No pay, bad play?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/11/2010 (5450 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been 20 years since there was a Grey Cup parade in Winnipeg, two years without playoff football and nine seasons since the Blue Bombers finished atop their division.

Today, Free Press football writer Ed Tait provides the final instalment in a three-part look at the issues that have long been cited as to why the franchise is in the second-longest championship drought in its history and the longest current absence from the winner’s circle in the CFL.

The final chapter: Are the Bombers cheap and who is driving the bus going forward?

THE ISSUE…

How do the Bombers change their image, one widely held across the CFL for years, that they aren’t willing to spend money to win championships? Just as important as the stadium issue slowly unfolds: Who is accountable for the franchise’s failure to provide a winning product over the past three years?

THE FACTS…

— First things first — the Bombers spent $8.6 million on football operations in 2009. According to other executives in the CFL, that is in line with what other franchises allocate to the football side of the business.

— The Bombers have spent significant money on locking up key talent over the last decade, including paying significant dollars for Khari Jones, Milt Stegall, Charles Roberts and Doug Brown.

— The last three coaches the Bombers have hired — Doug Berry, Mike Kelly and Paul LaPolice — had no previous CFL head-coaching experience, lending credence to the argument the organization is ‘cheaping out.’ By comparison, John Hufnagel, Mark Trestman and Wally Buono — three of the most successful coaches currently in the CFL and, in Buono’s case, the winningest coach in CFL history — earn considerably more than the Bombers’ head knock.

— The football club has a paid president in Jim Bell and GM Joe Mack, both of whom report on the business and football side, respectively, to a 10-member Bomber board of directors. Bill Watchorn is the chairman of the Bomber board.

True story, and one that was told for years about the Winnipeg Blue Bombers back in the day…

The late, great Tyrone Jones — a mainstay of those dominant Bomber squads in the 1980s and early 1990s that made going to the Grey Cup a regular deal — once went on a classic rant about his employers. Among other things, Jones complained there was no meat in the spaghetti sauce in the pre-game meal, about having “to wear Mack Herron’s jock” and even revealed there were times when he and running back Robert Mimbs used to venture over to Polo Park to get a pair of socks on game day.

Interestingly, back then management essentially laughed off those complaints. As long as the football squad was at or near the top of the standings, everything was good.

Times have changed now, what with the Bombers soon to wrap up their third consecutive losing season and about to miss the playoffs for a second straight November. But the image of the Bombers being tight with the dollars hasn’t changed.

“That cheap reputation is an albatross hanging around the Bombers’ neck and it is a huge, huge factor in where they aren’t at as a franchise right now,” said one of the CFL executives the Free Press talked to this week under the condition of anonymity. “Right now across the league there is still a perception that they are cheap and that makes it that much harder for coaches and general managers to overcome.”

Now, granted, some of this image is a stain left over from the days of Jones, through to when the franchise was teetering on bankruptcy at the start of the millennium. Back then, as has become folklore now, Bomber staffers would report to work bringing their own toilet paper and wondering if this was the day the heat would be turned off because the bill hadn’t been paid.

Amazingly, then-GM Brendan Taman, head coach Dave Ritchie, president Lyle Bauer and a stakeholders committee — among many others — not only helped drag the squad out of debt, but pieced together the last Bomber squad to finish first in the division. It was also done in the pre-salary-cap era when, in one season in particular, a rival spent $1 million more on players than the Bombers did.

But, interestingly, since the installation of the salary-management-system in 2007 — the great leveller of the playing field for community-owned teams like the Bombers — the franchise has struggled with the football-operations budget jumping almost $3 million since 2003.

Part of that, undoubtedly, is the byproduct of the third regime in three years being at the helm in 2010. As a CFL executive said this week: “You can’t keep making all those severance payments to ex-coaches and not have it affect football ops somehow.

“Here’s what I wonder, though: Who’s driving the bus there and who’s accountable?”

That’s an especially compelling question as the Bombers will enter 2011 with the unresolved stadium/ownership issue still hanging over the franchise.

It’s a compelling question because last year’s board opted to make changes in the wake of a 7-11 season, deeming it unacceptable. This after an 8-10 season and three consecutive playoff appearances weren’t enough for Doug Berry to keep his job.

“It is known around the league right now as a very, very unstable place,” said a CFL GM. “There is just so much pressure there to find the right combination to win. And the feeling across the league is, is there a true commitment there to win?”

That’s an easy shot to fire now, given the Bombers’ recent woes. And while the team is attempting to alter the club’s image outside of their Maroons Road offices — chartering a plane to Regina for Labour Day instead of taking the bus is one example — the best selling point is rather straightforward: A competitive, playoff-bound football team.

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“Here’s what I’ve been saying often this season,” said club president Jim Bell. “When you’re losing, in the stands the beer isn’t as cold and the hotdogs aren’t as good.

“But if you’re winning eight in a row, man alive the beer is cold and the hotdogs are tremendous. It’s perspective. Winning affects us all.”

So does losing.

And ‘cheap’ is a stain that takes a lot of elbow grease to remove.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca