So now that it appears the franchise formerly known as the Ottawa Renegades is poised to make its third (and final?) return to the CFL in time for the 2010 season, all that remains is the question of whether or not they actually should.
Last Thursday, CFL commissioner Mark Cohon told TSN that "we're working hard to try and wrap this up...We'll hopefully be back here soon...I think we've found the right people and now we just have to wrap it up and tell the fans what we're doing."
After strikes on their first two attempts at playing pro football in the nation's capital, believe me, the fans aren't the only ones interested in finding out exactly what the CFL is planning on doing with Ottawa. Or, more importantly, what they are planning to do differently this time around.
But alas, right from the outset, when you sort through the list of errors culminating in their extinction only a few years past, the most impacting changes may have already taken place in the landscape of the CFL itself.
For if memory serves me right, the biggest problem the 'Gades had last time around -- aside from the resurrection of the Glieberman-led ownership group loosely based on one man's desire to rekindle passions with a cheerleader -- was the fact they created a business model around a salary cap that former Renegades president Brad Watters later discovered was really "no cap at all."
There was a number, of course, that those in the industry referred to as the salary cap, but we came to discover that in the Webster dictionary of franchise ownership in the CFL, a salary cap was actually "the floor and not the ceiling of where spending began," and more of "a guideline" than necessarily "a cap."
Well, improvements have certainly been made to the CFL since those days of outlaw salary expenditures and freewheeling ownership mandates.
We have a new commissioner who was voted into place with unanimous support from all eight clubs and who operates under the longest guaranteed term any chieftain of this league has ever gotten a sniff at.
We have a new TV deal that is the most lucrative the CFL has seen.
And most importantly, because of the implementation of an enforceable salary cap, we have a level playing field for all eight teams to compete on both on and off the field.
For the first time ever, the only two publicly owned teams in the CFL that actually operate like publicly owned teams -- Saskatchewan and Winnipeg -- actually duelled it out this past season in Toronto for the championship of the country without an Edmonton, a Braley or even a Montreal anywhere to be seen.
So how's that for progress?
The environment in the CFL may be radically different from any other an Ottawa franchise has ever been reborn into. But the biggest determinant for the sustainability of the third franchise to enter into the city will most certainly lie, once again, on the shoulders of the ownership group. By this point it had better be as groomed and scrutinized as some primordial at the Winnipeg zoo.
The Ottawa region is certainly no second coming of Rider-Nation-type hysteria when it comes to their football appetites. But the area is capable, with the right leadership, creative marketing, a competitive team and an absence of a Mardi Gras night of actually becoming a viable franchise for more than a season or two, as we have seen in the past.
Now that the stage is set and the league operates under a universal and enforceable salary cap while reeling in unprecedented revenues, I suppose the biggest leap of faith to be taken now is just trusting in our new league managers -- in positions where others have led us astray in the past -- to navigate the ship that is the CFL into waters free of ominous disasters looming just beneath the surface.
Doug Brown, alwyas a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.
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