Bombers beef up to market weight

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/04/2009 (6372 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have socked away $5 million in the kitty, the club cleared more than $750,000 last year alone and season-ticket revenue jumped almost $250,000 in 2008.

So what better time to unload this community-owned junker, right?

Indeed, for those of us unfortunate enough to witness the dark ages at the turn of the century, when the Bombers’ venerable franchise was reduced to a pathetic, begging mess, there is a touch of the surreal these days as the club is about to hand over the keys to businessman/Bomber fanatic David Asper, who plans to move the team into a new $135-million stadium in Fort Garry.

Of course, Asper’s proposal isn’t a done deal yet. But we’ll get to that later.

For now, we’ll concentrate on a community-owned franchise being passed into private hands just when the Bombers, at long last, find themselves in a fiscal position even the most optimistic soul couldn’t have envisioned a decade ago.

“Oh, there’s a huge irony,” Bombers chairman Ken Hildahl acknowledged Tuesday as the Bombers unveiled their flush 2008 financial statement. “The team has never been as successful financially. It hasn’t been this stable, I don’t think, in its history. So the irony isn’t lost on the board, trust me.”

Look, everyone understands that the bleak past and the current prosperity cannot be confused with ensuring the Bombers’ survival for years to come. Just ask Hildahl.

“We’ve got to look forward,” he reasoned. “For the team to be financially stable, financially healthy, at some point in the very near future we’re going to need a new stadium. Yeah, there’s a little bit of sadness that we have to move in that direction (moving away from community ownership). But that’s just part of doing business in this environment.”

For the record, however, it’s worth noting that if not for the painstaking climb out of bankruptcy’s shadow, there would be no Asper. There would be no stadium agreement. And that goes for the fiscal renaissance of the CFL, too. The Bombers’ share of league revenue in 2008 ($1.978 million) rose almost a half-million dollars ($1.493 million) from 2007.

Seriously, do you really believe taxpayers would even grudgingly approve using public funds to help facilitate the sale of a team more than $5 million in the glue so it could continue operating in a league widely considered a financial basket case? Pfft. That’s a rhetorical question, folks.

“No question, things have changed dramatically,” Hildahl said. “Back in 2000, nobody wanted to touch this team, including a lot of volunteers to come in and sit with us on the board of directors.

“It would have been almost impossible back then to assume (control of the team). To attract ownership at that time would have been absolutely impossible.”

Added Bombers president and CEO Lyle Bauer: “Nobody wants to buy a bad business.”

But, Bauer was asked, isn’t this like a parent nurturing a child through good times and bad, only to see the offspring leave on its own two feet? Bauer replied by continuing the analogy. “You hand it off to school,” he said, “you hand it off to high school, you hand it off to college. Isn’t that the way it goes?”

Still, it should be remembered that without the pleading, perseverance and guidance of the last decade, that same “kid” would be wearing rags in a dilapidated excuse for a home. Some future, eh?

“I remember we went basically from board meeting to board meeting not knowing if the team was going to survive the next three or four months,” Hildahl recalled. “It does seem like a lifetime ago. We were $5 million in debt with very little revenue. Corporate sponsorship had dried up. When I look at the numbers today and we’re sitting with $5 million in the bank and cash assets and a lot of stability, that’s a source of great pride for both the board and the management team.”

Even then, the Bombers’ caretakers had a vision: to extricate the club from the financial quicksand, to build a modest war chest and, yes, even dream of someday making the then-unthinkable notion of a new stadium feasible.

Which brings us to Asper and his vision: to take that same team out of the arms of community ownership and, with financial streams from a retail business component at Polo Park, erect a new stadium where the Bombers might thrive and prosper for the generations to come.

That would be a good thing, make no mistake.

But if it doesn’t happen, there’s at least some consolation that while the Bombers might not get a new home, at worst they’ll always have caring parents to catch them if they fall.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca