The Saskatchewan Roughriders announced during their annual general meeting on Tuesday that they have experienced a net loss of about $4.5 million over the last two years.
Between 2021 to 2022, the club had excess revenues over expenses of $3,883,291, from the shortened 2021 CFL season. However, in 2020, the club had excess expenses over revenues of $8,371,601, due to the cancelled season during the pandemic.
Collectively, the team is facing a $4,488,310 net loss.
“Even though this year we showed a profit or a positive result, we still have a negative result when you put the two years together and we envision this year will continue to allow us to recover further,” said Kent Paul, Roughriders CFO.
The 2020 cancelled season proved to be difficult for the Roughriders, with expenses exceeding revenue in several categories from 2020 to 2021.
The 2021 shortened season saw the Riders able to make money once again from games, which continued into this year’s ongoing season, the first expected full-length season since 2019. Over this past year, the Roughriders gained most of their revenue from gate receipts, merchandise, sponsorships and CFL distributions.
“The recovery has happened and happened reasonably quickly and that’s honestly full credit to our fanbase, to sell out two home games last year in the midst of a pandemic was quite an accomplishment…I think we managed expenses well through it and we took a number of necessary steps to make sure that we were managing our finances through the course of that,” said Craig Reynolds, president and CEO of the Roughriders.
The club also saw large expenses last year through football operations, merchandise and amortization. Reynolds says numbers for both revenue and expenses were still lower than what they were back in 2019.
Prices for fans around the stadium have also increased over the past year. Reynolds noted that inflation has been a large factor driving expenses for both the team and its fans.
“The challenge we collectively have is we’re not immune to inflation…there’s just inflationary pressures that are pressuring the cost of everything now…and that would include the cost of putting on our games.”
The Riders are staying optimistic through the financial challenges however. Reynolds calls their plan a “multi-year recovery” that has already started with this current season.
“We did say it was going to be a multi-year recovery and I think this is the start of that, but it will likely take us this year and hosting the Grey Cup and then we should see the other side of this,” Reynolds said.
The Grey Cup was originally to be held in Regina 2020, but that was moved to 2022 due to that year’s cancelled season. Reynolds also is positive that the rest of the season and possible playoffs will bring in much-needed revenue.
“Our fans and our crowds have been really young and really diverse…so we’re seeing a good demographic at our games and I think as we get into the fall here we’re going to see some higher attendance numbers.”