CFL GMs will have to navigate through financial hits for 2021
Veteran players likely looking at salary cuts as teams are forced to tighten their belts
The welcome strains of Auld Lang Syne will not suddenly cure what ailed the Canadian Football League.
The COVID-19 hangover will be real, complex and enduring.
Take, for instance, the pandemic's lingering impact on free agency and roster construction. The league announced last Friday that there are 328 pending free agents who would go to market Feb. 9, 2021 unless they are re-signed by their respective teams. Many of those players signed one-year deals early in 2020 and have never practised or played for the teams that hold their rights.
“We've got players on our roster right now who are pending free agents and have never even stepped in our building,” said Edmonton GM Brock Sunderland, who will be speaking to them in the coming weeks. “When I call them and ask do you want to stick around, usually players have a good idea what the environment is like, what the culture is, all those things. These players don't have that yet because of COVID and how upside-down the world got.”
Even so, there was a reason they signed with Edmonton or
Ottawa or wherever they did, and many will likely stay put. The Lions will prioritize those signings.
“We liked those guys and we want to retain them,” said B.C.'s co- GM and head coach Rick Campbell. “That's going to be the interesting thing, how that plays out in the next two months. That's the new dynamic.”
The leaguewide moratorium on player signings was lifted on Monday and the Calgary Stampeders were first off the mark, announcing that global wide receiver Andres Salgado had re-upped. His was likely not an expensive signing, as he has played just 15 CFL games, mostly on special teams.
Far more difficult conversations about belt-tightening await some veteran players all over the CFL map. Campbell said he and co- GM Neil McEvoy will be broaching the topic of contract restructuring with some B.C. veterans.
“There could be some give and take on signing bonuses, length of contract, things like that,” said Campbell.
“We have a few guys who could fit into the restructure mode, but it's not going to be a ton of them.”
Montreal GM Danny Maciocia said he is working with less money, as the Als are “definitely not” going to spend to the salary cap ceiling of $5.35 million, so he will likely surround a pricier core with more players who are “relatively cheaper,” as he put it. And some of those core veter
ans will be looking at potential reductions.
“You make sure you set your sights on signing those (core) players and walk away from others. You're going to have to identify where you want to invest your dollars knowing full well that the dollars are not what they used to be.”
In the CFL, not much is what it used to be. News leaked out in mid-June that the league would cut the football operations cap for 2021 to $2,070,400, down 20 per cent from $2,558,000. That eventually forced teams that had already slashed salaries by 20 per cent and more to part ways with coaches and other personnel. The league office staff took significant pay cuts across the board before some personnel were cut loose entirely once the season was cancelled Aug. 17.
And let's not forget that literally hundreds of players had to rely on Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy payments for income after the league folded its tent.
The financial hits will just keep on coming in 2021 as teams deal with the continuing cash flow crunch.
“How many players are owed money in January and in early February and if teams are not willing to pay out that roster bonus, that's going to make them free agents also,” Maciocia mused. “Not everybody is going to pay those bonuses to every player. It would be foolish for anybody to think that's going to happen. … What I do know is the dollars are not there because of what we experienced. The fact that we didn't play for a whole year, you can't think the dollars are going to be the same.”
Free agency, then, cannot be the same. If teams are focused on retaining the crop of players they signed to one-year deals in early 2020, the money might not be there for a pricey veteran hoping to change teams and hit a home run in free agency.
“Players are going to have to gauge the market,” said Campbell. “When you come out of a normal season, you're literally looking to put yourself on the open market. That could be tougher this year with (teams) spending their money on their own guys.”
The league's inability to launch even a shortened season during the pandemic wiped out most revenue streams and emptied reserve funds. That financial hangover is going to govern the way teams do business in 2021.
“Our organization from top to bottom, from staffing to players to everything, we're going to be as fiscally responsible as we can be because of COVID,” said Sunderland. “I won't go into details on what I'm going to offer players or whether anybody is going to take a reduction or not, just that we're going to be as fiscally responsible as we can be, due to not having any revenue.”