3downnat: it’s time for the CFL to invest in itself

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4th&long
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3downnat: it’s time for the CFL to invest in itself

Post by 4th&long »

Good article, good info haven't seen before, breaking down the CFL owners and how much they are worth... apparently quite a bit in aggregate.

https://3downnation.com/2021/04/11/forg ... in-itself/

>> XFL ownership — RedBird Capital, Dany Garcia, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson — wants to partner with the CFL because they view the league as a money-making venture.

Though some have parroted the narrative that the CFL is an antiquated product on the verge of collapse, interest from the XFL proves that there’s money to be made in Canada.

RedBird manages over $4 billion in assets with ties to teams like Liverpool FC and the Boston Red Sox. It’s a powerful, impressive company.

With that said, six of the CFL’s nine teams are privately-owned and each have ties to extremely wealthy people. CFL owners aren’t paupers or middle-class working heroes. They’re exorbitantly rich. <<
Tank55
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Re: 3downnat: it’s time for the CFL to invest in itself

Post by Tank55 »

Frankly, it's a naive take. If the CFL was a money machine and it was just a matter of needing some cash to get through the COVID-comprised season, that would be one thing. But that's not the case. Asking wealthy people to lose money in perpetuity was the pre-COVID plan, and eventually, those wealthy people are going to get sick of losing money (like Wetenhall in Montreal) or they're going to die (like Braley in BC). And then what? You need to go find new wealthy people who are willing to lose money? That might be easy if the CFL was a major league and ownership gave them some sort of bragging rights among billionaires, but it's not. Look how hard it was to find an owner for Montreal.

They either need to find new growth opportunities to justify new investment or they need to scale back the cost of operation to make the current setup sustainable. Either strikes me as totally legitimate. But you can't have both. At least not forever.
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4th&long
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Re: 3downnat: it’s time for the CFL to invest in itself

Post by 4th&long »

Tank55 wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 11:10 am Frankly, it's a naive take. If the CFL was a money machine and it was just a matter of needing some cash to get through the COVID-comprised season, that would be one thing. But that's not the case. Asking wealthy people to lose money in perpetuity was the pre-COVID plan, and eventually, those wealthy people are going to get sick of losing money (like Wetenhall in Montreal) or they're going to die (like Braley in BC). And then what? You need to go find new wealthy people who are willing to lose money? That might be easy if the CFL was a major league and ownership gave them some sort of bragging rights among billionaires, but it's not. Look how hard it was to find an owner for Montreal.

They either need to find new growth opportunities to justify new investment or they need to scale back the cost of operation to make the current setup sustainable. Either strikes me as totally legitimate. But you can't have both. At least not forever.
Hodge was talking about what to do to fix the CFL per se.
I think the point John Hodge was making was that the CFL doesn't necessarily need a deep pocketed partner, they already have them. It's a vaild point. And the publicly owned teams are doing fine anyway.

I think I read (sans this one-time-even)t of covid 6/7 of the teams aren't losing money and the league as a whole loses $10-20 CD (or $8-16mm USD) a year.
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Re: 3downnat: it’s time for the CFL to invest in itself

Post by Tank55 »

Right. If all that was needed was cash, this would be a different conversation. But when one-third of your league's teams are losing cash during normal times, you need to find a new normal.
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4th&long
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Re: 3downnat: it’s time for the CFL to invest in itself

Post by 4th&long »

Tank55 wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 1:44 pm Right. If all that was needed was cash, this would be a different conversation. But when one-third of your league's teams are losing cash during normal times, you need to find a new normal.
Well I don't think BC is losing money, though they are shedding fandom. Agreed that they need to address the losses but we are not talking alot for the league as a whole.

The NBA and NHL both had teams losing money not long ago (and possibly now).

And Canada is only 11% the size of the USA (population) and its economy (GDP) is more like 8-9% so if you are limited to CA, you're upside is limited. Which is likely why some franchises want to tap the USA market, even if in a limited way.
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Re: 3downnat: it’s time for the CFL to invest in itself

Post by Gopher123 »

I have been surprised, unless I have missed something, that these very same rich CFL team owners with much to gain or lose, all seem to be eager or at least open to discussing this collaboration. It seems that if the fix could be made internally there would be at least one holdout firmly against any sort of outside discussion. To me, the fact I haven’t seen any resistance from any CFL team owner is quite telling.
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