10 Worst team owners in Canadian Sports History

Look, I am certainly no Braley apologist, far from it in fact. But can you tell me how you get from a 28K a game average for BC (which was their average home attendance in 2014 with only 1 Saskatchewan visit), down to below 20K a game? What are you basing this on? How does it drop by a third?

I’ll even grant you the 28K was inflated due to Dennis Skulsky’s ill-advised “Guaranteed Win” promotion. Let’s say it was really 26,500 a game. It still wouldn’t drop below 20K (unless you were actually referring to season ticket holders being under 20K?). Football interest is on the rise in this province. And it’s hard to believe the team’s fortunes will really nosedive with Jeff Tedford at the helm.

Oh man I can’t resist. . .

Should HAVE, and Number.

In worse shape THAN WHEN he bought them

When YOU bought them? When was that?

Congrats!! You finally got THAN correct!! Well done, there may be hope for you yet!

3 more days, MadJack…I’ve got your birthday present ready.

And yes, it’s relevant to this.

I'd actually put Feterik just behind the Glebermans as the worst CFL Owners. Feterik only bought the team so that his son could play football and it got so bad that Matt Dunigan had to fire the mascot................The MASCOT!

Schwarz IMO gets a bad rap to a degree, his biggest issue was listening to his cousin (J.I. Albrecht) for most decisions, the hiring of Drabinsky didn't help either.

  1. Peter Pocklington Team: Edmonton Oilers (NHL, 1976-1998)

ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THE BEST OF ALL TIME. Ask any of this coaches or players. THEY LOVED THE MAN!!!!
How many Stanley cups in HOW many YEARS??????????????????

Came to the reunion this spring and still was the most popular man there!!!!

Had to sell Wayne or loss everything because of big down turn in economy.

I would have done same thing as my family comes first. However trade did help NHL big time!!

Wish he was still owner!!!!!!!!!!!

Harold Ballard for Toronto Argos was the worst FOR SURE but wait

wait

wait

He was so bad they WOULDN'T" sell him a franchises.

One for Cherry!!! that's like the old one where a seal walks into a bar... the bartender asks him what he'd like to drink... and the seal replies, "Anything but a Canadian Club."

And American.

I agree, him being on the list is just pathetic. There is no way he should be on the list with the likes of these not being on the list:

Vancouver Grizzlies with Michael Heisley/Orca Bay
Montreal Concordes/Als with Charles Bronfman
Quebec Nordiques with Marcel Aubut

Jeffrey Loria Team doesn’t deserver their placement either. The Expo’s simply could not afford to keep their rookies that hit stardom especially when you have owners that throw ludicrous contracts at players like the Yankees and Atlanta Braves. Couple that with the low Canadian dollar and a crumbling stadium that people were afraid to go to there really was no choice but to move the team when there was nobody filling the seats. They probably had the best scouting in the business in the 80’s/90’s.

I second that nomination

What’s wrong with Charles Bronfman? He (through his company Imasco) bailed out the Als after they were going to fold even earlier, providing them with a cash injection even though he really had no desire to own the team but did so out of a sense of duty to his city. He then proceeded to lose even more money (but ensured all bills were paid in full), and finally basically gave the team to Norm Kimball (incredibly agreeing to finance Kimball by providing him $2 million to run the franchise) to who in one of the most low down, cowardly maneuvers in Canadian sports ownership history, took a large payout & folded the team.

Buying a team that you have no interest in developing and then shovelling it off to a crook while financing that endeavour would be about as bad management as you can get.

Well I guess Bradley wants some cash so when MLSE runs the Argos into ba kruptcy on purpose that he will come out looking like the bad guy...lol
All of you guys baglicking MLSE.. Yet there is no proof in the pudding... The Marlies lose money... TFC losses money and the Craps spilled red ink for years despite receiving 40 million dollars in undeserved US TV money... Even now, they would be screwed despite having a market of 35 million completely to itself, they still can not generatthee their own TV revenues and rely on America.

Great. He was begged to buy the team. He didn’t want to own the Als and let the league know well in advance of his intentions to only hold on to it until somebody better could be found. He lost an estimated $20 million running a team he didn’t want. Finally he provided $2 million to a guy who was a legendary CFL executive who claimed he would fix everything if Bronfman would just provide a little seed money. The fact that person then took the money and promptly folded the team at the first sign of trouble is not Bronfman’s fault. It may have been an unwise business move(and even then thats a difficult statement to make since their were no other legitimate buyers so his hands were kind of tied), but it doesn’t make Bronfman a bad owner.

Intentions don’t make a good owner, their business decisions do. As the saying goes, a fool and his money are easily parted.

True good intentions don’t make someone a good owner but the title of the list is bad owners. I don’t think Bronfman belongs on the list.
Every other owner on the list threatened or did move their team, embezzled money from the operations of the team for other ventures (the way Peter Pocklington did), dated cheerleaders, or involved themselves in on field matters etc (the Gliebermans, and about half of the rest on the list), or downright lied to their teams regarding finances, or cities they played in . Mr Bronfman did none of these things. Maybe he wasn’t the most successful owner ever, but the list is not about that. It is about those that were the worst.

As for the saying, I think Mr Bronfman is doin’ just fine with his billions and the amount he lost on his love of sports equals the amount he spends on aftershave.

Moving or threatening to move a team is NOT a bad owner. That is an owner that is doing what is needed in order for his team to survive. Ultimately it was Bronfman poor decisions that lead to the teams demise, does it necessarily mean he is a bad person, no, just a bad owner that was in over his head.

Moving or threatening to move the team is very bad as in many cases its not a question of survival but rather a question of greed. That is precisely why some of the owners are on the list. In Bronfman’s case the the team was on life support and provided a cash injection (to the tune of $20 million) to keep the team afloat until a better owner could be found. It was not his decisions that led to the teams demise. It was the next owners’ “poor decision” that led to the teams demise. When the team finally did fold it was due to final owner, not the one who sold him the team