TORONTO - Keith Pelley says Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment examined all options before deciding to have the Toronto Argonauts play three home games in 2026 in other CFL venues due to the World Cup.

The Argos and B.C. Lions will play home games away from their respective venues during FIFA's World Cup. Soccer's men's world championship will be held from June 11 to July 19 with matches in Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Next season, the Argos will play home games at Hamilton Stadium, Mosaic Stadium in Regina and Winnipeg's Princess Auto Stadium against the host teams during the World Cup. The Lions will relocate for two home games, with the club planning to announce those details at a later time.

"We spent a lot of time doing research," Pelley, MLSE's president, said Tuesday. "We looked at every possible option. We looked at Guelph, we looked at Queen’s, we looked at U of T.

"The best way that we thought to do it next year was to put it in Hamilton and Winnipeg and in Saskatchewan."

Vancouver and Toronto will combine to host 13 World Cup matches. Toronto's BMO Field will stage six, including Canada’s first-ever World Cup game on home soil on June 12.

Seven games will be played at Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium, including Canada’s group matches on June 18 and 24. The first contest at the venue is slated for July 13 with Vancouver also hosting knockout stage games July 2 (round of 32) and July 7 (round of 16).

What's more, the World Cup takes over the venues for its games 30 days before the first match at that stadium.

The full 2026 CFL schedule is scheduled to be released during the off-season. The 2025 campaign ends with the Grey Cup on Nov. 16 at Princess Auto Stadium.

Last month's announcement that Toronto would play only six true home games in 2026 drew the ire of Argos fans, but Pelley defended the decision.

"We didn’t want to host a game with 5,000 or 7,000 fans. That was predominantly why we made the decision," he said. "We know we could've probably easily have gotten 7,000 or 10,000 at a game but we didn’t want to do that.

"We didn’t think that was great for the brand."

There were suggestions that Toronto might've been able to open next season at the University of Guelph, where it stages its training camp. In 2013, Hamilton played all of its home games there while then Tim Hortons Field — now Hamilton Stadium — was being built.

Pelley said MLSE looked at the option of expanding Alumni Stadium for home games next season, as well as other potential venues.

"We did all that research, we did all that analysis and we looked at it very, very closely," he said. "We thought the best thing for the Argos brand long-term was to do exactly what we’re doing.

"The Canadian Football League (was) 1,000 per cent behind it, so I think we made the right decision."

Pelley said whatever funds are generated from the games in Hamilton, Winnipeg and Regina will go back to enhancing the six contests at BMO Field.

"We're taking the extra marketing money that we have for the games that have moved on and we’ll put those into the six games to try to make those as big as we possibly can next year," Pelley said. "Then we'll come back the following year hopefully even bigger and stronger."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2025.