Ambrosie addresses CFL’s stats problem

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This article was published 22/06/2023 (867 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s never a shortage of pressing issues in the Canadian Football League.

Commisioner Randy Ambrosie was in Winnipeg on Thursday and took questions from the media at IG Field before the Blue Bombers took on the B.C. Lions.

To the surprise of no one, the first thing thrown at Ambrosie was the league’s stats.

Or lack thereof.

For those unaware, the CFL has a new data and technology partner in Genius Sports. The partnership will provide the league with an advanced data collection system that will capture play-by-play updates for every CFL game. An example of this is they will be inserting a microchip in the game ball.

In short, there will be more in-depth stats and information for bettors and those that follow the league.

The problem is the new system isn’t ready yet and it has completely wiped out past and current stats from the CFL website.

You’d think it would’ve been something that was taken care of in the off-season, but it wasn’t, and it’s made following the league through the first three weeks a nightmare.

Ambrosie expects significant progress to be made by early July.

“My message is that we believe this is the right thing. This is not a failure, this is what happens when you do a full technology reset,” said Ambrosie, who added that the process began in January.

“You’re building not just a replacement for an old system, but you’re really reinventing the way our stat system works. This is just a part of that journey. We got counselled on what other leagues have experienced when they’ve done this. Leagues much bigger than us have gone through technology challenges when they’ve gone through this when they’ve done this kind of conversion. We’re going through that experience now. We got a lot of people taking it very seriously. The top technology expert at Genius has been working on this file directly. They have an entire crew of people working on this project directly, it’s not a resource issue.”

Expanding to 10 teams is something Ambrosie has been talking about for years. Atlantic Canada has been the target destination for quite some time, but places such as London, Ont., and Quebec City have also been floated around.

“We do have people that have expressed an interest in having a conversation with us about expansion that are interested in ownership. Probably one of the single biggest changes and a reason for a level of measured optimism is the stadium issue is different today,” said Ambrosie.

“What we found in Atlantic Canada is they said they didn’t think the pursuit of a full-time permanent stadium was right for that market. And we said, so what would be right? And their view was that some kind of temporary permanent stadium would get Atlantic Canadians into the Canadian Football League and give them a chance to build momentum and build a fan base and ultimately lead to a long-term stadium strategy.”

“The other thing is the modular stadium world has changed so much. So, what those stadiums are is essentially a (prefabricated) home… and the price point for those modular stadiums, they can build them about up to 20,000 seats now at about 30 per cent the price of a permanent stadium.”

Although attendance at some games has been discouraging around the three-down game so far this season — the Calgary Stampeders drew just 17,942 fans to their season opener — Ambrosie said he feels encouraged by the work being done by all nine teams to help in that regard. Ambrosie did, however, admit the league has concerns about the quarterback position. Outside of Bombers pivot Zach Collaros and one or two others, the quality of the passers has gone downhill and the product on the field is suffering for it.

“We’ve been talking about it, and I think if there was an area that we need to lean into and spend more time on is the quarterback development question,” said Ambrosie. “How do we create this and generate the next generation of great quarterbacking?”

“We have great quarterbacks, I think the issue is how do we develop the next generation of them? It’s something we’re spending more time talking about.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

Taylor Allen
Reporter

Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.

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