Winnipeg: Not afraid of private ownership
Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press:
The days of summer must be nigh, because there’s sure a lot of flip-floppin’ going on around here.
Everywhere you turn, somebody’s telling you that if only the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were privately owned, the world would be a place of sunshine and lollipops. Cats and dogs would be paw-in-paw. Paris Hilton would win an Oscar. The Leafs wouldn’t suck.
And much of this wishful thinking has emanated from Maroons Road, of all places.
Funny, but it wasn’t too long ago that when the subject of private ownership was broached, much of the dissension came from within the Bombers organization itself. From the top down, in fact.
For example, in announcing the Bombers rather tepid financial statement recently, where the club lost $264,000 despite five sellout crowds, president and CEO Lyle Bauer was adamant that the bottom red-line was yet another example of why the franchise needed to go private and tap into the revenue that a new stadium could generate.
Yet it was only last year that Bauer himself was singing a far more cautious tune when it came to entering an agreement with wanna-be owner David Asper,
“This is no knock on private ownership, none whatsoever, but if you look back, you’ll see there are three teams that have been there through thick and thin, through every franchise that has changed hands, where owners have walked away, teams that have been bailed out… that’s Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, and Edmonton,” Bauer had said once upon a time.
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