Ambrosie says goodbye; another CFL commissioner pushed out

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VANCOUVER — It doesn’t take a Genius to realize why Randy Ambrosie will no longer be the commissioner of the Canadian Football League.

Hearken back to three years ago, when Ambrosie breathlessly announced a partnership with Genius Sports. Given a reported 10 per cent ownership of CFL Ventures, Genius Sports was going to update the league’s data and technology while linking everything into BetRegal, then one of Canada’s new and legalized sports books, to generate unimaginable revenues.

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The partnership with Genius Sports was an unmitigated, embarrassing and unprofitable disaster.

CFL statistics were virtually unavailable throughout that first season. And BetRegal stopped accepting all wagers earlier this year, about the time CFL governors voted to end Ambrosie’s tenure after eight seasons on the job. He subsequently announced he was retiring.

If only the CFL loved Ambrosie as much as he loved being commissioner.

“I hope people will say it’s going to be very hard for anyone to compete with this crazy guy that came in and brought that much joy to the job,” Ambrosie, an offensive lineman for three CFL teams long before becoming commissioner, said in a CFL social media post.

“And the job gave him that much joy in return.”

There were other problems that forced Ambrosie out the door: He didn’t dramatically increase revenues or franchise values; his vain attempt to globalize the game with CFL 2.0 replaced a few Canadian kickers with Aussies while never scheduling any games outside the country; and, like so many commissioners before him, he failed to add a 10th franchise.

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The community-owned Saskatchewan Roughriders were apparently one of the four teams still supporting Ambrosie, but the other five didn’t like giving away 10 per cent of their profits to an unreliable partner. Nor were they happy with some of the other things Ambrosie discussed Tuesday during his annual state-of-the-league media conference, which precedes Sunday’s 111th Grey Cup game between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Toronto Argonauts.

Ambrosie admitted the league didn’t double its revenues, something he promised upon his hiring in 2017.

Asked about CFL 2.0, Ambrosie replied, “Has it been transformational? No.”

And expansion is impossible, he noted, without a willing community, so he dissuaded his predecessor from looking towards the U.S. while listing the usual destinations of Atlantic Canada, Quebec City and maybe Kingston.

Some travelling journalists didn’t arrive in time for Ambrosie’s morning gathering, but when heard on streaming audio this state-of-the-league address sounded just like 36 other statements from 12 different men dating back to Doug Mitchell in 1988, right through the somewhat competent commissioners like Larry Smith, Mark Cohon and Tom Wright, plus the guys who were on their way out the moment they were given the job, Michael Lysko and Jeffrey Orridge.

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Ambrosie’s final statement included all the usual topics — finances, broadcasting rights, stability of the franchises, improved quality of play, relationship with the CFL Players’ Association and expansion. This one differed only because TSN’s Kate Beirness began the commissioner’s 45-minute availability with a 20-minute, softball-lobbing Q&A that ticked off most of the regular attendees.

Ambrosie eventually got into some specifics, admitting that he wondered whether he made the right decisions this season to suspend Montreal Alouettes defensive end Shawn Lemon indefinitely for gambling (he did!) and Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly nine games for harassing a female assistant coach (he could have been more demanding of the petulant pivot).

Here’s the ultimate irony:

The CFL has never had stronger ownership across its nine franchises.

With Ambrosie’s help, wealthy new owners arrived in B.C., Montreal and Edmonton, while well-funded private owners in Ottawa, Calgary, Hamilton and Toronto seem just as committed as the stable, community-owned franchises in Winnipeg and Saskatchewan. Finding an owner this season for the debt-ridden, floundering Edmonton Elks “solidified the complement of our ownership around the league,” said Ambrosie.

This may truly be the strongest ownership group ever assembled in the CFL, where commissioners have long faced the impossible task of answering to myriad bosses.

It’s unlike the NFL, NHL or NBA, where their respective commissioners get an amazing amount of authority and have subsequently helped their leagues thrive. Not so in the CFL, where the teams are always struggling to survive, pulling apart their commissioner in the process.

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