By Sean Millington,
CFL.ca
Mark Cohon was recently hired by the CFL to become its 12th commissioner. Welcome to the job Mr. Cohon and good luck to you — your predecessors didn’t fair so well.
Interestingly enough, I am feeling somewhat optimistic about your chances. Being selected in a unanimous vote puts you a step ahead of out-going commissioner Tom Wright, who faced immediate and stiff opposition upon his ascension to the throne. In addition, you have arrived at a time that sees the league at its strongest point in the past two decades. So what should be your first order of business?
In my humble opinion, growth of player visibility should be task No. 1. I have banged this drum before and hopefully we can see eye to eye on this.
Despite being referred to most often in a corporate sense as the B.C. Lions or the Toronto Argonauts, etc., the product on the field is comprised of individuals. These individuals are the reason fans pay good money to watch a game at a stadium, or turn on their televisions. To date, too much effort has been spent on developing the franchise and not enough on developing the franchise player. Having franchise players makes the process of marketing the corporate franchise that much easier.
At the present, players have to hustle and set up deals on their own if they want to earn a little bit of money on the side. This diminishes the status of the player, and by extension the franchise he is associated with. If I were part of a big corporation and a player approached me about a sponsorship deal, I would have to wonder right away why he didn’t have someone doing this for him like the other big league players I have dealt with. The conclusion I would come to would be that this player wasn’t big league and therefore, why would I want to expend significant resources on him?
Now if I am approached by a representative of a team, or better yet the league, saying that they want to make a marketing deal on behalf of a player or group of players, how much more credibility does that give the player and the league? I don’t think the importance of this type of approach can be overstated.
Transitioning the CFL player from journeyman to “star” in the eyes of the public at large is a big job, but with a resume that includes high profile stints with the MLB and the NBA, I am sure you are more than capable Mr. Cohon. The challenge will be not to get distracted by all the red herrings that will inevitably be thrown your way.
Yes, expansion is a big issue and bringing a team back to Ottawa is on the minds of many along with increasing the amount and value of corporate sponsorship for the league in general, however, all of these are made much easier by an increase in player profile.
Players who are perceived as stars make it easier to sell a franchise to a potential investor. Easily recognizable faces on a team makes generating corporate sponsorship a simpler and more lucrative task. In a nutshell, Mr. Commissioner, giving the game back to the players who play it and make everything else possible could be and should be your legacy.
Sean Millington played 13 years in the CFL with the Edmonton Eskimos, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, B.C. Lions and Toronto Argonauts and has been a panellist on the CFL on CBC since 2003.
(The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily of the Canadian Football League)
