Borders another hurdle for solving sports’ return
Closure especially tricky for the NHL with seven out of 31 teams in Canada
The man from the NBA stopped in mid-sentence — in trying to explain the ever-changing plans of resuming what’s going to be left of the basketball season.
And then he apologized.
“How does this work in Canada?” he asked and he wasn’t being facetious. “We’ve never really thought about another country being involved. We just haven’t talked about it that much.”
Among the many complications of trying to bring professional sports back in one way or another is trying to make sense of all the various jurisdictions involved.
It’s easier for the NBA or Major League Baseball. They have just one franchise outside the borders of the United States, even if in basketball it just happens to be the defending champion Toronto Raptors.
It’s more complicated for the NHL because seven of the 31 teams are in Canada and subject to the laws and COVID-19 restrictions in five different provinces.
You can’t have a date to return to practice and not have it accepted in all jurisdictions. You can’t have a date for players returning when the border between Canada and the U.S. is not open. You can’t be quarantined if you can’t get in the country.
You can’t have a date for games to be played when Ontario rules are different than Alberta rules, different from New York and different from California.
The hope is that professional sports will return sometime this summer. The layers of complications preventing the return remain enormous while the NBA, NHL and MLB alter their plans almost daily, fighting feverishly to find a solution.
I have covered the folding of the Montreal Alouettes, the collapse of two football teams in Ottawa, bankruptcies of teams in Hamilton, Saskatchewan and Calgary, a failed American expansion, empty seats and ownership changes and stadium changes in Toronto, horrible leadership and sat in a bar in Hamilton and eulogized the death of the Canadian Football League more than 20 years ago. After all that comes the CFL’S greatest challenge — a pandemic.
There may not be a CFL season. And after that, there may not be a CFL.
The CFL has asked for a government loan of sorts — a grant really — starting with $30 million immediately and extending to up to $120 million if the season gets cancelled. And in these challenging times, there are reasons to be offended by this, and reasons to understand why it is necessary.
The league is almost exclusively a gate-driven business. They do about $90 million a year in ticket sales — maybe more than that if you include playoffs and the Grey Cup. The league employs about 500 players with a payroll of more than $51 million and that doesn’t include coaches, management, team employees with a payroll of more than $30 million. That’s $81 million paid out — somewhere in the $30-million range coming in just in taxes.
If there is no CFL, there are no taxes coming in.
There is no reason in these times for the federal government to be subsidizing billionaires such as David Braley or Bob Young or the sporting giant, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and that’s sound. But losing the CFL — if that’s what happens here, and it can — isn’t sound.
This is not an easy or simple determination for anyone to have to make.
There are few issues that have been as divisive between NHL management and the league front office than the likely moving of the NHL draft to early June. Some general managers don’t mind it. Most hate it. That’s an internal problem.
The NHL doesn’t seem to care what the GMS think, altering its own rules and putting trades aside by having a junior draft of players before the season is even completed.
Among those who have been traded at the draft: Mats Sundin, Zdeno Chara, Roberto Luongo, Wendel Clark, Todd Bertuzzi, Tuukka Rask, P.K. Subban, Patrick Marleau.
The NHL doesn’t have enough trades to begin with. Eliminating the draft-day trade is another sign of greed and economics taking precedence over the interest of fans … Many are expecting a new Collective Bargaining Agreement to come out of this NHL break period. It’s time, in other words, for the players to use this ability to get participation in the Winter Olympics back in the agreement … The relationships between the NHL and PA have never been closer, many say, which isn’t something a lot of players agents are happy about. There is a real split within NHL players about the kind of leadership they are getting from Donald Fehr and the PA. And some wonder who, right now is speaking for the players and protecting their interests.
Of course, Lebron James wants to play. He’s 35 years old. This is his 17th NBA season. He’s on one of the teams that can win a championship. Why would he want to give all that up with so few years left to play? … One CFL team you don’t have to worry about — the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I’m betting they have somewhere around $20 million in the bank … How much are the provincial governments missing without Pro Line revenue coming in?
... At least two NFL teams have called the New England Patriots to ask for permission to talk with Bill Belichick’s dog, Nike.