CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie met with the media on Tuesday for his annual State of the League address and touched on several items, most of which came with his typical upbeat messaging.
Here are nine takeaways from his address.
Failure to launch
One of the more prominent fiascos this season was the league’s inability to implement their new stats system in conjunction with their much-ballyhooed partnership with Genius Sports.
Ambrosie expressed remorse that the system never got up and running as he hoped, and seemed to admit the system was never going to be up and running in 2023.
“There was never going to be a good time to launch this significant transformation,” Ambrosie said, stating that running both the new system and the old one that had worked for years simultaneously was not a “viable option.”
The commissioner then showed a video touting what was to come in terms of advanced metrics within the new system, though the delivery of those features is still to be determined.
Not going anywhere
Ambrosie has been in the commissioner’s chair since the middle of 2017, which already makes him the fourth-longest-serving commissioner in league history. Only Jake Gaudaur (16 years), Mark Cohon (eight years), and the league’s first commissioner Sydney Halter (eight years) have been in the role longer than Ambrosie.
Despite some difficulty coming out of the pandemic — “2020 and 2021 were two very difficult, sobering, and challenging years,” Ambrosie said — he hopes his time in the role will continue well into the future.
“At some point, it will be time to pass the baton to somebody else but for now I am honoured to be in the position.”
“I plan on staying in the job as long as the governors want me to be.”
Injury concerns
The lack of a clear policy regarding injury news makes the CFL feel a little outdated. Leagues such as the NFL have much more comprehensive and honest public injury reports. Even with the league looking to expand their reach into the gambling community and fantasy sports, Ambrosie would not commit to forcing teams to be less secretive.
“We want to show an abundance of respect for our athletes that we’re not making their injury a story before we know what that story is,” he stated.
The commissioner clearly understands that the sub-par reporting on injuries is having an effect on fans’ potential enjoyment but wants to meet with other stakeholders before making any concrete statement.
Saturday, get used to it
With the ratings and box-office success of the move to Saturday for the first two rounds of the playoffs, do not expect to be watching much playoff football on Sundays going forward.
“I think it feels like a permanent move. The results were obviously very encouraging. We are seeing so much progress being made, our schedule seems to have really resonated with CFL fans and we’re attracting new CFL fans.”
I was skeptical of the league’s decision to push the playoffs off Sunday, but the numbers suggest it was a smart move. There was no word on whether the league would consider moving the Grey Cup to Saturday, but if numbers continue to grow for the division semi-finals and finals, it is a conversation that might have to happen in the future.
Fish or cut bait
The desire for the league to get to 10 teams is as strong as ever but the quest for expansion in the Maritimes is reaching a breaking point.
“We need to bring this to a conclusion at some point. no matter how much we want to be there,” Ambrosie said. “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it and if we’re not, you have to fish or cut bait.”
Ambrosie did say the league was in conversation with a “highly engaged, very qualified potential owner” to bring a team to Atlantic Canada but he would not specify who that person or persons were.
Ops cap staying put
One of the more controversial moves the CFL has made in recent years is the implementation of a football operations cap that limits teams to spending just over $2.5 million on their coaching staff and personnel departments. Many feel the cap does not serve a worthwhile purpose but it does not look to be going away any time soon.
“It was the fastest-growing expense category in the league and it was creating a lot of tension with the Players’ Association,” Ambrosie said. “They saw the rapid rise in what we were spending in non-player personnel and (we) felt like that was an inequity that needed to be resolved.”
Earlier finish to season contingent on expansion
If you want to see the CFL finish their season earlier, you better hope that expansion happens.
“We play 18 games in 21 weeks because we have one team on a bye every week. You get to 10 teams and we would end up playing 18 games in 19 weeks,” Ambrosie explained.
If the CFL ever gets a 10th franchise, the Grey Cup would be played two weeks earlier, which also means avoiding other controversies such as playing games on Remembrance Day, as was the case last weekend.
Up, up, up
This season saw legitimate growth in terms of fans in the stands and eyeballs on the television product, with the league touting significant growth in their three biggest, and usually most problematic, markets.
Game-day revenue in Toronto was up over 40 percent, ratings for Argos games increased nearly 15 percent, and Ambrosie was happy to point out that last Saturday’s East Final saw the largest crowd for an Argonauts game in BMO Field history.
Growth in Toronto, along with increases in B.C. and Montreal are paramount for the league’s success and this season seemed to be a much-needed shot in the arm to all three markets.
2023 will be Hamilton’s Grey Cup
Hamilton is hosting their second Grey Cup in three seasons after previously hosting in 2021 but that was “the league’s Grey Cup” and not “Hamilton’s Grey Cup” according to Ambrosie, who said the league took over operation of the 2021 event from the Tiger-Cats.
“It was the right place to play the game but we were still largely mired in the cloud of COVID,” said Ambrosie. “The Ticats and Hamilton did an amazing job of hosting with us but it wasn’t really their game.”
The 2021 Grey Cup festival was a parred-down version of what had been the norm before the pandemic. With restrictions still in place regarding large gatherings and vaccine mandates, Hamilton was unable to host the full Grey Cup experience, which the commissioner said was a key reason why they came back so quickly.
Prior to 2021, Hamilton had not hosted a Grey Cup since 1996.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers will meet the Montreal Alouettes in the 110th Grey Cup on Sunday, Nov. 19 at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton. Kickoff is slated for 6:00 p.m. EST.
