Jun
Braley’s involvement raises red flags in CFL
Courtesy Globe and Mail:
he 2004 Grey Cup created plenty of memories.
Toronto Argonauts head coach Michael (Pinball) Clemons delivering a stirring motivational speech to his players. Quarterback Damon Allen winning a big game at an advanced age. B.C. Lions head coach Wally Buono deciding to leave quarterback Casey Printers nailed to the bench, even as a CFL championship was slipping away. A feeling, which would prove illusory, that Canadian football was alive and well in the nation’s capital.
And now, though almost no one knew it at the time, there’s one more lasting image: the distinctive profile of David Braley watching two teams he supported financially.
It obviously comes as a shock that Braley, the owner of the Lions, has for the past several years also been a secret, de facto financial facilitator of the Argos. The two men who were CFL commissioners during that time, Tom Wright and Mark Cohon, had no knowledge of the deal – never mind the league’s fans, who were also left completely in the dark.
Having one owner underwriting 1 1/2 of the league’s eight franchises, with no transparency, raises all kinds of questions on and off the field regarding credibility, competitiveness and the integrity of the CFL.
But knowing the personalities involved, knowing the recent history of the league, it is also not so hard to understand how this problematic arrangement came about.
By the end of the wacky Sherwood Schwarz ownership era, the Argos were all but dead in the water, a bankrupt franchise in a big city that long before had pretty much ceased to care. Schwarz, himself, was a symptom, not a cause – he wound up as owner of the club because no one else wanted it, no one was willing to absorb the inevitable losses, and this was long before the NFL’s Buffalo Bills at the Rogers Centre were a gleam in anyone’s eye.
Wright, the commissioner then, was struggling to find a buyer, not just for the Argonauts, but also for the other down-and-out Southern Ontario franchise, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Enter Braley, more than happy to ride to the rescue. He had made his fortune in the auto parts business, but it was in the CFL where Braley became a public figure as owner and saviour, first of the Ticats and then the Lions. That made him a very big frog in a very small pond and Braley loved it – loved being the power behind the throne, being the richest, most influential guy on the board.
He was never happier than during the months between the firing of Mike Lysko and the hiring of Wright, when he served as interim commissioner – and when he took particular delight in the fact that it was his name inscribed on the league’s official footballs. (Wright, it should be remembered, was hired over Braley’s objections, so making the commissioner appear impotent in the Argos situation would be an added bonus.)
And by his own admission, he’d quietly forwarded a few bucks to struggling franchises before.
David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski obviously liked the idea of owning the Argonauts, including the public profile that would come with saving a historic local franchise. What they didn’t much like was the fact that there was no way to turn the club into a profit-making concern.
Though things might have been different had they been able to realize their dream of building a new, football-friendly Varsity Stadium in the heart of downtown Toronto, the fact was that owning the Argos was a license to lose money in perpetuity. They were willing to do that, for the fun and for the glory, but only to a point.
In stepped Braley with a solution – one that he could certainly afford, but one that would be controversial in most leagues. He offered Cynamon and Sokolowski some financial assistance – and no one would have to know.
Cynamon and Sokolowski got to own a professional sports franchise, win a Grey Cup, hang out with the players, become minor celebrities in Toronto, accept credit for bringing stability to the historic team, while at the same time mitigating their losses.
Braley got to play the hero (as he did by helping bring Bob Young to the owner’s table in Hamilton) and cement his position as the most powerful figure in the CFL – to whom any current or future commissioner would have to genuflect. And the truth is, had Braley not done it, there might not be a franchise in Toronto or, by extension, a league today.
Almost all good – except that, on an absolutely fundamental level, you can’t do that in professional sports. Not even if it’s just a “loan” between businessmen. Not even if you’ve done it before for other owners in the past. Not even if there’s no paper trail, no formal partnership agreement.
In sports, where the competition between teams is a fundamental, relationships have to be open for all to see.
