CFL Commissioner Randy Ambroise stepping down

[Mightygoose]

It's being reported as his retirement

Randy Ambrosie announces he’s retiring in 2025 | TSN

CFL commissioner announces intention to move on from role as soon as league’s board of governors hires a successor.

www.tsn.ca

But as many before him, didn't have enough support from the board for him to continue

https://x.com/i/web/status/1850275257799803200

Will stay on until his replacement is hired

Click to read more...

 

[Takuto Maruki]

Lets be real, when was the last time that a CFL commish had full support of the BOG? It's clear it's a job that is effectively trying to put out fires - there's nowhere outside of QC and *maaaaaybe* the Atlantic to expand to, and as much as people (especially out of the pandemic) wanted to write the CFL's epitaph especially with the US/XFL and UFL coming into the fold, there's simply no real scenario where that actually happens considering the CFL's place as relatively steady employment outside of the waxing and waning interest in spring football, and the routes for USports players to go.

 

[MessierII]

The league is in the dark ages. Like they still barely use the internet. This is good news for the league.

 

[sabremike]

 

[Cloned]

Lets be real, when was the last time that a CFL commish had full support of the BOG? It's clear it's a job that is effectively trying to put out fires - there's nowhere outside of QC and *maaaaaybe* the Atlantic to expand to, and as much as people (especially out of the pandemic) wanted to write the CFL's epitaph especially with the US/XFL and UFL coming into the fold, there's simply no real scenario where that actually happens considering the CFL's place as relatively steady employment outside of the waxing and waning interest in spring football, and the routes for USports players to go.

Cohon.

 

[nickp91]

The CFL was one of the few North American pro leagues to cancel the 2020 season

 

[jetsmooseice]

The CFL was one of the few North American pro leagues to cancel the 2020 season

The CFL was dealt a very bad hand there, I would not blame Ambrosie for that.

Everything shut down in mid-March 2020 which was only a couple months before training camps were supposed to open. There was so much uncertainty, half the league was located in the US at a time when borders were effectively shut, controls were generally stricter in Canada than in the US, and the CFL really did not have a ton of money at its disposal to overcome those challenges.

If the CFL ran on a NFL schedule with training camps in August I think that would have been enough time to get it going. But considering the challenge relative to the amount of time it had and the CFL's resources, I think it's forgivable that the league couldn't get that season off the ground.

That said, I guess if you really want to criticize Ambrosie about 2020 you could ask why the Canadian Premier League was able to have a bubble season in PEI but the CFL couldn't. And that's fair.

 

[StreetHawk]

That said, I guess if you really want to criticize Ambrosie about 2020 you could ask why the Canadian Premier League was able to have a bubble season in PEI but the CFL couldn't. And that's fair.

Would the owners have wanted to cover the costs of a bubble season? This isn't the NFL where salaries are fully covered by the amount of tv money.

 

[GKJ]

No way the CFL had the resources to have a bubble season.

 

[jetsmooseice]

No way the CFL had the resources to have a bubble season.

It's funny, as I mentioned earlier the Canadian Premier League, at the time a second-year soccer league, found a way to run a bubble season. Mind you it is a much smaller operation with much smaller payrolls. CFL is in that awkward space where it has a lot of the overhead of a much bigger operation but without the revenue to pay for it... it's still very gate-driven.