REGINA - Canadian Football League Commissioner Randy Ambrosie had a positive assessment of where things stood during his State of the League media conference on Friday.
“It’s nice to be back at Grey Cup under much better conditions,” said Ambrosie, referring to the past two years of COVID-19 impacts including the cancellation of the season in 2020.
The commissioner pointed to several areas where progress was made in his media availability in Regina. Regarding the game, Ambrosie pointed to the league’s comprehensive product review process and the goal of how to achieve “the funnest, fastest, most entertaining brand of football in the world.”
He pointed to scoring being up 17 per cent, touchdown drives up 25 per cent and two and outs down 12 per cent. Lead changes were also up 17 per cent and penalties were down four per cent. Ambrosie also said the “watchability” index was up 100 percent from 2021.
Ambrosie pointed to the relationship with the CFLPA and the new seven-year labour deal, which he called transformational.
“We are actually able now to think about how we can work together,” he said. “We are learning how to think of each other not as combatants but as partners, and it’s going to take time.”
On health and safety, Ambrosie noted the number of injuries were down 16 per cent, and padded practises didn’t have a negative effect. There were also zero repeat concussions in 2022.
On the business side, Ambrosie spoke about the league’s new relationship with Genius Sports, saying they would be a great partner on their “digital transformation.”
On the individual CFL markets, Ambrosie pointed to “progress, not perfection” in rebuilding the three biggest markets, Toronto, Montreal and BC.
But it wasn’t all a rosy picture, as Ambrosie faced questions from reporters about some issues and notable misfires seen during the season. Here were a few of the more notable topics discussed:
All-star announcement messup
Ambrosie was asked about the now-infamous screwup in the announcement of the All-star finalists, with the league announcing the wrong divisional all-stars and then having to retract them and announce the correct list.
The commissioner was asked about what exactly happened and Ambrosie took responsibility for what transpired. He said he wrote to each player affected by what happened and said he got back “some of the most gracious responses” about it.
What happened in the calculations is they got the weighting wrong. This year they had added fan voting to the mix.
When they calculated the coaches and media balloting, there was supposed to be a small weighting for the fan voting. “What happened is they gave every vote that weighting rather than the collective fan vote getting that total weighting,” said Ambrosie. “And so of course it skewed the result.”
“The mistake we made is we didn’t do a double or triple check, we didn’t have the list vetted,” said Ambrosie. Going forward, they will follow their press release protocols which must be vetted by a member of their leadership team and eventually signed off by the commissioner.
Delay in announcing the Half Time Show
Ambrosie also faced the music on the “negative attention,” as Jamie Nye put it, on the much-talked-about delay in the announcement of the act for the Twisted Tea Half Time Show.
Tyler Hubbard, Jordan Davis and Josh Ross were finally announced as the act, only two weeks before the game.
Ambrosie said what they learned was the entertainment industry had also gone through the turbulence of the COVID-19 crisis, and as a result, “there were lots of moving parts in that industry and it was harder to nail things down.”
He said they would “absolutely” sit down at the end of the season, and revisit the process to “make sure we understand how it works, where this year’s situation could’ve been managed better and what we need to do going forward.” Having said all that, Ambrosie believed “we have an amazing Half Time.”
Ownership situation in Montreal
The Montreal Alouettes ownership situation also came up, with questions about the future of the ownership following the death of majority owner Sid Spiegel in 2021.
The estate of Spiegel now controls the majority stake, and there have been questions on their long term commitment. Ambrosie said what he’s been hearing from the current owners is that they were focused on winning and entertaining their fans.
“I saw no hint at all that they were shying away from owning the football team… It appears it’s steady as she goes, at least for now.”
Garrett Marino controversy
There were also questions that came up about the discipline controversies this season involving Garrett Marino, who was hit with a four game suspension and was eventually released by the Saskatchewan Roughriders over late hits to quarterbacks.
Ambrosie was asked about whether the CFL would go down the road of finding independent arbitrators on appeals. He responded the league had a good system in place right now, adding “I feel we’ve done a lot to create a more consistent environment for the way we handle discipline.”
As for lessons learned, "there’s learnings in every single player discipline case… The learning is we need to think about it more, we need to have more conversations going forward, and I think the key word will be there is always things to learn.”
Highlights of Friday at the Grey Cup Festival
In addition to the news conference with media, Ambrosie was also scheduled for a 10 a.m. State of the League Fan Address at the Grey Cup Festival.
During that appearance he dropped news, confirming that starting in 2023 the division semifinals and finals will take place on Saturdays, moving from their longtime Sunday scheduling. The Grey Cup will remain on Sunday, however.
Another active day was on the docket for the Grey Cup Festival with activities on the REAL grounds. A major event scheduled to launch Friday was the Esports - Path to Glory tournament which is to run for two days at Brandt Centre.
Another highlight of the day was the CFL Alumni Association Legends Luncheon where the Alumnus of the Year Award and the Indigenous Champion Award were to be presented.
The Calgary Stampeders Grey Cup Committee were scheduled for a pancake breakfast starting at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Confederation Park.
At night, scheduled was the Nexgen Energy Drone Show at 9 p.m., after plans for a show on Thursday night had to be scrubbed due to wind conditions.
However, there has been late word that the drone show has been cancelled again, due to wind and weather conditions. They still plan to try again on Saturday.
On the field, practices were scheduled Friday for both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Toronto Argonauts in advance of the big game on Sunday.
