Well if they do at least get the Atlantic team up and running anytime soon, I don’t think anyone could claim it was done “fast”.
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I’ve heard that they are starting from scratch in Halifax. And there is opposition to building a stadium.
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That stadium concept is exactly BMO Field pre-expansion minus the south endzone.
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The Borisov Arena (for soccer) that seats a bit over 13,000 is cool. It's spoken about on this page. A lot of money on the roofing I'm sure but I really like this one for a small football type stadium:
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Apple is a horrible company that violates anti-trust daily and sells custom tech to the Chinese to track their citizens. They’ll do it to you too. Apple is not getting any of my money.
Completely agree - Apple = Evil - in a very big way -
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Nope wrong .
The prep for the Redblacks was because of the stadium and other construction surrounding the stadium politics nimbism in the glebe not because of any extra vetting on the ownership and any CFL prep .
Now OSEG owners are local , have deep pockets and know about constructuion .
The Renegades was about ownership issues .
You can vet ownership properly and get community buy in quickly with a lower price tag for infrastructure .
It’s the stadium infrastructure that is stopping the expansion that needs to be lowered with the availability of new larger revenue sources looking for product that gains growth quicker than any bums in the seats could ever accomplish .
My worry is about the quality of the product on the field than anything else and making sure the ownership has community buy-in over all else . Making sure no negative stories with ownership and game quality for viewers watching across the country would be the biggest issue .
Yes, but the Renegades ownership issues were due to the league not being thorough enough in screening the owners and making sure that everything in the plan was to standard. In short, the CFL rushed the Renegades onto the field, not quite as badly as the US expansion but similar.
The Redblacks were/are successful because the league did things with much more care and proper process. Remember that there were a couple of suitors ready to buy the Renegades when the Gliebermans were out. At the forefront was a guy name DeAngelo who put Ben Johnson in his cheesy Cheetah drink commercial. The league justly saw that he was NOT solid ownership material and did NOT fit the business model that they wanted going forward and so they waited until Jeff Hunt could get all his ducks in order and do it properly. The stadium issues were separate to that. If the stadium would have been fit to play in the Redblacks would have entered the league in 2008 or at the latest 2009. They were ready then, but still 3 years after the Renegades due to proper process and diligence.
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And the world is rife with examples like this of affordable, beautiful small scale stadiums the CFL should be looking into.
More content will allow the CFL to uncouple from gate dependency, ergo, a fancy stadium with a full complement of bells and whistles shouldn’t be a prerequisite to start a team. We can get there later on and offer the content sooner.
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Heh, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in some time (Frank D’Angelo).
Here are a couple of old threads about him and his interest in Ottawa, if anyone cares for a trip down memory lane:
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The CFL did. It’s called Tim Horton’s Field. Cheap and perfectly functional. 
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The south stadium side lower was condemned .
OSEG partnership actually wanted to get a CFL team when the stadium was still up and keep the CFL going . The Redblacks were prolonged due to infrastructure and the deal OSEG wanted which coincided with stadium idea of Melnyk , The Glebe association and many other factors .
The CFL did nothing .
They would have handed them a team in one year .
It was again only because of the stadium . Ownership is not a CFL problem it’s getting stadiums built .
The one’s they are asking for today are a steep buy in even wth large communities without a major amateur international event like a Pan ams . commonwealth , olympics etc …
The best thing to do is bring down the infrastructure costs but still have an adequate venue where the auxiliary money that they are receiving for the extra content / gaming can take care of any losses in reduction of in stadium gameday revenue .
There is no shortage of ownership for the CFL there is a problem with stadium infrastructure and having proper stadiums to play in .
Even Braley was running out of time in Toronto before MLSE pushed there way in with that stadium expansion .
The problem was the stadium .
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Only because of the pan am games .
Interesting watching the NFL games yesterday the government Fed/Provincial training centre was a major sponsor .
The other was Dodge Ram .
The next was BELL and Crave themselves advertising their content .
The CFL should try to get some of that fed/prov ad money .
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I agree its lower end perhaps cost wise of recent CFL stadium projects clocking in around 150 million CAD.
But there are more frugal options to getting teams running in functional stadiums that can be upgraded later. The initial cost for BMO was 63 million originally. Empire Field was 14 million.
The faster the CFL can offer a league with deep competition, with more content and storylines, the quicker it can uncouple itself from gate revenue dependency.
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There is no big lineup of potential owners waving cash at the league to buy teams. There never has been, at least not for a few generations now. Certainly stadiums are issues, but they are not as big as the issues with owners. To say that owners aren’t an issue is false. The CFL has gone through far far more ownership problems over the last 40 or 50 years than stadium problems.
The Redblacks were granted a franchise in 2008 because that is when Hunt was ready. He had interest in 2006 but withdrew (if I recall due in large part to health reasons), then came back and reapplied.
The CFL did NOT do nothing for 3 years. The stadium was an issue but it was completely separate from ownership issues. Stadium issues were not the league’s fault. The CFL granted the Ottawa franchise in 2008. There was nothing wrong with the timing of that.
Most people seem to think the CFL is out of the woods. Mr. Young had to get a helping hand from Stelco. The dude in Montreal is penching pennies running the team with a skeleton crew. The negotiations with the players should be really interesting.
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Totally agree with you on the CFL being out of the woods - Look at the schedule for the next year - I know that Ticats Argos sells a lot of tickets but the key is that no one gets on a jet - tell everyone to drive up the road 70 km give the players some lunch money and gas money and call it good - those 4 games are because the league is bleeding cash - same with Redblacks and Montreal playing 4 times in the regular season someone with a spreadsheet figured out the current schedule saves a ton of money - then let’s throw in the fact that the TV contract is up in three years. How much money is that going to be worth renegotiated?
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Here is another cheerful set of thoughts to mull over and digest - I also think that MLSE is playing the long game trying to grind down those who opposed the merger - MLSE can lose 10 million or 20 million a year forever - the Raptors Salary Cap number is $137 million USD - another $55 million USD for the Leafs - the money that MLSE loses on the Argos is a rounding error to them or a bad contract on a power forward - they can play a war of attrition with those clubs that didn’t want a merger and just grind everyone down - a good old fashioned Eastern Front rock right war of attrition -
and from what I gather even though Edmonton is “Community Owned” the Elks are owned by like 80 people - Could be wrong but from what I have seen it is not structured like the Bombers and Riders - so MLSE just needs to bleed those 80 people into submission - and from the looks of what people are saying about Montreal they are running on fumes and a skeleton crew and will do whatever MLSE wants when the time comes - Everyone rejoiced and declared victory last summer when the Merger talks ended - MLSE and TSN are not done you are kidding yourself if you think they are - Redbird is still sitting on 8 billion dollars and MLSE/TSN still want a merger - anyhow happy thoughts -
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Montreal showed there was plenty of interest locally . BC had several suitors . Hamilton just added a partnership .
Sports is a hot commodity .
Ottawa is my backyard . The CFL did nothing .OSEG did it all .
The length of time for the Redblacks returning was just one issue the stadium at Landsdowne nothing about the CFL doing a great job finding ownership here . The ownership was already here and they approached the league with the idea of developing Lansdowne park with the arena and an existing partial stadium .
The CFL is very low buy in point it’s not far off the mark of the CHL level . The Ottawa 67’s most likely are worth more than the Redblacks today but that can change very quick with a better media deal and gambling considerations with added CFL expansion in more markets domestically . Then the CFL ownership will finally get some needed evaluations .
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