rosters throughout the league include receiver Andres Salgado in Calgary, offensive lineman Rene Brassea in Saskatchewan, receiver Gerardo Alvarez in B.C., offensive lineman Diego Kuhlmann in Montreal and kicker Jose Maltos in Ottawa. There are a handful of Mexican players on practice rosters as well.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
