Renegades, what a farce

[Big Johnny69]

Can you believe this. Stopping operations for a year to find a financially stable owner. Pretty embarrassing. Second time around and they still can't get it to work. Who knows if anyone will want to step up and buy this team.

[Started2k3]

I personally don't like football.

When I heard that the Glebermans were taking over the Gades, I said to my wife "Well it shouldn't be long now"

[Big Johnny69]

That was my same thought. They screwed it up when they were here before and did it again. Oh well, if we get the team back it will another expansion team. Even a longer wait for a competitive team.

[jvincent]

I just hope that this ends professional football once and for all.

It's been a travesty for too many years to count and it's time for it to die. The fact that you can't support a pro team on the backs of 1500-2000 die-hard fans has finally sunk in.

[spackler]

The league has to take the lion's share of the blame on this one. The governors and commissioner's office reminds me of the old Keystone Kops films. It wouldn't be that difficult to make a go of it in this town, you only need 30,000 seats filled for 9 home games remember, that's not a lot. I wish Jeff Hunt was able to get involved, or could become convinced to get involved. A partnership between his marketing saavy and business operations acumen, and Eugene Melnyk's money would be ideal. But I guess Eugene has already saved one team in this town...

I coach for a local team in the NCAFA (National Capital Amateur Football Association) organization and have for years. The support for football in this town, if measured by the number of kids PLAYING it, is far greater than any other city in Canada. It is unbelieveable to me that CFL football can't succeed here, properly organized.

[1972Apex]

The team was screwed up long before the Gliebermans got involved. Ottawa is just not capable of supporting a professional football team. No fans, no money, despite all the newpaper coverage and publicity in the world.
Eugene is too smart to lose $5 million a year on a team no one will watch or support.

[NoBack]

The team was screwed up long before the Gliebermans got involved. Ottawa is just not capable of supporting a professional football team. No fans, no money, despite all the newpaper coverage and publicity in the world.
Eugene is too smart to lose $5 million a year on a team no one will watch or support.

I disgree with you here Reid.
Ottawa has enough CFL fans to support a football team. When they first folded, (due to Firestone IMO - raised the price of a season ticket from $21 per game in lower deck to $55 overnight )
Ottawa was drawing in more than 20,000 people per game and had probably the best walk up market in the league. The fans want ownership who will do a good job off the field. THAT is what is missing in Ottawa

I say get the name back from Horn Chen and go back to basics with The Rough Riders!!!

[Golfer_Gofer]

I donno. Did anyone get out to a game this year?...perhaps sit in the south upper deck...perhaps on a mardi-gras night?....perhaps the best night of my life! i have no idea if the gades won or lost but boy did I have a lot of fun...too bad the league came in and shut down the mardi-gras theme nights

[1972Apex]

I disgree with you here Reid.
Ottawa has enough CFL fans to support a football team. When they first folded, (due to Firestone IMO - raised the price of a season ticket from $21 per game in lower deck to $55 overnight )
Ottawa was drawing in more than 20,000 people per game and had probably the best walk up market in the league. The fans want ownership who will do a good job off the field. THAT is what is missing in Ottawa

I say get the name back from Horn Chen and go back to basics with The Rough Riders!!!

Ottawa might have lots of CFL fans Steve, but wild horses can't seem to drag them out to the games...

[spackler]

Ottawa might have lots of CFL fans Steve, but wild horses can't seem to drag them out to the games...

The Gades/Riders regularly pulled 20,000 per game with the worst organization in the league. And this over a 20 year period. If your product is consistently garbage, and it appears you don't seem to care if you are selling garbage, and you don't seem to care about the people who buy the garbage, how can you hope to convince people to buy it?

People said the Sens wouldn't survive here until they realized that we just won't support an inferior product. People will indulge rebuilding if they believe there is direction and that they can anticipate a future payoff/playoff, but they will not support any product where the people running it don't seem to care if you will buy it or not.

[jonf]

I personally went to a couple games, despite the crappiness of the team. Good way to spend a night and get drunk with the guys. Considering they were getting 20,000 in there with the crappy on field product, I can't imagine them not getting it up to 25,000 if they had ever mustered a decent team.