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That’s a good-sized slice of every team’s pie, but it’s not enough to operate, as we’ve found out.
For the Bombers in 2019, league revenue accounted for around $4.4 million, or 12 percent of their overall revenue.
Ticket/luxury-suite sales, game-day revenue and corporate sponsorships produced a far bigger number, nearly $30 million, a whopping 82 percent of Winnipeg’s revenue.
Is it time to share some of that with Toronto, Montreal and B.C., all of whom have wealthy, private owners?
I can hear Miller’s blood boiling already.
Tighter caps on player salaries
This one’s coming. It’s only a matter of how much of a fight ensues between the league and the players.
With a salary cap of around $5.7 million per team, no one player should earn $700,000-plus, as quarterback Mike Reilly does in B.C.
The league may have to cap salaries by position.
Bighill said players’ wallets shouldn’t be the first place to take a hit, and theoretically he’s probably right. Coaches, GM’s, team presidents, scouting departments – there may have to be caps on them all.
But the players will bear the brunt. They always do.
If everybody doesn’t work together on this, there won’t be a league to play in.
Now for the ideas that shouldn’t be on the table.
No Canadian ratio
A generic squad of all Americans with no requirement for a minimum number of Canadians might make for perfectly fine football.
But it’d give Canadians one less reason to care.
Without a ratio there wouldn’t be an Andrew Harris, a Nic Demski, a Thomas Miles or a Brady Oliveira, four Winnipeg products with sparkling, new Grey Cup rings today.
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