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College Football is a big deal in the United States and has been for decades. There is perhaps no other sport in the world that uses university level competition to develop the next big names as American football. There are many colleges in Canada where the game is played but is Canadian College football anywhere near the same level that it is in the US?
Usports is the national sport governing body for universities in Canada and there are 27 university teams divided into four conferences based on their location. That seems like a strong basis to compete with US College Football, but the fact remains that universities in Canada are not built around sports programs in the same way many are in the US.
Television also plays a crucial role in the popularity of college football, and it is not covered in anywhere near as much depth in Canada as it is in the US.
Furthermore, Canadian universities and the provinces in which they are located are not able to offer coaches the same amount of money as they do in the US. There would likely be uproar if a Canadian province spent millions on a college football coach and stadium.
The climate also plays a role and in Canada, the weather is not conducive to a season later in the year when students are attending college. Canada betting sites do offer CFL betting odds, but rarely will you find college football betting markets.
You only must look at some of the attendances at college football games in the United States to understand just how big the sport has become in the country.
If we use the College Football Playoff National Championship, which is the game that decides the national champion of the NCAA Division I, the attendances are incredible. The 2023/24 game between Michigan Wolverines and Washington Huskies attracted a crowd of over 70,000 people and if we go back to the 2014 game between Ohio State Buckeyes and Oregon Ducks, the attendance was over 85,000. There is no college level sporting event, anywhere in the world, which can compete with the attendance numbers of college football in the US.
There are hundreds of college football scholarships awarded each year in the US. Division 1 FBS teams can award up to 85 full-ride scholarships to athletes. It is believed that the state university's football coach has the highest salary of any state employee in many states across the US.
It is unlikely college football in Canada will ever become the huge institution it is in the US. Amateur sports are not as popular in Canada as they are in the US and hockey is a bigger sport than American football.
The US already has a strong college football system in place, backed by millions of dollars and Canadian universities do not have the funds or the desire to use that level of money to push the game to the same level.