Quote Originally Posted by OV Argo View Post
Maybe; I basically heard the same story though with the BC and Montreal franchises - just nobody wanted anything to do with those teams to take them over from Braley & Bobby Wetandall; yet - a couple of ultra rich owners (who both seem like smart business guys) did step-up to buy those 2 teams = there was no evidence at the time they were out there.

No franchise should have folded - the BOGoofs should get that it's ultra important for no teams to fold in a 9 team league - so the league runs the team with a commitment to temporary financial support from all other teams; while a detailed, smart search for new owner(s) is going on - and you don't try to gouge the new owner with some greedy, trumped up / ludicrous "franchise fee"; instead you bend over backwards to welcome a new, smart owner, and you don't sell to clown acts like the Gliber-goofs or Horn Chen (note - Americans who have no clue about or respect for Canadian football). Engaging a combo community / business investor ownership group as a possibilty - nah, that could never work, so let's try and gouge some buck$ out of Horn Chen instead.
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?