TrueBlue4ever

If people are ready to die on the hill of “if it isn’t 3 downs and 11 players and rouges I am gone forever” then where is the massive support for University football, especially out west? I remember in my younger more insolent days swearing that after the NHL player’s strike in 1995 that I would never watch hockey again because of those greedy players and owners taking us precious fans for granted. That sanctimonious outrage lasted 1 game. Ditto when the Jets left. I did better avoiding baseball after the Expos got screwed in 94, but I did not quit. Fans won’t walk away if the alternative to new rules is no game at all. And the owners and players know it. They have always known it.

😁

Actually, I have never expressed a like or dislike for him. And I think he has had his share of missteps for sure. The public problems with the Als’ sale taught him to keep his cards close to his chest rather than over promise and underdeliver. And that bugs you, because you see a world where these problems are simple fixes, when they most certainly are not. But you wrongly assume that because I challenge your attacks on him that I must like him, when what I am doing is pointing out your overriding bias that removes objectivity from your arguments. And it is clear you don’t like him, that we all get in spades. I have always wanted to know why that is, and why that hate is so passionate and so pre-determined. You have said it is his secretive ways - well here he is being open and you dump on him for that too. When you say “I never will (like him)” you prove my point about hating him without justification or giving him a chance and having no objectivity to the issue at hand. So I am left to believe it is something deeper or personal. But if you don’t want to say, I can’t make you. If the league is broke, it is not all because of him. You just want a scapegoat it seems because you can’t get a saviour. Ambrosie is neither of these things. He is just a guy trying to keep a league afloat and has been dealt a brutally bad hand unlike anything another commissioner has faced in the CFL with the pandemic and Health Canada calling the shots.

Doing NOTHING is different than doing things that you don’t like. I question the wisdom of the global initiative, and I heard him talk at length about it. The past US expansion did not go well, so absolutely I have reservations. My problem with your take is that you have been predisposed to hate him from the word go and never given him any chance. You complain that he doesn’t communicate with fans, so here he is communicating and you still aren’t happy. And there are many valid reasons to question his approach, but I have always asked if it is more than that for you, since going after his scarf wearing and vague complainants about his silence and then ignoring your own criticism when he isn’t silent just paints you as not credible and having some axe to grind on any take. Your own noise has drowned out any coherent argument, at least to me. So that is what I defend him against - the unsubstantiated attack. If you want to argue the merits of a US plan, which you did on part, I am all for that debate and frankly agree with almost all your concerns. But the pandemic was not his fault. And the response of not playing, as sucky as it was, was necessary because in this league playing would have bankrupted the league entirely. I am waking up to the seemingly obvious issue that the league is broken financially, that trying to stabilize franchises that cannot be stabilized (Toronto) is something that is not going to happen in the short term. Ambrosie is doing no worse than every commish before him for 40 years, but his approach is different, look outside of Canada for new revenue. Desperate perhaps, but maybe we are in desperate times and no one wants to face that reality. And he has overseen the sale of the Alouettes, brought in the global initiative, and looked to partner with the XFL, so that is your list of things he has done. Will any of them work, you and I cannot say right now, you choose to give him no benefit of time to see if it will, and I do. We can judge him at the end of his tenure or once these plans have taken hold in my mind. You want to just jump on him right away. So tell me what he could do better? Communicate with fans? Well here he is doing just that, and yet you still pounce. So excuse me if it is hard to look objectively at your complaints when it is your default mode. https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/video/ambrosie-reveals-more-details-of-cfl-xfl-collaboration~2157583

I don’t know why you think this league was all hunky dory and thriving and Ambrosie is the sole author of its misfortune. Clearly it has been bleeding for a long time and the pandemic has just brought it to a tipping point. Ambrosie has said that the old way of doing business could not be sustained and that he was open to exploring new sources of revenue. Maybe that pisses off the purists around here who will “never watch football again if we switch to 4 downs, no Canadian players, smaller field” (news flash - for all that principled pontificating, here’s betting that given modified football or no football, lots of the traditionalists will opt to watch the new brand - and by the way the league cares more about bringing in new fans who don’t watch now than hurting the feelings of die hards who talk a good game but are probably pretty safely re-upping their tickets and don’t need to be wooed) but it seems pretty clear that new ideas, even radical ones, need to be explored or the league will collapse. Toronto can only be a black hole for so long. We’ve been talking about Atlantic expansion for 40 years now - if it was going to happen it would have already. Adapt or die, folks. Dave Naylor lays it out pretty well in this article. https://www.tsn.ca/cfl-fans-should-brace-themselves-for-a-wave-of-change-1.1605580

Don’t worry. There’s always the “PoMo must go!” brigade, and from some of the early comments, Dubois is not going to be given much of a grace period by some fans around here.

Doesn’t take a lot of reading between the lines in hearing Naylor in that video to surmise that the CFL is in major financial trouble and may essentially be dead.

Who knows what rules might be implemented? Could be like last time with CFL rules still in play. Big concern is that the XFL has failed multiple times, so not the best stability as a partner. And maybe the people at play realize that Americans who want 4 down football will watch the NFL and nothing else (how many failed spring US leagues do they need to hammer home that point?), so it could stay at 3 downs and Canadian rules. The big problem will be like last time where the US labour laws will not allow for guaranteed Canadian jobs in the US markets. So there again will be an unfair playing field where American teams get to field full American rosters and will have better back-up talent than a Canadian team forced to field Canadian ratios, unless they do away with that requirement. But again, lots of speculation and very few facts at this point. I will just add that the last time this happened it was because the league was going to die for certain if not for the influx of US cash, so the optics would suggest that the CFL may be bleeding to death again because of the pandemic and this is a Hail Mary last resort. Hope that is not the case but wouldn’t be surprised.

Did you both quit the CFL during the last US expansion? Legit question, not being snarky. I don’t like the thought of it at all, but it won’t stop me from going to games. I wonder if you truly mean it when you say you will stop going? The league is betting on “no”, and may have the last go-round as proof that fans will still come. But let’s just see what the plan is before losing our minds.

It seems that the same cast of characters post here every spring saying how god awful the Riders are and how they are so overrated, and yet they somehow managed to top the Western conference last season (2 years ago) and finish 2nd and host a playoff game the year before that. Hate on them all you want, but they were objectively a very good team last time out.

Besides, there are CFLers who go to the NFL. Should we remove all Chris Streveler talk from this forum since he is no longer a Blue Bomber? Of course not. There are some grey areas and crossover with the NFL and CFL, so I think we can recognize this as not just a Bomber forum, not just a CFL forum, but a football forum. And if you don’t like it, then exercise your free will and don’t click on the link.

I will lean to the left, so my bias could show. I have no doubt there is some corruption with the Libs but I would like an itemized list to make a comparison to the former PC or other Liberal governments before declaring them the all-time champs. But I will surmise that when one talks about the disrespect of the public trust, how much is really corruption and how much is a simple expansion of the public distrust of government? Given how much our lives have been flooded with tales (true and false) of government corruption on both sides by the media machine, especially with our downstairs meth lab neighbours in the Obama/Trump/Biden era, it seems John Q(anon) Public is more predisposed to distrust politicians than ever before, so that may skew our perception of just how deep the corruption really is.

Great news for Kerri Einerson’s team. Women’s Worlds is back on and will be held in Calgary along with the Men’s. https://globalnews.ca/news/7680473/curling-team-einarson-womens-worlds/?utm_source=GlobalWinnipeg&utm_medium=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1tyBxCGga84hLdooi0ZqVPuESsu3GYPtiCwPFhQYqfqtd_Js1-bhQDm4g

I have looked into various web sources (Forbes, statista.com, packers.com, Blue Bomber financial statement) and here are some numbers to chew on for those who want to compare the NFL and CFL’s financial situations: In the NFL, the only public team is Green Bay, so all other financial projections are speculation unless the team reports it. The Bombers likewise out out a financial statement. So the numbers I found for the Dallas Cowboys, the Packers and the Bombers are as follows - Expenses in 2019: $32.8 million (Bombers), $439 million (Packers), $425 million (Cowboys) 2019 revenues: $36.3 million (Bombers), $508 million (Packers), $960 million (Cowboys) Of note, the Bombers biggest single revenue increase was $2.2 million more in game day merchandise and concessions, the Packers was $70 million more in league TV revenue Salary cap: $5.4 million in CFL (16.5% of Bombers’ total expenses) $198.2 million in NFL (45.1% of Packers’ and 46.6% of Cowboys’ total expenses) 2019 revenue from ticket sales alone: $11.5 million (Bombers - 31.7% of total revenue), $77 million (Packers - 15.2% of total revenue, $98 million (Cowboys - 10.2% of total revenue) TV contract: $50 million league-wide in the CFL ( and a portion of that goes to the league itself and not each club, so the TV revenue is not $50 million split 9 ways and it does NOT cover the players salaries in entirety - the Bombers received $3.9 million in league payments in 2019, or 72.2% of the salary cap and 10.7% of their total revenue, it covers 11.8% of their operating costs), $255 million PER TEAM NFL (Packers and Cowboys 128.7% of the salary cap, Packers 50.2% of total revenue and covers 58.1% of their operating costs, Cowboys 26.6% of total revenue and 60% of their operating costs) Bombers also generated another 24% of their revenue from game day related money such as concessions sales and merchandise, so 56% of their revenue stream is gone without fans. The Packers estimated that of their $508 million profit, $211 million or 41.5% was internally generated from ticket sales and game day and merchandise sales, and local sponsorships, the rest was league money. The Cowboys projected that without fans it could cost them up to $500 million this past season. The Cowboys other big revenue gain comes from sponsorship dollars, which is why they are the most popular brand and most valuable franchise in the NFL. So the simple takeaway from this date is: no fans for the Bombers (arguably the healthiest franchise in the CFL - Sask and Edm are the only other 2 whose books are public and they both lost money in 2019 - the Riders basically because they had expenses for marketing a Grey Cup they never hosted, but were close to break even otherwise) means they lose about $19.7 million on game day revenue alone and go from a $3.4 million profit to a $16.3 million loss, likely more, the Cowboys lose $500 million from ALL sources yet still turn a profit of $35 million, and the Packers without fans wipe out any profit on ticket sales alone and likely more with no game day associated revenue, but again their ticket revenue is only 15% of their revenue stream vs 32% for the Bombers. So let’s stop pretending that we can compare the CFL and NFL equitably based on not having fans in the stands and TV revenues and assume that because other leagues can do it, we should “just find a way”. Unless fans want to agree that if the league plays with zero fans and we fans will cover any losses next year by paying NFL-style ticket prices for every game (and I think we all saw from the Packers-Raiders pre-season game in Winnipeg, not to mention the last few Grey Cups we’ve hosted, how little appetite there is to pay that much from the fans’s point of view), it seems clear that this is more a gate driven league than other sports and no fans means no football And the Government has no appetite to bail out a sports league because there is no political gain in it for them, and it is more public than a media company bailout supposedly to save thousands of jobs (even if said company *cough* BELL *cough* uses said buyout to pay their stockholders and fires their staff anyway), plus looks better in saving the national economy. Just my two cents

Thanks for that. Sometimes this list of deaths in the RIP thread comes across as just that - a list - and it is easy to overlook that each name carries with it a memory, an impact, an influence to many of us. Always important to remember the person and not just list the name. As for a deeper understanding, this particular analysis of dealing with death and grief has always stuck with me as a pretty accurate take on things: https://www.ofieldfuneralhome.com/grief-from-the-perspective-of-an-old-man

Schultz’s death is gutting news to me. Always liked his approach on the TSN panel, and he was one of the originals who helped create the TSN football brand and build the Friday Night Football panel and phenomenon. Not a stretch to say that the success of that experiment went a long way to establishing the TSN CFL partnership and grew the popularity and exposure of the league in a big way. Was sorry to see him depart the airwaves, and very saddened by this news today.

But if ever the phrase “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades” was to apply, it would be with these tests.

Ok, first male to stand up and move to the right edge of the frame facing left with the squirting sanitizer at waist level mimicking, well you figure it out, wins my eternal respect, and likely the whole internet too.

I guess some fans will never be satisfied with him and criticize his moves, his lines, which players play and which ones sit. But if he is winning with his strategy, then I don’t understand those fans who gripe about his methods. It’s not like he is “getting away” with something. It’s a results driven business and he is getting results, so I am prepared to defer to his decisions over the arm chair coaches out there. The proof is in the winning percentage.

These two statements seem inconsistent, like you kind of are wishing, hinting at, or intimating (but not overtly advocating to cover yourself) for his removal. If you aren’t advocating for his dismissal, why even pose the initial question in the first place?

I have never seen Schitt’s Creek and I am not a big binge watcher or streamer. The last episodic tv show I invested in on network TV was Big Bang Theory, and online it was Game of Thrones. So it got me wondering, what tv show (either network or online) have you never seen or barely watched that was seemingly very popular or that “everyone else” watched? I never had HBO so many of them I could only see later on Netflix and such and couldn’t be bothered to binge. My short list would include Sopranos (seen snippets but never even a full episode), Breaking Bad (quit after one season on Netflix) and Arrested Development (not even one second of it), to name but 3 of many. So what are others not watching that would surprise the general public?

Got to feel bad for Einerson in that she will have won the Scott twice and yet will again not get to go the World’s, as they have already cancelled this year in Switzerland (the men’s worlds in Canada is still a go though). I would be very happy if Curling Canada compensated her by giving her the Olympic berth now and skipped the trials. Not like she has’t earned it or that she isn’t the best women’s team we could send right now.