In the final weeks of the Stallions' second season, it became public knowledge that the Maryland Stadium Authority and City of Baltimore were in serious negotiations with Art Modell, the long-time owner of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL), to move his franchise to Baltimore for the 1996 season.

Stallions owner Jim Speros knew his team could not begin to directly compete with the overwhelmingly more popular NFL brand.

Even before the agreement with Modell became official within a month of the Stallions' Grey Cup triumph, he was actively seeking to re-locate his team elsewhere.

The Stallions franchise was dissolved, thus becoming one of three Grey Cup champions in the modern era to subsequently fold (the others being the Ottawa Rough Riders and the original Alouettes).

The former Philadelphia Stars of the United States Football League (USFL) nominally represented Baltimore in spring 1985.

However, after being blocked from Memorial Stadium, the Colts' old home, due to objections from the Major League Baseball Baltimore Orioles, they were forced to play well outside the city bounds in College Park.

He knew Canadian football was very different from the American game, so he made a point of hiring personnel and players with CFL experience.

Popp and Matthews, in turn, brought in experienced CFL players like QB Tracy Ham, RB Mike Pringle, LB O. J. Brigance, DT Jearld Baylis, DE Elfrid Payton.

In the playoffs, Baltimore hosted the Toronto Argonauts in the East semifinals at Memorial Stadium and won the game, 34–15.

After the 1994 season, the CFL announced that the League's five U.S. teams—Baltimore, the San Antonio Texans (the former Sacramento Gold Miners), the Shreveport Pirates and the expansion Memphis Mad Dogs and Birmingham Barracudas—would be placed in a new South Division, while the Canadian teams would reside in the North Division.

Barracudas owner Art Williams had previously rejected reviving the moniker for his club, apparently because he considered it too timid (Birmingham would later reclaim the nickname for its reconstituted USFL/UFL franchise in the 2020's).

The exception was the signing of former Posse kicker Carlos Huerta to replace Igwebuike, who moved on to play with Memphis.

Mike Pringle had a slight drop-off from his 1994 numbers by rushing for 1,791 yards, being named the CFL's Most Outstanding Player.

They traveled to Regina's Taylor Field to face the 15–3 North Division champion Stampeders, who were led by coach Wally Buono, QB Doug Flutie, and his two top receivers, Allen Pitts and Dave Sapunjis.

However, this strategy collapsed on the week of the South Division final, when longtime Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell announced he would be moving his team to Baltimore.

However, when it emerged that Modell was in talks with state and local officials, Speros began scouting out cities for a possible move.

This proved prescient; as soon as the move was announced, local support for the Stallions dried up almost overnight, with fans switching virtually en masse to the NFL.

Whatever the case, the loss of support was so dramatic that the Stallions were forced to basically give away tickets for the South Division final.

However, Speros and CFL officials soon realized that no matter how successful the Stallions had been, they had no realistic prospect of competing head-to-head with an NFL team.

As the team's successful Grey Cup run was still underway, it became apparent that there would not be enough advertising revenue or fan support to go around.

[3] At a league meeting on February 2, 1996; Speros was granted permission to move the Stallions to Montreal, effectively ending the American experiment.

Consequently, when Speros moved the team to Montreal, all of the Stallions players were released from their contracts, though Popp managed to re-sign many of them.