PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA Enlarge Image

Winnipeg Blue Bombers president Jim Bell wants fans from far and wide to come pouring into the city for games, like they did a long time ago.

Heritage, tradition, and integrity are the three things Jim Bell thinks of when he considers the Winnipeg Blue Bombers logo.

On Sept. 13, 2009, he didn't see those traits at Canad Inns Stadium.

That grotesque display of football, summarized in a 55-10 embarrassment at the hands of the rival Saskatchewan Roughriders, turned just as ugly off the field for the Blue and Gold, as fan unrest boiled over into near anarchy, thanks to a struggling product and a combative head coach.

As the city grumbled the rest of the year, there was concern in the Bombers front office.

In the first four games of the 2009 campaign, Winnipeg averaged over 28,000 at the gate.

The next four games following that infamous Banjo Bowl: Just over 22,000.

A near sellout greeted the club for its final contest (thanks to a Herculean ticket push) but the franchise was taking on a lot of water, and the public relations fallout was going to be felt on the bottom line for years to come if things didn't change.

"We were coming off a year where our brand took a bit of a beating," said Bell, the Bombers president in charge of the business side of the CFL operation. "So the biggest thing we talked about in the off-season was getting outside the perimeter. We've taken our fans outside the city for granted."

Among the organizational moves made during the off-season, a winter of change that saw Bell move from his vice-president of finances chair into the team president office, was a new attention to growing the Bomber brand beyond the City of Winnipeg. The club created a new position to oversee this initiative, promoting former Bombers Store manager Jeffrey Bannon to the manager of brand development.

His primary duty: Turn the Winnipeg Blue Bombers into the Manitoba Blue Bombers. Figuratively speaking, of course.

"Bomber Nation," Bannon says. "That's the ultimate goal. They have Rider Pride in Saskatchewan; we want Bomber Nation. Some people are going to snicker at that, but I know we can do the same thing here."

Last month, members of the Bombers brass loaded into a vehicle and headed west down the Trans-Canada for Brandon (pop. 45,000), meeting with a few of the movers and shakers in the city (including Mayor Dave Burgess, the chamber of commerce, and various business leaders) in hopes of re-establishing some CFL roots in Manitoba's second-largest city.

Tour groups interested in sending buses to Winnipeg for game days had their say and stores interested in stocking more Bomber gear on their shelves offered ideas. Invites to join the chamber were extended and sponsorship opportunities for events in Brandon were discussed. When it was over, the two sides left that five-hour meeting feeling like it was the early 1990s again -- back when the club used to travel to Brandon for training camp (the inconvenience factor proved to be too much and those camp visits were discontinued after a few seasons, though the team spent a couple camps at Southport during the Reinebold years).

Both Brandon and the Bombers are hoping for a deeper relationship than just selling merch outside a McDonald's before the Labour Day Classic every year.

"Have we felt ignored? Yeah, I would say that," said Burgess, who actually initiated the discussion with the club. "In the last 12 years or so, the interest in the Bombers has basically evaporated out here. There hasn't been a presence in a long time... but I think everyone wants that to change.

"And it's not just Brandon," the mayor added. "We service 190,000-200,000 people in the Westman region, so this is something that can really be a benefit to the football club."

It's that population base which has the club excited about exploring a market outside the perimeter again. Bell doesn't just want to do some minor business with non-Winnipeg destinations, though, he wants Manitobans draped in Blue and Gold, the way Saskatchewan folk are dipped in green at birth.

The Bombers president wants to see children named Dieter, Milt and Jovon running around community gridirons.

"What I really hated hearing during the meeting was that there was some Rider Pride out in Western Manitoba," Bell said, noting that plans for Bomber invasions to Steinbach and the Red River Valley are in the works. "I don't sleep well knowing that. We don't know if we're going to change that, but the (football fans) who have not been participating through either the Bombers or the Riders... we're going to get 'em."

Bell has the passion, but does his front office team have the will?

The community-owned Bombers lost $1.2-million in 2009 and aren't exactly known for their marketing muscle, having significantly trimmed advertising budgets and promotional extensions over the years to help crawl out from under the mountain of red ink it was in earlier this decade. Talk of brand building and becoming "Saskatchewan East" could be met with hesitation, and while excitement from a new football stadium on the horizon certainly helps their cause, that positive impact is measured against the possibility of the higher-profile NHL returning to the city sooner than later.

The belief out there is the Bombers have become too comfortable as the No. 1 game in town and if the NHL sets up shop here again, the football team could experience an unwanted adjustment period in the Manitoba market.

"That has nothing to do with us looking to build up our brand," Bell counters. "This is something we had to do regardless of what the future brings."

If you measure brand loyalty through merchandise sales, then the Bombers appear to be headed in the right direction. In 2009, the club had just over $2 million in retail sales, down $300,000 from the year before (keep in mind, the club was coming off a 2007 Grey Cup appearance). The team expects to better the '09 total this season, boasting a record month of sales for July (just under $370,000; compared to just $211,000 in July 2009) and $200,000 for August (a jump of $69,000 from August '09).

Gee, can you imagine if the team was 6-2 instead of 2-6?

While things would be easier for Bannon with a winning record in his sails, he quickly corrects the discussion back to the reality. The Bombers are just starting to explore Manitoba again, and the bottom line -- so important to the franchise for as long as anyone can remember -- consists of more than just revenue and expenses.

"You can't measure it all by dollars -- at least not right now," Bannon said. "It's about trying to connect with the communities outside of Winnipeg again."

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 4, 2010 D4