CFL financial status

[Sir Blue and Gold]

...When the commissioner says seven out of nine teams did not make money, he isn't actually saying 7 out of 9 teams aren't profitable and there's a clear distinction there.

My assumption is that he means game day revenues (inc. sponsorship) minus total team expenses. 

The TV deal is roughly $50M a year or about $5.5M a team (unconfirmed by Bell) which comes very close to covering the entire player salary cap of every team combined. If you were to factor that in along with the other revenue sharing from Grey Cup it's a different financial picture, hence why the salary cap is going up. That's not to suggest anyone's making bank, but it's probably not as dire as it sounds.

You also need to think a bit strategically here - he's already negotiating that next contract with his words here.

[theaardvark]

Millionaires / Billionaires owing franchises that lose money is not uncommon.  The losses on these teams, while big numbers for you and me are rounding errors for them, and write offs.  Its not a huge concern in my books, so long as we can get passionate owners with deep pockets.

Yes, Winnipeg is a model that makes money/sense, but a lot of our current success is because of our current success on the field.  Its hard in Edm. to sell tickets knowing the on field product is that bad.  BC has a huge facility to fill, which no doubt has a large nut to cover.  CGY had a dynasty, now they just die nasty.  Toronto is Toronto, until they get some more colourful characters to sell tickets, who knows, Montreal must be doing better with their recent success.  I find it hard to believe that Hamilton is losing money, again, more success on field would help, no doubt.

If the league was a little more balanced, gate might be a bit better.  But in general, while its "not a solid business model", most sports leagues aren't. 

Most are vanity driven, and maintaining the actual status of the league by raising $SMS levels, banning air horns, being more open about neg lists and salaries, better data mining ability and more accurate stats tracking and availability, all these things will make for a better, less unprofitable league.

Worst comes to worst, we can sell it to the Rock (just joking)

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

Ti-Cat caretaker Bob Young seems to be divesting his ownership of the team, last year he sold 40% to Stelco and this year he sold another chunk to former player Marwan Hage.

[bomb squad]

Ti-Cat caretaker Bob Young seems to be divesting his ownership of the team, last year he sold 40% to Stelco and this year he sold another chunk to former player Marwan Hage.

He deserved better.

[Balticfox]

But the "useless" things you list are precisely why nearly all of us are here on this forum and WPG STHs right now!  I'm only here right now because my dad took me to a couple games a year in the 80's-90's, and the Game Program always had a page showing all the ref hand signs which I liked to memorize as a kid.  Now I'm here, dropping thousands a year on WFC (and CFL in general, too), and taking *my* kids to the games...

Yes, the "payoff" from getting kids out to games is a slow, long-term payoff.  But if you don't start now, then the seats will be more empty in 20 years.

I agree! My love of the CFL and whatever other sports all stems from what captured my fancy in my formative years. The 1959 Topps CFL cards were actually the first cards I collected as a kid:











My interest in both the CFL and cards can be traced directly back to my memories from the summer and fall of 1959.

Kids on the field is the hill I'll die on because it literally costs almost nothing other than 30-60m more labor from the security staff.  Not only should every team do this, but they should advertise it heavily so lay-people with kids know about it and can see how it works!

Sure, we need other, bigger ideas, but those cost money, so why not do every single low-hanging fruit thing first?

And the players should of course remain on the field in their uniforms to meet and interact with the fans.

[Balticfox]

I've also heard that circa 2012 the developers of the John Madden video game created a version for the CFL but it was never released. The introduction of a CFL video game would be a great way to groom future fans because (like it or not) kids are all about video games these days.

I keep wondering whether the paucity of CFL items/promotions might be partially due to the CFL asking too much in licensing fees. Rather than treating such promotions as a profit center, the CFL should be treating these as part and parcel of their marketing efforts to develop future generations of fans.

 

[Tecno]

Hey Fox, do you have any of the 80's game day programs with the hand signals pages in them?  I'd love to see one of those sheets again.  I kept lots of stuff from my childhood, but for some reason none of these programs.