The Canadian Football League is coming back to Ottawa. When and where the new team will kick off is yet to be determined officially, although Frank Clair Stadium in a renovated state is the likely locale.
One thing is certain – the new ownership group led by Jeff Hunt had better not repeat the mistakes of the past if they hope this incarnation of three-down football in the capital will stick.
In the past, pigskin pundits have simply shaken their heads as owners, first Horn Chen and then the Glieberman family, fumbled their marketing strategies and turned a Canadian tradition into a study in mediocrity.
This new group, led by the widely-respected Hunt, has a glorious opportunity to get it right. Under Chen and Glieberman, fans had absentee owners with no significant local roots.
Ottawa football to them was just a business and if the team failed then pulling the plug was nothing short of a business move that needed to be made.
Cold and calculating, everything a fan detests in a sports team owner.
The Gliebermans especially seemed to treat the franchise as their own personal plaything, as the reins of the team were handed to Lonie Glieberman, whose experience in sports business was barely more than the average beer-swilling fan.
Hunt, meanwhile, is a local businessman and owns the Ottawa 67s, who play out of the Civic Centre.
He is connected and invested in the city and the success of the team.
Fans know this and will be more likely to invest in season tickets and become emotionally involved with a new franchise as a result.
We have seen this same scenario play out in Toronto where local businessmen David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski have taken control of the Argos and made a significant investment in the product.
They are local boys who grew up loving CFL football.
They get just as excited as other fans when the team does well. The result has been increased attendance at games and a re-emergence of Argonauts football as a trendy thing to do in a city usually painted as a hockey-only town.
Hunt must try to mimic this success in Ottawa.
The first order of business will be to make football a family-oriented event in the capital. Under Glieberman games were defined by off-field antics just as much as the on-field product. The era of Mardi Gras madness at Frank Clair Stadium, where male attendees were given bead necklaces and women fans encouraged to get them through any means, turned off fans with young children.
It turned games into punch lines for local comics and the national media. The team was a sideshow.
The same thing happened in Toronto before the new ownership group took over. The idea of having wet T-shirt contests featuring cheerleaders was intended to promote interest in Hogtown and instead backfired dramatically.
Hunt and company will need to make sure family-focused advertising and marketing is how they sell the new team in Ottawa.
It’s a simple formula. Hook the old fans with a stable ownership group and hook the young ones by showing them the event is a legitimately fun and entertaining experience.
That’s the way to sell football again in Ottawa.
It seems simple, but then again Ottawa’s had two kicks at the can and failed spectacularly both times.
If they fail this time, another chance may not come again.