CFL’s public plea for financial rescue smacks of desperation

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/04/2020 (2022 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if late Tuesday’s news was any indication, the Canadian Football League appears to be on the brink of hitting rock bottom.

The CFL has turned to the federal government for financial aid, requesting as much as a $150-million bailout in the event the current COVID-19 pandemic wipes out the 2020 season. That would be a worst-case scenario, with other requests being an immediate need for $30 million and/or an additional $20-70 million in the event of a shortened season.

It’s a sad reality for one of the world’s longest-running leagues. Like most businesses during these trying times, the CFL is facing harsh financial realities.

“We are trying to work our way through various potential scenarios, but we don’t know what the future holds,” reads a statement from the CFL, issued Wednesday afternoon. “At best, our season is delayed and, at worst, we could lose several games and even our entire 2020 season. If concerns about large gatherings in stadiums persist, our future itself could be in jeopardy. We are working to meet this challenge with both optimism and pragmatism.”

While the CFL believes it requires a government handout, plenty of questions remain.

The first, and perhaps the most damming for the league: just how did we get here?

According to Sportnet’s Arash Madani, the process to obtain public money began April 2 and included seven communications from the league to three federal government ministries. That means this has been going on for nearly an entire month, with the league aware that a scoop wasn’t only possible but likely inevitable given today’s media climate.

So, why is it that the CFL appears to be caught flat-footed, with one hand out asking for taxpayers’ money?

I’d argue it’s because if the league is good at anything it’s tripping over itself when it comes to implementing sound strategies. This is just the latest example.

All the talk around Tuesday’s announcement has been whether the CFL deserves the money. What it’s turned into is a hostile debate over whether the league is truly a part of Canadiana, with people arguing on different social media channels and league message boards. By not coming clean to the public, the CFL, which prides itself on bringing Canadians together, has instead created outrage and division.

This is just the latest hiccup in what’s been a series of them over the last six weeks, when the coronavirus turned from a scare to a pandemic in mid-March. It all deals with transparency, which the league has offered very little of to this point.

Simply put: it’s been a classic case of say one thing but do another. Wednesday’s statement was merely window dressing to a lack of foresight — and empathy — from a leadership group headed by commissioner Randy Ambrosie and the board of governors he works for.

In the league’s statement, the CFL describes its players as “working-class heroes” and “gifted athletes who spend countless hours in the community working in programs which address issues such as bullying, violence against women and food insecurity.”

Holy buzzwords, Batman.

Ambrosie, a former CFL player, has often waxed poetic about the importance of the players to the league and their value to the CFL’s overall success. In reality, the league regards its players as take-it-or-leave-it talent who should only speak when spoken to. How else would you explain the fact that, according to multiple sources across the league, the players’ association wasn’t part of the process.

What’s worse, Ambrosie, who declined a Free Press request for comment, has promised to “pay” back the government money, at least in part, by using its players for promotional videos and community-focused initiatives. Good luck with that.

The kicker is the CFL doesn’t even plan to pay its players with any of the public money they’ve requested, and instead insists on them applying for employment insurance or, if eligible, collect from the Canadian Emergency Relief Fund.

What the league should have done is consult with the players to create a united front and to tell the country they’re working together to solve this serious problem.

“We know many Canadians are struggling and the federal government is dealing, literally, with matters of life and death,” the CFL writes.

“We simply feel an obligation to do everything we can to ensure the CFL and the Grey Cup, which have been a valuable part of Canadian life, can be there for Canadians to play a role in the recovery we know lies ahead.”

The second step would have been to rally together the owners, two-thirds of which are backed by some of the richest corporations or people in this country. The other three teams — in Winnipeg, Saskatchewan and Edmonton, all of which are publicly run — have emergency funds that run in the millions of dollars.

This isn’t a suggestion that each private owner bleed all their hard-earned money, or that team’s empty their rainy day accounts. But how powerful a message would it have been if each club figured out what margins they could spare to come up with a collective fund to give back to not only the players in need — those making closer to the league-minimum of $55,000 and not the players who received off-season bonuses — as well as to the people in the community who are struggling?

In desperate times, you want to position yourself as someone who is giving back. Because the fact is this crisis has forced us all to re-evaluate what’s important in life. The CFL can’t control the pandemic but it can control what do about it? They should be asking how they plan to make it better for other people and not just themselves.

While the league’s head office and its teams have taken pay cuts, with some teams also issuing layoffs, no one has said how much they’d be eliminating from their paycheques.

Previous CFL commissioners have made around $500,000 in salary, plus bonuses. According to league sources, Ambrosie makes more than that and other league executives make in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. A 50 per cent cut would be enough to survive, one would think.

The third and most obvious thing the CFL should have done was to be transparent. Explain why you need the money, provide details of your financial situation and explain where you plan to use the funds.

Had the CFL decided to take these three crucial steps, just think of what the headlines would have been and what kind of reaction and boost to their reputation they would have received. Instead, people woke up to “CFL asks for $150-M bailout.”

Which brings us to one final question: where would the money go?

Ambrosie made the bold statement ahead of the 2017 Grey Cup in Ottawa that he hoped to “double” overall league revenues, which at the time were around $210 million.

According to a source close to the league, the money would be used to pave over some “bad business decisions.” The source said the CFL realized after going through last year’s books that they were once again dramatically into deficit spending and the belief was the chance to get public money was being viewed at the ultimate Hail Mary to fix the problem.

The source refused to provide specifics of the bad decisions but did say the league has had little, if any, return on investment with their CFL 2.0 initiative. The way it was described to me was “the CFL has been burning for a while, this might just be exposing where the fires are.”

One has to imagine, given there are only 50 to 60 league employees, much of the money would go to the nine teams. After all, in the event there is no season, which is the most likely end here, the CFL wouldn’t have to pay for game operations, additional content or officials.

How might that money would be divided between each club remains unclear.

Lots of questions. Now it’s time for some answers.

 

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton