The Canadian Football League is in the bottom of the ninth inning in its hopes for Halifax expansion.
With two outs already against the Atlantic Schooners, Randy Ambrosie is swinging for the fences while facing a full count. The commissioner reaffirmed the CFL’s interest in the Maritimes while indicating the league is in the midst of their final attempt at putting a franchise in the Nova Scotia capital.
“It’s been a relationship that has been positive for both sides, for the league and for Atlantic Canada,” Ambrosie told Postmedia’s J.J. Adams. “We certainly would like to end up there with a permanent franchise, but look, we’re gonna take one big, hard swing at it with this potential partner that we have a great deal of confidence in. If it doesn’t work this time, then we have said: ‘Look, there are other markets that we are very interested in.'”
During Grey Cup week, Ambrosie revealed the league has been in conversations with a “highly engaged, very qualified potential owner in Atlantic Canada.” Those discussions are ongoing with the commissioner providing a progress update to the board of governors during leaage meetings the week of December 4 in Toronto.
The quest for CFL expansion in the Maritimes dates back four decades but has gained new life recently. The rights to a team in Halifax were originally awarded to Schooner Sports and Entertainment in 2018, a group backed by Gary Drummond and Anthony LeBlanc. The COVID pandemic and a lack of interest from local government leaders to put public funds towards building a multi-million dollar stadium ended those ideas and caused the group to pull out.
Ambrosie has remained committed to expansion as a legacy project with conversations around a stadium turning towards a temporary-permanent model. The league’s tone has shifted to one of immediacy regarding Atlantic Canada as the commissioner threatens to explore other potential expansion locations if a deal is not struck soon.
“One that I would like very much to start a discussion with is Quebec City because it has got such an amazing profile,” Ambrosie said. “It’s a great football city with the success they’ve had in university football. They’ve got one of the biggest amateur football communities in all of Canada. So the pursuit of our expansion is not a single-market pursuit, it’s a multiple-market pursuit.”
Influential Quebecers such as Laval Rouge et Or president Jacques Tanguay have pushed back on Ambrosie’s optimism regarding a team in the provincial capital, noting a lack of adequate infrastructure and private sector appetite for an expansion franchise. That’s similar to the problems in Halifax where the economic success of two straight Touchdown Atlantic games has not loosened the government coffers.
“Right now the two markets that I think we felt had the greatest short-term potential are those two we’re discussing. And the third — which has always been part of the conversation — is Moncton. We did have a Touchdown [Atlantic] game there and very successful,” Ambrosie said.
“Moncton’s a fantastic community. They have a fantastic mayor. Mayor [Dawn] Arnold is a spectacular mayor and a great leader, a great local leader. So that’s another community that we have thought about as a potential home for a CFL franchise.”
With a metro area population roughly a third the size of Halifax and smaller than Regina, Moncton last hosted a Touchdown Atlantic event in 2019 and would be an underwhelming consolation prize in the quest for expansion. However, a 10th franchise remains a priority for the league with expansion needed to move the season up, balance the schedule and spark increased revenue.
“The bottom line is we believe passionately that getting to 10 teams is going to have incredibly positive effects on the league,” Ambrosie said. “I’ve got a mandate from the governors to pursue expansion, which I am doing, and we’re just going to keep marching in pursuit of that goal. I believe that we’ll eventually get there, some way, somehow, but with great resolve, we will find our way to that success.”
There is hope that this latest potential investor in Halifax will finally be the catalyst to realize a dream first promised in 1982 but lots remains to be determined. If current conversations don’t manifest into something real in the near future, the league’s latest big swing will be remembered as the deciding strikeout.
“We have not given up on our great friends in Atlantic Canada. We are in active discussions with an interested party,” Ambrosie said.
“I don’t know where it goes from here. At some point, we want to get it done, but if we can’t, we’re certainly going to feel grateful for the hospitality that Atlantic Canadians have shown us.”
