Hopson has no regrets about leaving Riders
Ex-president and CEO says time was right to go, sees more Grey Cups ahead
The excitement of game day is hard to beat, but former Saskatchewan Roughriders president and CEO Jim Hopson misses the people the most when he thinks about his tenure with the Green and White.
But more than a year since leaving the organization, Hopson still believes the time was right.
With the New Mosaic Stadium era then looming, Hopson, who turned 65 in March, decided it was time to move on.
“While I felt good and I enjoyed what I did, I felt this period we’re going through right now, with the new stadium, is a really important time, and it’s more than just getting the stadium finished and then making the transition and getting in — it’s a several-year project to get to where we wanted to be,” says Hopson, a former offensive lineman for the Riders who served as the CFL team’s president and CEO from 2005 to 2015.
“I just felt it was the right time to move on,” the Regina product adds. “And when I look back, I still think that was the right decision.”
With Hopson at the helm, the Roughriders won the Grey Cup in 2007 and 2013, and also appeared in the big game in 2009 and 2010 — suffering close losses to the Montreal Alouettes both times.
The Riders’ success on the field made game days at Mosaic Stadium the hottest ticket in the province, and helped sell more merchandise than anyone had likely previously thought possible.
More than anything else, Hopson says he’s most proud of the culture change he’s seen across Rider Nation — a significant raising of expectations among the team and its supporters — that began in 2007.
“The expectation now is that we’re going to be a winning franchise. We’re going to consistently win, and we’re going to go to Grey Cups,” Hopson says.
“Last year was not a good year, obviously (with the Riders posting a 3-15 record), and the franchise hasn’t stood still. They’ve done everything to get back on the winning track and I believe they will.”
Hopson says he’s “absolutely” still a fan of the Riders. In 2015, he took in every home game as a supporter, despite the fact that the former educator has his hands full in retirement.
Hopson serves on the board of several organizations, including the George Reed Foundation, does speaking engagements, and wrote a book in 2015, Running the Riders: My Decade as CEO of Canada’s Team, detailing his time with the organization.
“I had a lot of encouragement from a lot of people to write a book, but it’s not something I had ever done, so with the help of Darrell Davis, I wrote it,” Hopson says. “It really was a good process, even though it was more time-consuming than I thought it would be.”
Hopson spent several months on his book. And then the subsequent promotion put the former president and CEO back in the spotlight.
“The book was a lot of fun to do; the hard part was getting out and promoting it,” the personable Hopson says with a laugh.
“I found out if you write a book, you have to go out and promote it, and all that sort of thing. But that was fun. I got to meet a bunch of people.”
The expectation now is that we’re going to be a winning franchise. We’re going to consistently win, and we’re going to go to Grey Cups.