National Post (National Edition)
CFL boss drops the ball
Ambrosie’s ask was just a little too ambitious
Randy Ambrosie didn’t make many gaffes in his first few years as CFL commissioner but in blurting out an inflated top end figure the league might need from the federal government — $150 million — he fumbled his football league.
It got a lot of people riled up about giving money to a pro sports league when regular mom and pop businesses are failing thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It took the focus away from the “ask” which is to help keep this league that has long fought the good fight, jumping from crisis to crisis, to stay alive to continue the fight.
On Thursday, Ambrosie was speaking to the House of Commons standing committee trying to fix the impact of the headline he created himself.
Instead of the focus being on the $150 million, the next set of headlines now focused on his quote “Our most likely scenario is no season at all.”
Ambrosie painted the most pessimistic picture.
I believe the government should be there to do whatever it has to do the cover the league to get through this.
Ambrosie did make most of the right statements once he got to them.
“Ours is a big brand but not a wealthy business,” he said and pointed out the teams collectively lose more per season than a single individual superstar in some sports (think Connor McDavid in Edmonton) make.
The CFL has never been a “for profit” business.
Indeed, three of the teams are community-owned and specifically labelled as “notfor-profit” entities.
How much money has B.C. Lions owner David Braley lost doing his part to keep the league alive? And the best owner of all, Bob Young in Hamilton, refers to himself as the “caretaker.”
The CFL has always been a significant slice of Canadiana that somehow manages to survive from season to season to provide our nation with its biggest annual sports celebration every November.
This league deserves government support in this situation for everything it has given to Canadians in the past. But a much better approach would be to get something worked out in the event that the entire season is lost without the ultra worst-case scenario of losing $150 million.
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