The Edmonton Elks and team president Victor Cui are parting ways, according to a report from TSN’s Farhan Lalji. The club did not immediately return 3DownNation’s request for comment.
The 51-year-old was hired in January 2022 to succeed Chris Presson, who was fired following the 2021 season. The team has since gone 4-23 in the regular season and remain the CFL’s lone winless team this year at 0-9. Edmonton has also lost 22 consecutive home games, a streak that dates back to before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chris Jones was hired as the team’s head coach and general manager prior to Cui joining the organization, though he expressed enthusiasm about working with the former CFL Coach of the Year. He recently indicated in an interview that making midseason changes to football operations is “very difficult” and cited the league’s operations cap as one reason for the team’s challenges.
The Elks recorded a net operating loss of $3.3 million in 2022, losing money for the fourth consecutive year. The team’s attendance fell by 9.2 percent from 2021 to 2022 as the club averaged 23,787 fans per regular season game. The team averaged attendance of 24,709 through their first four games of this season with the attendance figure from the club’s recent loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers remaining unavailable.
Cui went to Archbishop O’Leary High School where he was students’ union president and received a Johnny Bright scholarship before graduating from the University of Alberta, where he studied international politics. He went on to gain local sports management and marketing expertise, managing some of the city’s most prominent sporting events such as the 2001 World Championship in Athletics.
The Edmonton native left his home city in 2002 to gain international sports marketing experience. In 2010, he launched One Championship (MMA), which became Asia’s largest sports media property with a valuation of well over $1 billion USD.
He served as the senior director of the event management group for ESPN STAR Sports Singapore and has served as director of corporate communications for Golf Canada. Cui also served as a reservist in the Royal Canadian Navy and has a black belt in taekwondo.
The Elks (0-9) are scheduled to visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (3-5) on Thursday, Aug. 17 with kickoff slated for 7:30 p.m. EDT.
