TORONTO — In November, CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie will hand off the Grey Cup for the final time.
Ambrosie made the surprising announcement Saturday that he'll retire sometime in 2025. The 61-year-old Winnipeg native will formally step down once his successor has been found.
"I feel like I'm jumping out at a point where I've helped to take the league to a much better place," Ambrosie told The Canadian Press. "I'm jumping out at a time when the foundation of the league is infinitely stronger than it was.
"Now, I get to turn it over to the next person and wish them well. I will be the biggest CFL cheerleader, which I feel I have been, and I get to continue that for many years to come. It just felt the right time for the league and for me to make this change."
Ambrosie, who played nine seasons (1985-93) as an offensive lineman with Calgary, Toronto and Edmonton, became the league's 14th commissioner July 5, 2017, succeeding Jeffrey Orridge. His seven-plus year tenure is the second-longest ever behind the late Jake Gaudaur (1968-84).
Ambrosie's decision is shocking, given last year during his annual Grey Cup address Ambrosie said he had no immediate plans to step down. Conventional thinking suggested Ambrosie would remain on the job at least through the '26 season, when the league's broadcast deals expired.
"It's been almost seven-and-a-half years of seven days a week, sometimes feeling like 24 hours a day," Ambrosie said. "I'd like to give some time back to (wife) Barb and the girls and really invest in my family."
By retiring in 2025, Ambrosie said he's giving his successor time to get acclimated with the job and prepare for negotiations on new TV deals. Once the new broadcast deals are signed, the league's collective bargaining agreement with the CFL Players' Association can be reopened.
But there've been signs of discontent. In September, Winnipeg president Wade Miller was critical of both Ambrosie and CFL after Blue Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros was forced to leave the club's 35-33 Labour Day win over Saskatchewan with an apparent head injury.
According to a league source, the CFL board recently voted on Ambrosie's stewardship. Although it's unclear if the vote was in regards to extending Ambrosie's contract or ending it, the source added it was a sign of unhappiness over lessening league distributions.
The source spoke on the condition of anonymity as the CFL hasn't publicly announced the board vote. When asked if there was a vote, Ambrosie declined to comment.
CFL board chairman Scott Banda said while the search for Ambrosie's successor will begin shortly, the league has time to establish the right process to find the best candidate.
"The beauty of what Randy has provided for the league is this opportunity to stay in the role until a replacement is found," he said. "I think it (hiring new commissioner) will happen when it's best to happen.
"The strength we have here is Randy's willingness to remain as commissioner and continue with business as usual, which takes that whole pressure point away from the board."
Ambrosie's decision comes with the league and game in good shape.
The B.C. Lions (Amar Doman), Montreal Alouettes (Pierre Karl Peladeau) and Edmonton Elks (Larry Thompson) all now have solid ownership. The Toronto Argonauts, long a league attendance trouble spot, clinched second in the East Division with a 38-31 home win over Ottawa last week before a season-high gathering of 20,487.
That could bode well for Toronto when it hosts Ottawa in the East Division semifinal Saturday. Last year, the franchise drew 26,620 fans to BMO Field — the largest crowd for an Argos game since they moved there in 2016 — for its 38-17 East Division loss to Montreal while enjoying a 41.1 per cent increase in game-day revenue.
The majority of CFL games this season (46-of-77 entering this weekend's action) had come down to the final three minutes. And that's the case in 60 per cent of contest the last three years.
And there's parity with eight-of-nine teams finishing 2024 with seven or more regular-season wins. Entering weekend action, games this year averaged 51.6 points, up 20 per cent since the league's '21 return to play.
Attendance has been steady at 22,901 fans per game, the highest since '19 (22,928). Last year's playoff attendance was 109,239, the highest since 2015 (109,842).
Attendance in B.C., Toronto and Montreal — the CFL's biggest markets — is also on the rise. The Lions' crowds have more than doubled since 2021 to almost 27,000 per contest while according to the league, the Argos' in-stadium attendance is up 75 per cent since 2021.
Montreal's growth is over 60 per cent since 2021, with 19 per cent year-to-year increases. And also according to the CFL, its television ratings are up following 2023’s nine-per cent increase.
The six-foot-four, 250-pound Ambrosie has also been a hit with a majority of CFL fans who appreciated his outgoing, gregarious personality and easy accessibility.
"My best days in this job have always been walking into a stadium and shaking hands with fans and talking to them and their sharing their experiences and passion and love for the league," he said. "Maybe somebody might say one day I was a good ambassador for the league and that's something I feel I can be very proud of."
But there have been hurdles.
Ambrosie's CFL 2.0 initiative, his vision to create an expanded global reach for the league, never fully materialized. The plan included exhibition games being played in Mexico and potential television deals there.
In 2020, the CFL was the lone pro sports league not to play due to the global pandemic. Ambrosie made repeated appeals to government for financial assistance but none came. No games reportedly cost the league between $60 and $80 million.
In 2022, the CFL endured just its second players' strike and first since 1974, before it and the CFL Players' Association ratified a seven-year collective-bargaining agreement. Despite the labour harmony, the union has filed grievances against the league on issues that include revenue sharing and health-and-safety policies.
Ambrosie has long supported the addition a 10th CFL franchise in the Maritimes, but the league appears no closer to that goal despite having played games in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Ambrosie has also dealt with the most severe player discipline in CFL history. In 2022, the league suspended Saskatchewan defensive lineman Garrett Moreno four games for his dangerous hit on Ottawa quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, verbal comments made about Masoli’s heritage and a reckless tackle on a previous play.
In May, it suspended quarterback Chad Kelly for the pre-season and Toronto's first nine regular-season games for violating its gender-based violence policy.
In April, the league suspended retired Montreal defensive lineman Shawn Lemon indefinitely for betting on league games while with the Calgary Stampeders in 2021. Lemon remains suspended indefinitely after unretiring and launching an ultimately unsuccessful appeal.
And in December 2021, the CFL trumpeted its partnership with Genius Sports, a data, technology and commercial company. But the league drew criticism from fans and media regarding its struggles to deliver up-to-date in-game statistics.
Ambrosie said he has regrets, most notably the 2020 season.
"I'd like to go back to 2020 and just kind of slow everything down," Ambrosie said. "The world was spinning like a top.
"I would've liked now with the lens of hindsight to have slowed everyone down a bit and thought things through. But we couldn't find bottom because nobody knew where COVID was taking us."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 27, 2024.
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press