The B.C. Lions will not hoist the Grey Cup on home soil as the team so desperately craved but it won’t be due to a lack of spending.
Speaking to the media during the team’s end-of-season press conference, co-general manager Neil McEvoy confirmed speculation that his team exceeded the CFL’s $5.525 million salary cap in 2024.
“Will we be over the salary cap? Yes. By where, that I don’t know yet,” McEvoy acknowledged. “We have to put all the beans in a basket and figure out where we’re at, but I believe we will be over. I just don’t know where that’s going to land.”
The CFL employs a soft salary cap, which allows teams to go over the allotted amount by up to $100,000 by paying a dollar-for-dollar fine. Violations exceeding that amount are fined at a rate of double the infraction for up to $300,000 and triple for anything over that. Offending teams also forfeit their next first-round pick for overspending by six figures, with a second-round pick also surrendered by the most serious offenders.
Three franchises exceeded the salary cap 2023, though none surpassed the $100,000 threshold. That included the Lions, who received the largest fine at $85,979. No CFL team has lost a draft pick due to a cap violation since the Montreal Alouettes in 2007.
B.C. was rumoured to be up against the salary cap to begin the 2024 season but still made a pair of high-profile mid-season additions with the signings of Canadian quarterback Nathan Rourke and star pass rusher Mathieu Betts after NFL stints. While some of the compensation given to those two players came in the form of marketing money, which does not count against the salary cap, their salaries still put a dent in the team’s pocketbook.
Unfortunately for the Lions, neither player succeeded in putting the roster over the top. B.C. finished third place in the West Division with a 9-9 record and lost 28-19 to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the West Semi-Final.
“In professional football and football in general, it’s not easy. You can add as many guys as you want or not add, it still has to come together,” McEvoy said. “Everyone has to gel. Things have to work out. At the end of the day, teams are just not going to lay down for you.”
Regardless of how steep the fines levied against them end up being, the Lions’ salary cap challenges will not end with their Grey Cup dream. The team is expected to have as many as 33 pending free agents that need to be evaluated and re-signed, including the likes of Betts and the CFL’s leading receiver, Justin McInnis.
Rourke will become the highest-paid player in the CFL beginning in the second season of his three-year deal with $749,200 in hard money owed for 2025. Fellow quarterback Vernon Adams Jr., who started over his under-performing counterpart in the regular-season finale and playoff game, is also under contract for next season and he’s scheduled to make $500,000. The financial reality of those contracts means the two cannot co-exist going forward and one will have to be traded.
While Rourke has said with certainty that he will remain in Vancouver and the numbers seem to support the idea that Adams will be moved, McEvoy stated that no official decision has been made one way or another.
“We’re not there yet. There are still teams playing. There are still teams that need a quarterback,” he insisted. “Both those quarterbacks will be able to be moved. We just have to make a decision on which one.”
If it is Rourke who remains at the helm, the Lions will face the new challenge of constructing a roster arranged around a burdensome quarterback contract. In 2022, the 26-year-old Canadian was on a bottom-dollar rookie deal, while Adams was just the league’s eighth highest-paid QB in 2023 and sixth in 2024.
Nevertheless, McEvoy does not believe the team’s ability to turn over the roster and bring in top free agents will be affected by ballooning costs at the most important position.
“We’ll bring players in. I mean, that’s just the reality of it. Yeah, we have sizable contracts, but so does everybody else,” he said. “We have to scour the U.S. and Canada to bring the best players here available to make this team what it can be.”
“The team that was playing in Saskatchewan on Saturday, that’s the last time that team will be together. There’s going to be change, regardless of how the outcome was.”
In the meantime, McEvoy and the rest of the team’s front office will have to answer to owner Amar Doman for their failure to deliver on his investment. The building materials magnate paid above what is normally expected from a CFL owner to help bring in star power mid-season and will be charged again for any salary cap fines, but will not see his vision of a championship at BC Place come to fruition.
“Amar has done amazing things for the sport of football in the province of British Columbia. Obviously, the B.C. Lions being his number one but let’s look at what he’s done for everybody that’s involved in the sport.” McEvoy said. “So, yeah, it’s disappointing. It’s an underachieving football team that is disappointing, we know he’s disappointed as well.”
While both McEvoy and his fellow co-GM, head coach Rick Campbell, are under contract for next season, Doman and team president Duane Vienneau are expected to meet this week to determine any potential staffing changes. The 50-year-old director of football operations, who first joined the franchise in 1995 as a ticket sales rep, would not reveal what he intended to tell his bosses in those exit meetings.
“Those are discussions I’ll have with those guys. All I can say is this team underperformed, and we all underperformed because we had high expectations,” McEvoy said. “It’s not easy moving forward, but we feel that we have the group that can move forward to be a good football team in this league.”
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