CFL back to Ottawa???

On labour day, the CFL holds "traditional" football games where every year the same two teams will play against each other. I started to watch some of the Ti-Cats and Argos game when I thought that it was about time for the CFL to try to make another comeback to Ottawa.

First of all, Ottawa should have a football team. Mismanaged for years, the franchise was consistently doomed to a last place finish. They hadn't had an over .500 season in the last 15 years when they did exist. That is a recipe for a disaster. It would be nice if a team could bring in some extra revenues with the help of hosting a couple of extra playoff games. They rarely made the playoffs and they became the laughing stock of the league.

I was a season-ticket holder for one season. In that season, two seats cost about $400 for the season. In the next year, the Renegades were slated to host the Grey Cup. They asked for $300 per season-ticket renewal and $200 for the ticket to the grey cup game. It would have cost me $1,000 just to have the same tickets I had the year before. Absolutely ridiculous, I opted not to renew my season tickets. I had even decided to quit going to the games because they offended me by requesting that I renew my tickets before the current season had even ended. I was a poor student. I should have an opportunity to renew my seats at my discretion. They threatened to give my seats away, but I was left with no choice as it was virtually impossible for me to warrant those kind of expenses when I had tuition to save up for.

Needless to say, after a failed attempt to bring in more fans with a Mardi-Gras promotion, the Renegades were forced to quit the CFL. Their wonderful public relations and their poor performance on the field certainly killed any hopes of sustainable survival. In fact, it's fairly difficult to justify the return of the CFL in Ottawa based on the history of football in Ottawa.

What is different? There has to be something that has changed since the folding of the franchise to warrant its revival, no? Sadly, I believe that the change has occurred with the failure of the Ottawa Lynx. Thats two semi-professional leagues that have failed in Ottawa. Ottawa must be a bad sports town.

The fans in Ottawa are good fans. They simply have standards. The fans in Ottawa have supported the Sens, and more impressively, they have supported the Olympiques and the 67's like no other city has. The 67's are one of the most successful franchises in all of amateur sport. The Sens are being supported by more and more fans in Ottawa. The Sens are still a young team and hockey fans tend to be loyal. There are new generations of fans that are growing up to love the game, and more importantly the Senators.

Is it a winter thing? Ottawa seems to only be able to support winter sports. Is it possible that Ottawa workers just go to the cottage and play golf all of the time, so they do not have the time to go to sporting events in the summer? I think this is a myth. I think the parking situation for the Lynx was a major pitfall of the Lynx (there are also very few buses that go to Lynx stadium). I also believe that the Renegades were mismanaged.

Now that the Lynx are gone, there could be one major player on Ottawa sports Radio in the summertime. It could be a new CFL franchise. Frank Clair stadium is a wonderfully located facility and it makes for a wonderful night out on the town. Ottawa has filled that stadium for the Renegades before, and they can do it again. They just need the right people to run the show. The CFL was right when it decided not to allow beer-maker Frank D'Angelo run the team. He seems too much of an attention grabber, much like the Gliebermanns. Just because you can sell beer cheaply doesn't necessarily qualify you to run a CFL franchise.

The CFL is doing the right thing by waiting things out to determine who the next franchise owner should be. The ideal candidate would be someone like Eugene Melnyk, the current owner of the Senators. He has created some goodwill for himself and could do cross-marketing for the Sens and Renegades. He will not canabalize his sales as the two products wouldn't be competing against one another. The only problem is that Eugene likely has too much money. A CFL franchise wouldn't be worth his time. The Sens came at a discount and a building. The Renegades come with a hope of making money, not a guarantee.

Hopefully, in the next couple of years, there will be someone that will be able to run the franchise properly. This is all, of course, contingent of the lease that the city signs, pricing points, and the franchise fee that the CFL is demanding. My point here is to not consider the finances directly this time, but to consider the qualitative and marketing opportunities that now exist. The conditions have changed and the potential of a CFL franchise moving back to Ottawa is now greater, not worse as the Ottawa Lynx have moved.