I object to almost every change for the CFL announced on Monday. It will take multiple columns to go through my objections.
I start with the process. It was completely opaque to the public. There was no public transparency.
When Commissioner Stewart Johnston decided he wanted a fundamental review of the CFL, I say he should have made the process public.
I am sure he wanted change or there was little purpose in a full review.
There should have been input from stakeholders in the game and in the league.
Players, coaches, officials, football organizations sharing CFL fields and media all have organizations that should have been invited to provide their positions on change.
Nathan Rourke should have had the chance through the CFLPA to be a part of the process rather than having to react to the decision.
Coaches think constantly about the game and the league. I am sure no group thinks more about the game.
Officials are on field every game and can see how rules and changes affect the game.
University, junior and high school football teams share the fields on which the CFL plays its games. Many are community owned stadiums. They could have provided information on the costs and consequences for non-CFL teams and city and provincial taxpayers of the changes and what they were prepared to pay to accommodate changes.
The Football Reporters of Canada represent members of the media who cover the CFL and offer a perspective independent of players and teams.
I think the public should have been able to present individual input. Fans buy the tickets to games, provide the audience for TSN and purchase the merchandise marketed by every team.
Such an approach would have provided the opportunity for varying positions to be considered. Alternatives or reasons for maintaining present rules and structure are unlikely to be considered unless they are put forward openly.
Proceeding in secret is often a means to have proposals advanced that are in accord with the person or persons organizing the process.
In investing I have seen lots of proposed business transactions, usually acquisitions or mergers, for public companies which require an analysis of whether a transaction is in the best interest of the proposed companies. The boards of directors hire independent firms to conduct the analysis. Invariably the analysts agree the transaction is in the best interest of the company.
Warren Buffet from Berkshire Hathaway has long recommended that companies proposing acquisitions or mergers should be required to have two analyses made to advocate for and against the transaction and let the boards and shareholders have the competing analyses to consider.
The CFL did not even have a publicly identified independent analysis of the changes.
As I understand the Commissioner, there was a secret working group, who signed non-disclosure agreements, to evaluate changes to the CFL. It was secret in its existence and composition.
I consider it wrong that a working group which had the authority to propose fundamental changes to the league should be secret.
The members of the working group remain secret. I have great concerns when a working group with great power is secret.
Not knowing who is on the working group leads me to question whether they approached their task impartially. Everyone has biases. To be confident the working group did not come with pre-formed opinions the identity of the working group members should be public.
Darrell Davis in his story on Monday quoted the Commissioner saying it was “a very small group at the league office that included football (operations), marketing, data analytics.”
It does not sound to me as if the working group was composed of men and women from different parts of Canada with varied connections to the CFL.
I would like to know if the working group had members from TSN. From Darrell’s quote above I doubt TSN had participants. TSN is the most powerful presence in the league through the $50 million it annually pays the league. While the Commissioner is from TSN I expect the network would be best served by current members of the TSN. I think TSN should have been an open and direct participant in the process.
Whatever the recommendations of the working group were, they should have been presented publicly before decisions were made.
The CFL is more than its Board of Governors.
Seven franchises are privately owned. Two, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, are community owned.
In Saskatchewan it should have been possible for the shareholders of the team to present their views to the Board of Directors on what should be done before its Governors went to a meeting to accept, reject or modify the proposed rules.
The decisions on changes, described by the Commissioner as the most significant in decades, are not the administration of the business of the Roughriders. They are at the core of the game and the league.
A public process need not have been long. Timelines for positions and evaluations could have been short.
Secrecy is wrong. I know the CFL is not a democracy. Considering and deciding on proposed fundamental changes should be an open process.
