CFL boss blundered in asking for huge bailout

$150-million request for pro sports teams only stirred up anger

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 on the play.

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 the league that has long fought the good fight, jumping from crisis to crisis, stay alive.

On Thursday, Ambrosie was speaking to the House of Commons standing committee trying to fix the damage 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 do whatever it has to do the cover the league’s behind.

And Ambrosie did say most of the right things once he got to them.

“Ours is a big brand but not a wealthy business,” he said, pointing 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. 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 manages to survive from season to season to provide our nation with its biggest annual sports celebration every November.

And along the way, the guynext-door CFL players do more for the community than the much more well-paid athletes in other sports because of the “Champions In The Community” cultures most CFL teams have had for most of their history.

The 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 to cover the league in the event of losing a significant portion of this season, and get a work-together commitment to keep the door open in the event the entire season is lost.

I still believe projecting losses of $150 million is way high.

And for the record, I’m still betting the league will play an eight-game season.

While on the topic, with the league asking for the support of the government, it would be a good idea for the board of the community-owned Edmonton Eskimos, after postponing the annual general meeting because of COVID-19, finally produces a financial report.

I suspect the team that usually leads the CFL in attendance likely lost more than $1 million last season.