CFL teams could face official punishments if they abuse the league’s marketing money provision in order to circumvent the salary cap.
In his final State of the League address on Tuesday, outgoing commissioner Randy Ambrosie revealed that any player receiving marketing compensation — which does not count against the salary cap — will be subject to league review to ensure they have lived up to the terms of their agreement.
“We monitor it very carefully. We do an audit of all of the marketing money that gets distributed to our players every year, we have our own internal auditor that goes in and reviews those budgets,” Ambrosie explained.
“It’s not just reviewed to make sure who got the money, but it’s also viewed through the lens of, ‘What did they do in order to be paid the money they were paid?’ In other words, there’s got to be an equitable value created in the dollars that the team spends.”
Under the terms of the current collective bargaining agreement, CFL teams are required to pay a minimum of $110,000 to players for non-football-related services, colloquially known as marketing money. That money is allocated in excess of the regular salary expenditure cap, which was set at $5.525 million in 2024 and governs the remainder of player compensation.
While every franchise must hit the minimum spending threshold, there is no ceiling for how much a team can dole out in marketing money. Though every front office has used this loophole to give themselves financial wiggle room when paying key players, it has also led to concerns that some deep-pocketed owners might spend excessively to acquire talent that others may not be able to afford.
According to Ambrosie, anyone willing to do that must back it up with an appropriate amount of actual off-the-field work, including community appearances, outreach, or promotion. Those who are found to be exploiting the system will be slapped with standard salary cap fines.
“All of those dollars that would be deemed to have been unearned — paid but unearned — would then go against the salary cap. If they, at that point, had violated our salary cap requirements, that has very real consequences, both financially and in terms of draft picks,” the commissioner stated. “There’s a real healthy tension on the teams to do this right.”
Teams that exceed the salary cap by under $100,000 are fined at a dollar-per-dollar rate, with violations in the six-figure range charged double and those above $300,000 at triple the rate of the offence. Violators that fall in the latter two categories also forfeit their next first-round pick and second-round pick, respectively.
Ambrosie did not provide any details as to how the league assesses the relative value of each player’s marketing appearances, which could be charged at dramatically different rates depending on star power. Canadian quarterback Nathan Rourke reportedly has $200,000 in marketing money in his contract for next season but would presumably command one of the highest price tags per event, given his unique status in the league.
The B.C. Lions strategically used marketing money to reacquire both Rourke and Canadian pass rusher Mathieu Betts midseason from the NFL, but are still expected to exceed the league’s salary cap before any of that money is audited. For fans of other clubs, the willingness of owner Amar Doman to pay out of pocket for talent has created concern that more conservative organizations, like the Calgary Stampeders or Ottawa Redblacks, could get left behind.
The commissioner appears to understand those concerns but remains a believer in the concept of marketing money.
“Is it an absolutely perfect system? I don’t know that I would call it perfect. Is it working reasonably well?” Ambrosie nodded in confirmation.
“I know that (chief football operations officer Greg Dick) and his team will continue to monitor it. I think our teams and our team presidents will continue to talk about it. But for today, I think it’s doing what we had always wanted it to do and it’s to get our players in the community, getting them interacting with our fans, young and old.”
Ambrosie was quick to point out that players have always been compensated for off-the-field activities, with the current model only ensuring that the expectations are clear for both parties.
“We’ve had marketing money as a strategy for many years and the teams have, I believe, used it incredibly effectively. When you go back to reasons to care, we are in the communities as much or more than any other pro sports league in the world, in my opinion,” he said.
“One of the things that makes our players so powerful and our football coaches and football operations staff so popular is that our guys don’t show up in a limousine. They’re not trying to check in and check out on the 15-minute schedule that was set for them.”
That is unlikely to quell concerns regarding financial manipulation under a salary expenditure system that is generally opaque to fans. Ambrosie indicated that the league’s management council, which includes the commissioner, other CFL executives, and all nine team presidents, will continuously review the system as potential flaws are exposed.
“We talk a lot about these issues and this will be a topic that will be talked about, I’m sure, this off-season,” he said. “It’ll be talked about probably every off-season for the foreseeable future. We know it’s important, but we also know it has to be monitored.”
