Is Copeland a worse CFL executive than Lonie Glieberman

[doubleblue]

There is no cure for wilful ignorance, sadly.

I would rather be willfully ignorant than a self proclaimed authority on everything. BTW I'm so ignorant I have a "Make America Great Again" hat.

[Jon Gonzo]

I would rather be willfully ignorant than a self proclaimed authority on everything. BTW I'm so ignorant I have a "Make America Great Again" hat.

The press is the voice of the people. They jump the shark when they become they too become elite to represent the people. The arrogance, the shaming, the name calling, the political bias -- it's a perfect storm. Trump is that thunderhead. Now its going to rain. Or, reign depending on how you choose to look at it. Scary times.

[paulwoods13]

I would rather be willfully ignorant than a self proclaimed authority on everything. BTW I'm so ignorant I have a "Make America Great Again" hat.

Funny, the guy who vows to make America great again is the very definition of self-proclaimed authority on everything.

[Jon Gonzo]

Thank God we have the Argos and all their dysfunction to pass the time and distract us. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgooooooooooooooooos!

[doubleblue]

Thank God we have the Argos and all their dysfunction to pass the time and distract us. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgooooooooooooooooos!

Heh, Heh. You've got that right. But we need somebody to take charge of the Argos who knows how to get things done, on time and under budget.

[ArgoZ]

On the surface, the question seems to have an obvious answer, but then I got to thinking,,,this is a tough question, honestly. Copeland presents and carries himself superior to any Glieberman, however he has failed in almost every aspect of the Argonauts acquisition. From BMO field, to the Grey Cup and now Management and Operations. If he gets axed in the near future, can we say he has done anything right? It would go down as one of the worst tenures as a team President in recent history, especially considering what he was handed to work with. My vote at present time would be Lonie, but if Cope is gone next week, I'm forced to change my answer.

[ArgoGabe22]

I still haven't heard a good reason how Copeland messed up BMO. He's due a lot of criticism but don't think BMO is one of them.

[ArgoZ]

I still haven't heard a good reason how Copeland messed up BMO. He's due a lot of criticism but don't think BMO is one of them.

Attendance and related pricing come quickly to my mind. This ties in with the apathy and alienation of fans caused by his actions. The President bears responsibility for all if this. I did recall one thing Copeland did right and that's tailgating. However, I feel attention to other details were sacrificed for this and the experience is directly related to game attendance, which they failed.

[ArgoGabe22]

Attendance and related pricing come quickly to my mind. This ties in with the apathy and alienation of fans caused by his actions. The President bears responsibility for all if this. I did recall one thing Copeland did right and that's tailgating. However, I feel attention to other details were sacrificed for this and the experience is directly related to game attendance, which they failed.

$199 is a good starting point for seasons but the overall pricing should've been simpler. Pricing was a bit complicated with the many price points but I think expecting Copeland to fix 30 years of neglect in just one season is a bit of an unrealistic expectation. I think the attendance issues run much much deeper than just Copeland alienated the fans. Did anyone actually expect overnight success with a sold out stadium each game? Especially a season with a few odd home dates? I'm still not convinced Copeland deserves a lot of blame for BMO but sure deserves a lot of it elsewhere.

[R.J]

Not sure how much Copeland is to blame for the pricing structure or that BMO wasn't the magic a lot of media types thought it would be, but there's no question that a lot of things have been mishandled under Copeland.

[Argo57]

Not sure how much Copeland is to blame for the pricing structure or that BMO wasn't the magic a lot of media types thought it would be, but there's no question that a lot of things have been mishandled under Copeland.

Admittedly I knew very little about Copeland before he joined the Argonauts.
His problem moving forward will be perception of who he is and what he is capable of accomplishing.
By most in this market he is now seen as a clueless soundbite not to be taken seriously, tough to recover from that.

[Neely2005]

On the surface, the question seems to have an obvious answer, but then I got to thinking,,,this is a tough question, honestly. Copeland presents and carries himself superior to any Glieberman, however he has failed in almost every aspect of the Argonauts acquisition. From BMO field, to the Grey Cup and now Management and Operations. If he gets axed in the near future, can we say he has done anything right? It would go down as one of the worst tenures as a team President in recent history, especially considering what he was handed to work with. My vote at present time would be Lonie, but if Cope is gone next week, I'm forced to change my answer.

He brought us Tailgating, fixed the Season Ticket package this year and introduced $199 Season Tickets and included the playoff game and all fees in the pricing.

Where he's failed is football operations which he shouldn't even be involved in.

[Neely2005]

I still haven't heard a good reason how Copeland messed up BMO. He's due a lot of criticism but don't think BMO is one of them.

I don't even know what people are referring to when they say that the move to BMO Field was messed up. The gameday experience at BMO Field has been great.

[AngeloV]

He brought us Tailgating, fixed the Season Ticket package this year and introduced $199 Season Tickets and included the playoff game and all fees in the pricing.

Where he's failed is football operations which he shouldn't even be involved in.

I agree with you. IMO, the only thing he did really wrong was boast about the fact that they would sell out every game and have 20k ST holders. The unreal expectations he created are the reason that everyone has this opinion on him. In hindsight, I bet he wishes he took the public approach that it would be a process and that the owners are in it for the long haul.

[ArgoZ]

I agree with you. IMO, the only thing he did really wrong was boast about the fact that they would sell out every game and have 20k ST holders. The unreal expectations he created are the reason that everyone has this opinion on him. In hindsight, I bet he wishes he took the public approach that it would be a process and that the owners are in it for the long haul.

The whole scenario ties into the failures of moving into BMO. Copeland quickly changed his tune when it was realized he had unrealistic expections. That's what's good PR people do though, they bullshit. It doesn't hide the fact that the whole organization, led by Mr. President, overvalued the product and set the stage for disastrous sales all season. The second home game of the year, there was less than 10000 people in the stands. A terrible, almost sickening moment felt around here. When season ticket holders give away their tickets because they can't sell them and a $40 ticket goes for have that on Stubhub, your overpriced your market. People can blame the previous owners (with some merit), but the current management has to be accountable for selling less than 3000 single seats for a game in a new stadium! Like I mentioned before, they were so focused on a tailgate (that was going to solve all problems), that they forgot all the other things that made Argonauts football great. I saw signs early, I could just tell. I didn't surprise me to see fans, even a member of this forum, discuss how they lost a connection to team that they always enjoyed.

[ArgoZ]

He brought us Tailgating, fixed the Season Ticket package this year and introduced $199 Season Tickets and included the playoff game and all fees in the pricing.

Where he's failed is football operations which he shouldn't even be involved in.

The $199 seats are great, best value and view in the league for that price. Unfortunately what offsets them, is sections like Gold tier pricing to sit last row on the surprisingly high East side. Aside from the opener. It looked like they didn't sell a single seat in that area all season, for good reason. He improved ST packages this year after completely screwing them up last year, that I agree with and even supports my argument.

I don't even know what people are referring to when they say that the move to BMO Field was messed up. The gameday experience at BMO Field has been great.

A lot of things we love about BMO (sight lines, grass, outdoors, better concessions than comparable stadiums) are already pre-occurring or natural and have nothing to do with Copeland. I'm not going to blame him for the pre-existing crappy seats. True, he will always be responsible for tailgating, an event that while decent, took up all there time to do anything else (like sell tickets).

[1971GreyCup]

Wow, the Argos have half the season ticket base now from 2016 - 3,500.

I guess fiddling while Rome burns wasn't the best strategy after all.

3 Downnation reports: http://3downnation.com/2017/03/01/no...ve-save-argos/

“We know the clock is ticking,” said Marc Trestman, one of the men who will save the Toronto Argonauts, or not. A ticking clock can signify a lot of things: the steady passage of time, diminishing fractions of life, an alarm about to go off. On Tuesday, the Argonauts finally hired Jim Popp as general manager and Trestman as their coach. It took too long but here they are, to rebuild whatever’s left.

“We felt that we wanted to take the time to step back and make sure that our initial assumptions were either validated, or that we were aware of all available options,” Argonauts president Michael Copeland said. “We wanted to get this right. That was our priority. We understand that it was unorthodox in terms of timing, but we’re prepared to accept that to get this right. And we got this right.”

You know, they probably did. Popp was the architect of the recent Montreal Alouettes dynasty, and has long been known as one of the best bird-dog, back-road football scouts in the game. No GM has sent more teams to the Grey Cup than his 10; only Wally Buono has overseen more wins. Trestman spent five seasons in Montreal and won two Grey Cups and 59 games before heading to the NFL. Considering where the Argonauts were a month ago, these are two professionals who have had success in this mercurial, surprisingly complex little league. That’s good.

“We’re obviously going to learn more by being here personally, but . . . culture change will happen, starting in the locker room,” said Popp. “They’ve been able to go out and fill some holes with some outstanding players, but we’re going to take what we have and we’re going to get the best out of these guys. I know they didn’t win as many games as they wanted to last year, but this team could have beat anyone, any week.

“We’re going to have to hit the ground running.”

Well sure, because the road here was too long, too winding, entirely unnecessary. The Grey Cup capped a breathless, struggling season for the rebuilt franchise at the end of November, with the house full of free tickets for a spectacular game. Toronto didn’t fire GM Jim Barker until Jan. 24; coach Scott Milanovich left to be the quarterbacks coach in Jacksonville, an NFL-like franchise, three days later. Copeland said Popp was the top candidate immediately, but that the club wanted to make sure it considered all possibilities, “many of which were not traditionally explored,” whatever that means.

Copeland has talked about thinking outside the box and changing the game, but Popp was the obvious choice from day one — the only experienced, available CFL GM on the board, and luckily, available. If you believed that the decline in Montreal was at least partly precipitated by clashes with increasingly unreasonable ownership — which a lot of people do — then unless the Argos were going to hire Bill Belichick, Popp was door number one, two and three.

And it still took this long, and Copeland still stuck to the same overpromising routine he employed last year, saying: “As for our football team, I could not be more confident in our ability to come out flying this season under the leadership of these two men.”

It won’t be easy. They need to meet and assess the players they did not choose, assess the front office, rebuild the coaching staff, figure out the phones. Some big free agents avoided Toronto due to the instability. Popp needs to fill Trestman in on the rule changes that have been implemented in the past four years, which Trestman said he was unaware of. They need a better plan at quarterback. Trestman announced Tuesday that the 37-year-old Ricky Ray was already the starter, while also saying he had never seen backup Drew Willy play. That Willy trade is why they don’t have a first-round pick, by the way. There’s a lot of work to do.

And all that’s riding on them is the relevance of this lost, woebegone franchise. BMO Field didn’t fix the Argos, but the schedule is better this year. Seven of their nine regular-season home games are on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. There will be more affordable tickets, though maybe not enough.

But right now, season tickets are only about half of last year’s disappointing 7,000. Anyone can get lost in the big city, but the Argos are wandering the streets, nearly unrecognizable.

“I think a lot of people were waiting to see what we were going to do on the football side,” Copeland said.

Look, winning might not do anything, because Toronto can ignore a winning Argonauts team as easily as a losing one. But without winning, the Argos just don’t have a chance. Popp needs to prove he can still be a star GM; he and Trestman need to prove they can succeed without Anthony Calvillo at quarterback. The pressure is on. As Copeland says, “I think it would be very difficult for us to create the type of chance and be meaningful to people in the market if we’re not a successful team on the field.”

Meaningful is one thing, but the Argos are trying to clamber out of a grave. The clock is ticking, and while the alarm may have sounded too late, at least it finally went off.

[Will]

Disturbing, if true.

[Neely2005]

Not surprising, I predicted this. A lot of people added additional seats last season and reduced them for the upcoming season (ourselves included) plus people (and scalpers) bought tickets to get access to the Grey Cup.

[Jamiedykstra]

I have worked for both. And this question/poll is absolutely absurd. Give Mike a chance. He's a very smart guy, and someone who is truly passionate about the Argos. His dad played for the Argos and he grew up around the team. His Argos roots and passion run deep. And I think overtime he will do a great job. I have absolute confidence in him. But I fully get that we need to prove that to you. And we will over time. Thanks for your continued support and passion. Jamie Dykstra.