Yes, their balls are still bigger. It’s just that their marketing initiatives have become a bit more refined.

Having sacked ‘Radically Canadian’, the 1996 marketing campaign that spawned such slogans as ‘Our balls are bigger’ – a rather suggestive play on the smaller footballs that are used south of the border in the National Football League (nfl) – the Canadian Football League (cfl) has set a new grassroots play in motion to win back fans and regain the confidence of shaken investors.

Back in 1996, the cfl was trying to recuperate from an ill-advised foray into the u.s. market. American fans, quite evidently, were unimpressed with our three-down brand of football and our prairie-sized fields. The move netted the cfl a loss of $3 million, and nearly precipitated the collapse of the league.

‘Radically Canadian’ was a salvage operation, of sorts. It signaled the cfl’s return to an all-Canadian league, and injected the hapless cfl brand with a much-needed dose of attitude. But draping itself in the flag was not enough to ensure the league’s long-term viability. So when Jeff Giles became cfl president in 1997, he embarked on a mission to rebuild the league’s fortunes.

Last January, the cfl signed an exclusive five-year broadcast deal with tsn, which recently sub-leased playoff rights to cbc for the next four years. And while Giles may be tickled with the record three million viewers who tuned in for this year’s Grey Cup, he admits that television is not his primary concern at the moment.

‘Really, we’re in a fan-development mode from an attendance perspective,’ he says. ‘Our challenge is that we have hundreds of thousands watching the game, but we just can’t get them to the park.’

Giles’ chief priority is attracting younger fans to the game, a goal he hopes can be achieved through a partnership that the cfl has struck with the nfl. Under the terms of the agreement, the nfl has loaned the league $4 million to help promote the game of football in Canada.

Together, with the help of sponsors like Adidas and Gatorade, the two leagues have introduced a program called Flag Football Canada, which invites schools to include the sport as part of their physical education curriculum. Participating schools receive a kit that contains everything needed to run the program: footballs, flags, belts, and a curriculum guide.

Thus far, 400 schools in Eastern Canada have enrolled, and Giles expects that 150,000 youths will be exposed to the game over the next year.

Such grassroots ventures are imperative to building a long-term fan base. And Giles believes the cfl can make further inroads by appealing to fans who have been alienated by the nba lockout, and who are disenchanted with the general climate of narcissism and greed that pervades professional sports.

‘Our players are down-to-earth, next-door neighbour types of guys who aren’t making a ton of money and have to work in the off-season like anyone else. And in the age of hockey going south, we think we’re positioned properly to get back to sport for sport’s sake.’

Starchoice, mbna, Coca-Cola and Molson, which also supports Canadian university football, are primary league sponsors, but Giles concedes that the cfl must lure additional corporate support if it is to achieve stable footing.

‘We definitely need more involvement.’