Women in sports question men’s bailouts
Female athletes, particularly hockey players, will be interested to see if the federal government provides pandemic bailout money to the Canadian Football League.
A men’s professional league that pays an average salary of $80,000 asking for as much as $150 million in taxpayer money has those from the defunct Canadian Women’s Hockey League contemplating the disparity.
A pandemic didn’t shutter the CWHL last year, but the sheer size of CFL’s financial ask is mind-boggling to former goaltender Liz Knox.
“We’re asking for peanuts compared to a $150-million ask,” Knox told The Canadian Press on Thursday. “When the CWHL was folding, we were talking in the hundreds of thousands (of dollars) to get us in the clear so the league didn’t have to fold. We’re talking two or three CFL salaries. That would made the difference of us literally surviving or not.”
Former CWHL commissioner Jayna Hefford said in an email “there were conversations” with the federal government about financial aid to save the league before it went under. Commissioner Randy Ambrosie says the CFL’s long-term future would be in peril if the 2020 season was wiped out by COVID-19.
After operating for one season, the men’s pro soccer Canadian Premier League is asking the feds for $15 million in
“short-term” financing to survive the pandemic.
The CWHL, which ran for 12 seasons, began paying players between $2,000 and $10,000 in its penultimate season.
The optics of men’s pro sports leagues with more lucrative television deals and more gate revenue lobbying for millions of dollars in public money makes Knox uncomfortable.
“Women’s sport is often seen as a charity, but certainly that’s not the narrative that we’re hearing about the CFL and their situation right now,” she observed.
Canadian speedskater Ivanie Blondin says she and a couple of her teammates were stunned by the CFL’s request when they compared their own financial situations as amateur high-performance athletes.
“It was a little bit of a slap in the face when I saw this,” Blondin said. “These athletes are paid way better than we ever will be in our careers.”
Blondin raised $5,000 of her own money to compete in this year’s world all-around championships and World Cup finale, so $150 million for the CFL startles her.
“That is a lot of money,” Blondin said. “If our federation got a fraction of that, we’d be set.”