Randy Ambrosie's failure to grow CFL revenue, team valuations were his undoing

VANCOUVER — When Randy Ambrosie took the podium Tuesday morning for his final state-of-the-league address as commissioner of the Canadian Football League, he used part of it as a victory lap.

Ambrosie boasted the league is in “dramatically better shape than in 2017,” the year he took the top job. He also pointed out that on his watch, the league has landed stable ownership in two of the CFL’s biggest markets — Montreal and British Columbia, where the Grey Cup is being hosted this year.

But once that sizzle dissipated and Ambrosie was pressed on tangible, metric-driven matters, realities emerged. The outgoing commissioner admitted franchise valuations have “been flat” during his tenure and that the league has not grown revenues “nearly to the extent” he hoped for when taking the chair seven years ago.

The most telling moment, though, came on the subject of Ambrosie’s signature project: global expansion. When asked if he has any regrets on CFL 2.0, without skipping a beat he answered, “absolutely none.”

In many ways, the answer was a snapshot of why this 2024 Grey Cup here on the Lower Mainland will be Ambrosie’s last as CFL commissioner. He has been so intent on pursuing ventures that aren’t working that he lost opportunities to pivot to initiatives that could. And in a league where some, if not most, owners continue to lose money, the writing was on the wall when things weren’t changing.

As Sportsnet first reported in October, five of the league’s nine teams voted against a contract extension for Ambrosie, who was named the 14^th commissioner in July 2017 and presided over the cancellation of the 2020 season, when the matter was put to the CFL’s board of governors.

The tea leaves were there ahead of the vote, and had been brewing for quite some time, led by the Argonauts, whose ownership has publicly criticized Ambrosie, with  MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum telling The Globe and Mail in 2022, “I’m not happy with the structure of the league.”

Sources told Sportsnet that Blue Bombers leadership lost faith in Ambrosie after he fumbled proceedings in 2020, both with the federal government in publicly asking for $150 million in funding without a business plan or consultation with players, and for not being able to get a bubble off the ground to preserve a season during the first year of COVID-19 lockdowns. According to the Canadian Press, the league lost $60 million to $80 million due to the cancellation of the 2020 season.

The following June, Ambrosie sat before the Senate’s standing committee on banking, trade and commerce to lobby for legalizing single-game sports betting in Canada, saying, “We don’t think we’ve seen an opportunity for revenue enhancement to any degree like we have seen (with betting).” After Bill C-218 passed, the CFL partnered with an online sportsbook that was never regulated in Ontario — where a third of the league’s teams play. This April, that partner — BetRegal — sent a mass email to its customers announcing it had “suspended all wagering activity effective immediately."

Sources suggested to Sportsnet that in addition to Toronto and Winnipeg, the governors in Hamilton, B.C. and Montreal likely voted against Ambrosie remaining in the top job.

Ambrosie’s tenure included other swings and misses. He all but vowed to add an expansion franchise in Atlantic Canada, but a 10th team never came. There were rumblings of a merger with the XFL that never transpired. There was a work stoppage after bargaining talks went nowhere with players. The command centre replay review required a mid-season overhaul this year. Basic procedures, such as a functional stats system and proper voting mechanisms to tabulate All-Star balloting, proved to be major challenges during the Ambrosie regime.

Then, of course, there was the CFL 2.0 program, which Ambrosie was convinced would bring in millions in revenue for the league. Ambrosie’s “global program” mandates that each team carry international players on the roster. He believed the presence of those players would ensure television networks and streaming services from around the world would pay for the rights to air Canadian games in their respective countries. That just hasn’t happened, and the entire program has been a cash-losing situation for the league.

On Tuesday morning, Ambrosie sat at the podium, read a letter that someone from Japan’s X-League had sent him, and suggested tapping into talent “all around the world” was the way to bring in the best players available. It was a baffling proclamation when you consider the pool of elite athletes in North America.

At the Grey Cup in 2018, Ambrosie’s press conference ended with him and representatives of Mexico’s Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional signing a letter of intent to “see the two leagues work together on several projects, including possible CFL games in Mexico.” Those games have not occurred, nor are there suggestions they are on the horizon.

On Aug. 17, 2020, just as the league announced it was suspending operations for the season, Ambrosie declared, “We will be the biggest global football league in the world.”

Since then, the NFL has played across the UK, Germany and Brazil, and is slated to host a game in Spain next year. It's also played in Mexico. Despite Ambrosie’s vows and boasts, the CFL did not manage to play one game outside of Canada during his tenure.

On Tuesday, the closest Ambrosie came to contrition on CFL 2.0 was when he wondered aloud, "Has it been transformational? No."

And that will be the challenge for Ambrosie's successor: To drive greater revenue growth and real increases in franchise valuations. Until that happens, any victory lap is wishful thinking.