‘The arrow is pointing up:’ Reynolds discusses financial health of Riders, CFL

Financially, things seem to be looking all right for the Green and White.

Craig Reynolds, the president and CEO of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, told the Green Zone on Tuesday the CFL team and the league appear to be trending in the right direction.

“When you look back and think of where we were a year ago, we weren’t even sure we were going to have a ’21 season,” Reynolds said, referring to the uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“(The 2021 campaign) was by all accounts a successful season and financially, the Riders, we’re seeing that. Areas of our business have bounced back quite nicely.”

Reynolds pointed specifically to the Roughriders’ merchandise sales, which he said exceeded expectations during the shortened 2021 season.

Successfully completing that campaign during the pandemic as well as some league-wide initiatives announced this off-season — including a partnership with a sports data tech company — have Reynolds convinced “the arrow is pointing up” for the league.

That wasn’t the case not that long ago.

In 2020, the CFL went hat in hand to the federal government in hopes of getting an interest-free loan. The denial of that request played a role in the CFL deciding not to have a 2020 season.

In early 2021, the CFL and the XFL broached the idea of a merger. Those talks ended in July, before the CFL embarked on its abbreviated, 14-game regular season and playoffs.

Now, with two tumultuous years behind it, the CFL is looking ahead.

“There are lots of good things that have happened coming out of the pandemic,” Reynolds said. “We spent a lot of time working on our business (and) coming up with things that support the strength of the league like revenue-sharing (and) looking at our cost structure.”

The idea of revenue-sharing raised some eyebrows when it was introduced by commissioner Randy Ambrosie, as many believed successful teams like the Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers would have to financially prop up failing franchises.

But Reynolds said that won’t be the case. He worked on the committee that created the revenue-sharing program and said it won’t take gate receipts from Saskatchewan and sent them elsewhere. Instead, the idea of the program is to share national revenues differently.

As well, teams’ maximum contribution into the plan will be capped, although Reynolds wouldn’t say what that cap will be.

“There are certain expectations on the recipient teams as well,” he said. “There are certain accountability measures where they need to meet certain thresholds and certain goals in order to be eligible for the program.

“We’re quite comfortable with how it was designed and I think our fans should be reasonably comfortable with it as well.”

There might be some discomfort building among CFL fans in another area, though, because the league and its players’ association don’t have a collective bargaining agreement in place for 2022.

Reynolds said he’s “very, very hopeful” the sides can reach a deal before training camps open, but even waiting that long could cause some problems for teams.

Free agency opens next Tuesday, so general managers will be diving into the market without knowing what the 2022 salary cap is going to be. That figure is set out in the CBA.

Reynolds said he has talked with Roughriders vice-president of football operations and GM Jeremy O’Day and together, they set a target for the dollars to be spent in free agency.

“The reality is you can’t overspend not knowing what the cap will be because then that could put you in a precarious situation,” Reynolds said. “On the flip side, you certainly don’t want to underspend as well because you want to put forward the best team you possibly can.

“We just approach it like you would anything else in your business: You set a budget and you work toward that.”

It looks like whoever is on the 2022 edition of the Roughriders will once again enjoy solid fan support: Reynolds said season-ticket sales have been “really, really strong,” no doubt buoyed by the fact the 2022 Grey Cup game is to be played at Mosaic Stadium.

“(Sales) are outpacing where we were at for 2019 season tickets and by the end of (Tuesday, the team’s early bird deadline), we’ll also be outpacing where we were for 2020 season tickets — which feels like forever ago, prior to this pandemic,” Reynolds said.

“That’s a really, really positive sign because obviously we were scheduled to host the 2020 Grey Cup and so to be at a similar pace and likely to exceed it by the end of (Tuesday) is a really positive sign.”