Editing Canadian Football League (section)

===Merger===

In 1956, the Montreal Alouettes threatened to leave the Big Four and join the rival WIFU. As a result, the Big Four and WIFU formed a new umbrella organization, the Canadian Football Council (CFC) to modernize the operations and management of the professional game. In [[1958 CFL season|1958]], the CFC formally left the CRU and reorganized as the Canadian Football League (CFL). As part of an agreement between the CRU and CFL, the CFL took possession of the Grey Cup, and the amateurs were officially locked out of Grey Cup play. However, the Grey Cup had been the de facto professional championship since 1954. The CRU remained the governing body for amateur play in Canada, eventually adopting the name [[Football Canada]]. Initially, the two unions remained autonomous, and there was no intersectional play between eastern (Big Four) and western (WIFU) teams except at the Grey Cup final. This situation was roughly analogous to how [[Major League Baseball]] operated for almost all of the 20th century.

The Big Four was renamed the Eastern Football Conference in [[1960 CFL season|1960]], while the WIFU was renamed the Western Football Conference in [[1961 CFL season|1961]]. Also in 1961, limited intersectional play was introduced. Because the West played 16 games by this time while the East still only played 14, this arrangement oddly allowed both the four-team Eastern Conference and the five-team Western Conference to play three games per intraconference opponent and one game per interconference opponent. It was not until 1974 that the East expanded its schedule to 16 games, just like the West. In [[1981 CFL season|1981]], the two conferences agreed to a full merger, becoming the East and West Divisions of the CFL. With the merger came a fully balanced and interlocking schedule of 16 games per season (with all nine teams playing each other twice, once at home and once on the road). Since 1986 (with the exception of 2021), the CFL's regular season schedule has been 18 games.

The separate histories of the Big Four and the WIFU accounted for the fact that two teams had basically the same name: the Big Four's [[Ottawa Rough Riders|Ottawa ''Rough Riders'']] were often called the "Eastern Riders", while the WIFU's [[Saskatchewan Roughriders|Saskatchewan ''Roughriders'']] were called the "Western Riders" or "Green Riders". Other team names had traditional origins. With [[Rowing (sport)|rowing]] a national craze in the late 19th century, the [[Argonaut Rowing Club]] of Toronto formed a rugby team for its members' off-season participation. The football team name [[Toronto Argonauts]] still remains even though it and the rowing club have long since gone their separate ways. After World War II, the Hamilton Tigers absorbed the upstart war-era Flying Wildcats and called the team the [[Hamilton Tiger-Cats]].

The league remained stable with nine franchises—the [[BC Lions]], [[Calgary Stampeders]], [[Edmonton Eskimos]], [[Saskatchewan Roughriders]], [[Winnipeg Blue Bombers]], [[Hamilton Tiger-Cats]], [[Toronto Argonauts]], [[Ottawa Rough Riders]] and [[Montreal Alouettes]]—from its 1958 inception until [[1981 CFL season|1981]]. After the 1981 season, the Alouettes folded and were replaced the next year by a new franchise named the Concordes.

In [[1986 CFL season|1986]] the Concordes were renamed the Alouettes to attract more fan support, but the team folded the next year. The loss of the Montreal franchise forced the league to move its easternmost Western team, Winnipeg, into the East Division from 1987 to 1994.