CFL looks to cut player pay
TORONTO — At least 15 sections of the collective bargaining agreement require negotiation before the Canadian Football League plays a truncated version of the 2020 schedule or cancels it entirely.
But the focus will undoubtedly shift to player salary and benefits, just as it did in 1987, when the Montreal Alouettes folded days before their opening game and the league was bathing in red ink. According to Frank Cosentino’s meticulously reported book “Gone South”, the remaining eight teams were asked for a fullseason forecast at the halfway point and expected a cumulative loss of about $8 million.
Just prior to the Labour Day game in Calgary, thenEdmonton general manager Hugh Campbell gathered players in the bowels of Commonwealth Stadium and asked them to take an acrossthe-board, 10 per cent pay cut to help balance the books and save the league. The franchise was feeling a steep drop in attendance through four home games and the league’s cobbled together TV package wasn’t going to deliver anywhere near the $1.2 million each team received annually from the previous three-year, $33-million deal with Carling O’Keefe.
“He basically spelled it out,” said Tom Richards, then a second-year receiver. “We’re having some trouble. Montreal has folded. I need everyone to take a pay cut, across the board. It has to happen. I can’t make you take it, but I need it to happen.”
The team was gobsmacked. They had been to the Grey Cup in 1986 and were riding along at 6-3, preparing for the home-and-home Battle of Alberta.
“My immediate thought was we better win this season because there might not be another one,” Richards said. “The league just wasn’t on good financial footing.”
Quarterback Tracy Ham was halfway through his first CFL season, being used sparingly as a third-stringer behind Matt Dunigan and Damon Allen.
“First thing I remember about that meeting is I couldn’t say anything because I was a rookie. They told me to shut up,” recalled Ham. “He came in, said we have to take a pay cut, or the league wasn’t going to survive. I lost about $10,000. That was a hard one to take. But I’d rather make something than nothing.”
That was the prevailing sentiment, but it wasn’t unanimous. Veteran offensive lineman Leo Blanchard was staunchly opposed to the pay cut on principle.
“I was definitely against it. Why should I take a penalty? My rationale was if I’m not playing very well you trade me or cut me. So, whoever was responsible for running the Eskimos, they should be the one moving on and taking a cut.
“I think there were veiled threats that they would have to release a few of the bottom players. It was this communist idea, if we collectively take 10% then we can save the jobs of a few of the lesser players. I’m thinking if they’re lesser players they’re going to be gone next year anyways. It’s a cutthroat business, all performance. So why would you come up with something stupid like that?
“They just didn’t have good marketing at the time. They just didn’t do their job. We had a really good team and we were winning. So it wasn’t our fault they weren’t putting people in the stands.”
According to Blanchard, he and Campbell made a deal that resulted in his trade to B.C. in March 1988.
“He would never have traded me to the Lions but that was part of the deal. I said ‘look, I’ll (take the cut) if you trade me because I don’t want to play for you guys anymore. I didn’t want to leave. I played college there. I won five Grey Cups. I’d been there 10 years. But I wasn’t going to play for a team if that’s their rationale.”
When Campbell announced the player pay cuts Sept. 3, he said all team personnel either took a salary reduction or weren’t offered a raise. Other CFL teams were already cutting salaries on a playerby-player basis, the Lions subsequently imposed a 10%cut on the players, then rescinded it. The league was in obvious peril.