Quote Originally Posted by paulwoods13 View Post
Over the years, every franchise apart from Edmonton and Winnipeg has been on ultra-shaky ground at one time or another. Montreal in the early 1980s, again in 1986-87, and at least twice since 1996. Ottawa was bankrupt in 1991, and went out of business in 1996 and again in 2006. Hamilton was on the verge of folding in 1994 or thereabouts, and bankrupt in 2003 (and was on very shaky ground in the late 1980s and early 1990s). Toronto was bankrupt in 2003. Saskatchewan needed telethons to stay afloat in the late 1980s. Calgary needed a desperate "Save Our Stamps" campaign to stop from going under in 1985, and then ran into trouble again when Ryckman ran out of money a few years later. B.C. came close to going out of business around 1990 and was "saved" by Murray Pezim -- until he turned the keys over to the league two years later. Surely you are not suggesting that in each of those cases, the league could have afforded to cover the costs of the bereft franchise while waiting for a wealthy, smart non-goof to fall from the sky? If the league was swimming in that kind of money, surely it wouldn't have had 77% of its franchises on death's door at one time or another?
And yet, the community ownership group in Winnipeg has been a very successful franchise - posting a big profit this past season; playing in 4 straight GCs, having league best attendance in a nice newer stadium.

I doubt anybody involved in running the league in the past would have tried diligently to apply that community model to any of the struggling franchises over taking whatever buck$ they could gouge out of new sugar daddy - regardless if it was a clueless clown of a bizness man who should not be involved with the CFL and Canadian football. Simple & easy seems to be the main m.o. of the CFL BOGoofs a lot of the time.