THE BAD TASTE OF PAY CUTS LINGERS FOR FORMER PLAYERS
Spotlight sure to be on player salaries when CFL renegotiates deal with union
At least 15 sections of the collective bargaining agreement require negotiation before the Canadian Football League plays a truncated version of the 2020 schedule or cancels the campaign entirely.
But the focus will undoubtedly shift to player salaries and benefits, just as it did in 1987, when the Montreal Alouettes folded days before their opening game and the league was bathing in red ink. According to Frank Cosentino’s meticulous book, Gone South, the remaining eight teams were asked for a full-season forecast at the halfway point of the season and expected a cumulative loss of about $8 million.
Just prior to the Labour Day game in Calgary, then Edmonton general manager Hugh Campbell gathered players in the bowels of Commonwealth Stadium and asked them to take an acrossthe-board 10 per cent pay cut to help balance the books and save the league. The franchise was feeling a steep drop in attendance through four home games and the league’s TV package wasn’t going to deliver anywhere near the $1.2 million each team received annually from the previous three-year, $33-million deal with Carling O’keefe.
“He basically spelled it out,” said Tom Richards, then a second-year receiver.
“We’re having some trouble. Montreal has folded. I need everyone to take a pay cut, across the board. It has to happen. I can’t make you take it, but I need it to happen.”
The players were gobsmacked. They had been to the Grey Cup in 1986 and were riding along at 6-3, preparing for the home-andhome Battle of Alberta.
“My immediate thought was that we better win this season because there might not be another one,” said Richards.
“The league just wasn’t on good financial footing.”
Quarterback Tracy Ham was halfway through his first CFL season, being used sparingly as a third-stringer behind Matt Dunigan and Damon Allen.
“First thing I remember about that meeting is that I couldn’t say anything because I was a rookie. They told me to shut up,” recalled Ham. “He came in, said we have to take a pay cut or the league wasn’t going to survive. I lost about $10,000. That was a hard one to take. But I’d rather make something than nothing.”
That was the prevailing sentiment, but it wasn’t unanimous. Veteran offensive lineman Leo Blanchard was staunchly opposed to the pay cut on principle.
“I was definitely against it.
Why should I take a penalty? My rationale was, if I’m not playing very well, you trade me or cut me. So whoever was responsible for running the Eskimos, they should be the one moving on and taking a cut.
“I think there were veiled threats that they would have to release a few of the bottom players. It was this communist idea, if we collectively take 10 per cent then we can save the jobs of a few of the lesser players. I’m thinking, if they’re lesser players, they’re going to be gone next year anyway. It’s a cutthroat business, all performance. So why would you come up with something stupid like that?
“They just didn’t have good marketing at the time. They just didn’t do their job. We had a really good team and we were winning. So it wasn’t our fault they weren’t putting people in the stands.”
According to Blanchard, he and Campbell made a deal that resulted in his being traded to B.C. in March 1988.
“He would never have traded me to the Lions, but that was part of the deal. I said ‘Look, I’ll (take the cut) if you trade me, because I don’t want to play for you guys anymore. I didn’t want to leave. I played college there. I won five Grey Cups. I’d been there 10 years. But I wasn’t going to play for a team if that’s their rationale.”
When Campbell announced the player pay cuts on Sept.
3, he said all team personnel either took a salary reduction or weren’t offered a raise. Other CFL teams were already cutting salaries on a player-by-player basis; the Lions subsequently imposed a 10 per cent cut on the players, then rescinded it. The league was in obvious peril.
Rick Lelacheur, chairman of the Eskimos’ board in 1987 and current president of the Lions, said last week the league’s current financial position is even more concerning to him than it was back then. He’s a member of the player relations committee, and as such, will play a major role in renegotiating the CBA.
“We’ve got to amend our costs, no question,” he said last week. “A number of things in the CBA have financial implications. That’s where the open dialogue between the two parties has to take place. I don’t want to do it all on the backs of the players. It’s going to take everybody pulling together for us to get through this recovery.”