Skulsky episode of 2015 Presidents' Week Series on TSN1040

[sj-roc]

I’m all wired up. That’s a trait me and Wally have. We really don’t want to be around other people. That’s my time. Between 4pm until halftime we’re doing all the right things to recognize people. Afterwards it’s my time.

“I approached Jeff (Tedford) on this, I would never, never do this if I was in the way.”

He actually said that!!!! Laughable and who knows executives on the sidelines "all wired up". No wonder the team is done at half time. It must be "their time" too if it's the President's time...lol.

I've noticed when Skulsky gets put on the defensive about something he readily plays the "we're not alone on this" card. On the team rent issue he says the rent amount the team pays Pavco is comparable to what other teams across the league are paying their landlords. A caller yesterday groused about the cost of food @BCP and he said premium pricing is part of the pro sports experience at practically any stadium.

But since becoming team president he's been questioned several times about his habit of lingering near the team bench, and while he always defends it, AFAIK he's never pointed out that other teams' presidents do likewise.

To his credit he seems to be curtailing the practice.

[BC 1988]

The demise of the gun metal grey jersey is very very disappointing, and shows that the team doesn't listen to their consumers. Sure some traditionalists here didn't like it, but what matters are the massive amounts of demand and interest there was for these jerseys in the public. These jerseys were red hot, and the team really screwed up a huge opportunity by not featuring them more.

Exactly. While I tend to lean towards them being impractical due to the limited visibility of letters/numbers, there is no doubt they are easily the runaway most popular of any of the CFL 3rd jerseys. Most of the other teams' attempts have been either hideous or ridiculous (and mostly hated).

[David]

Correct! While I recognize the gun metal limitations from a practical standpoint (as BC FAN points out), the popularity and marketing potential of these uniforms supersedes all of that. After hitting a home run with the public in 2013 (how many times can we say that in the last decade??), and then hyping the hell out of them (remember that ubiquitous video that showed Kato placing them around the locker room and the players acting like it was Christmas morning?) only wear them 2 more times at home since they were introduced.....and now mothballing them is a head scratcher.


DH

[TheLionKing]

Like Chapdelaine with his offence, Skulsky is the same with the gun metal jersey. When something works or in the case of the jersey popular with the fans, jettison it and go with something else.

[sj-roc]

skulksy basically all but said the very successful bronze elementary school program they ran last year (very successfully i might add - free child bronze with adult purchase), will be up and running in the fall. The f'd up by not doing it again in June. That will fill bronze seats.

They really need to do whatever they need to between June and September next year to get bums in the seats. I am getting really tired of hearing this "poor attendance" crap in the media - it was highlighted ALL DAY LONG on TSN1040's sports breaks (followed by sound bytes from Skulsky explaining/defending it).

Sports fans - especially in this market - don't want to be associated with something that's not popular or has no buzz - so if "poor attendance" is the talking point around your brand, people will stay away from it like a big, steaming turd. On the other hand, when the media darling Whitecaps tarp the *poop* out of BC Place and basically get the same number of people attending, they have "passionate fans" who "sell out" BC Place to create this amazing "atmosphere."

On Sekeres's show today his Presidents' Week guest was the Canadians' Andy Dunn, so on the baseball theme, the poll Q for today was "Is Nat Bailey Stadium Your Favorite Vancouver Sports Venue?", simple yes or no (43% yes at the moment). The Sun's Iain McIntyre was Sekeres' guest on the final segment before Dunn came on, so Sekeres put the question to him right off the top. He answered (exact quote), "You know what, Vancouver is actually pretty lucky. Now that BC Place has been humanised, with a roof and it's not so antiseptic, it's a great place to see a soccer game. Nat Bailey is very hard to beat, though." Like the Lions aren't even on his radar.

After some Cs and Caps talk they got around to the Lions and their attendance issues; he put it down a combination of many factors: among several others he pointed to WB and his long tenure, hinting it might be time for him to step down, and the league-wide subpar product in 2014.

The topic of Lions' attendance came up again during Dunn's appearance when a listener contributed to MS's regular "Tell Me I'm Wrong" feature with this: "If Andy Dunn ran the BC Lions, they wouldn't have an attendance problem," which was clearly a reference to the predominance of sellouts at 6k capacity NBS. Dunn talked around the comment for a while, being diplomatic about how well other teams here run themselves and focussing on attendance benchmarks for the Cs and some other baseball teams he's worked for in the past — including in his native Florida and the Washington Nationals — before calmly observing, "The one thing that I'm jealous of with the CFL up here is just the amount of free media they get. I mean, they get a ton of media and that's the one thing I've always said, you know? 'Boy, if we could get that kind of media for baseball, what could we really do?'"

[Qman]

SOLDOUT ???

Screenshot 2015-08-11 14.21.01.png

i go to c's games all the time. When they announce sellouts .. i have to laugh ... because to stands are only 70-80% full. It must be corporate or SSH that don't use there seats for every game

[DanoT]

One of the interesting things that Skulsky said was that Tedford had been prepared to sign for longer than a 2 year contract but the team felt that 2 years was the best fit for the team. This is likely because Wally has 2 years left on his contract and you don't really want a coach on a longer term contract than the GM.

The Lions could have extended Wally's contract and then signed Tedford to a longer deal. Since they didn't, imo it confirms that Wally will be retiring after the 2016 season. At the very least that option is open to him to retire without having to saddle an incoming GM with no chance to choose his own HC.

[sj-roc]

One of the interesting things that Skulsky said was that Tedford had been prepared to sign for longer than a 2 year contract but the team felt that 2 years was the best fit for the team. This is likely because Wally has 2 years left on his contract and you don't really want a coach on a longer term contract than the GM.

The Lions could have extended Wally's contract and then signed Tedford to a longer deal. Since they didn't, imo it confirms that Wally will be retiring after the 2016 season. At the very least that option is open to him to retire without having to saddle an incoming GM with no chance to choose his own HC.

FWIW Skulsky's contract is also up in 2016, which is also the year Braley turns 75 (during TC in fact), his long-since self-imposed divestiture deadline, so there could be a lot of flux in the Lions' braintrust in the next 18 months or so. During Skulsky's 2013 Presidents' Week appearance, Sekeres floated the possibility that DS was organising a consortium of Waterboys to buy the club from Braley when he was ready to step aside — which for his part DS skated around at the time — but this idea hasn't gotten much run in the two years since then. I recall a report at least several months ago now, attributing a remark to Braley that he had something like a dozen people interested in buying, but it wasn't clear to me if he meant one would-be ownership group of twelve (or however many it was) or if these were individual, competing suitors vying to succeed DB as owner.

I don't read too much into how much longer JT might have been willing to sign for under different circumstances. At any rate, even the contract he has now at just two years probably has an escape clause allowing him the option of entertaining more career-enhancing positions in the NCAA/NFL. If I'm not mistaken Kent Austin had such a clause that he exercised after just one season and a GC victory in 2007 in Ssk. He resigned to take the OC job at UMiss — which he parlayed into the head job at Cornell before coming back to Hamilton as HC/GM/VP-FO.

[dupsdell1]

One of the interesting things that Skulsky said was that Tedford had been prepared to sign for longer than a 2 year contract but the team felt that 2 years was the best fit for the team. This is likely because Wally has 2 years left on his contract and you don't really want a coach on a longer term contract than the GM.

The Lions could have extended Wally's contract and then signed Tedford to a longer deal. Since they didn't, imo it confirms that Wally will be retiring after the 2016 season. At the very least that option is open to him to retire without having to saddle an incoming GM with no chance to choose his own HC.

FWIW Skulsky's contract is also up in 2016, which is also the year Braley turns 75 (during TC in fact), his long-since self-imposed divestiture deadline, so there could be a lot of flux in the Lions' braintrust in the next 18 months or so. During Skulsky's 2013 Presidents' Week appearance, Sekeres floated the possibility that DS was organising a consortium of Waterboys to buy the club from Braley when he was ready to step aside — which for his part DS skated around at the time — but this idea hasn't gotten much run in the two years since then. I recall a report at least several months ago now, attributing a remark to Braley that he had something like a dozen people interested in buying, but it wasn't clear to me if he meant one would-be ownership group of twelve (or however many it was) or if these were individual, competing suitors vying to succeed DB as owner.

I don't read too much into how much longer JT might have been willing to sign for under different circumstances. At any rate, even the contract he has now at just two years probably has an escape clause allowing him the option of entertaining more career-enhancing positions in the NCAA/NFL. If I'm not mistaken Kent Austin had such a clause that he exercised after just one season and a GC victory in 2007 in Ssk. He resigned to take the OC job at UMiss — which he parlayed into the head job at Cornell before coming back to Hamilton as HC/GM/VP-FO.

I hope for the 2017 season braley retires take that idiotic President with you too , get new fresh blood in there a build it back up again for good this time.

[Toppy Vann]

David Braley is the best thing that happened to the CFL in the last 20 years other than the TSN contract.

Anyone questioning Braley's commitment to the CFL and the Lions needs to be forced to be sent to a re-education camp where he/she learns about the history of BAD owners in the CFL then be re-integrated cautiously back into football society!!!

Wally Buono needs no contract with term with this owner. Braley's made it clear Wally stays as long as he wants. I do think that he's made this city less FA friendly than what MTL and other teams have achieved.

Dennis Skulsky is possibly a different situation and wants a bit more security in his role which is understandable as he doesn't bring to the team what Wally does in that Wally is no 1 on the winning list of CFL coaches and knows the game and the CFL.

But when a business is sold new owners must take on the contracts and other liabilities and long term deals aren't good for new owners if they want to bring one of the ownership group to head BC.

Dennis might be getting a bit of a bad rap in that he is not a marketer and clearly they are not spending a lot of cash in that area. I say - in that case - if no cash work with the colleges and a supervising PR firm to get the public involved with contests for songs, posters, etc. Be creative.

I see on Tweeter that the Ticats players were signing fan autographs post game - that if the game is not ending late night is a good thing too.

[TheLionKing]

David Braley is the best thing that happened to the CFL in the last 20 years other than the TSN contract.

Anyone questioning Braley's commitment to the CFL and the Lions needs to be forced to be sent to a re-education camp where he/she learns about the history of BAD owners in the CFL then be re-integrated cautiously back into football society!!!

I concur. If it hadn't been for Braley the BC Lions would have folded.

[DanoT]

David Braley is the best thing that happened to the CFL in the last 20 years other than the TSN contract.

Anyone questioning Braley's commitment to the CFL and the Lions needs to be forced to be sent to a re-education camp where he/she learns about the history of BAD owners in the CFL then be re-integrated cautiously back into football society!!!

I concur. If it hadn't been for Braley the BC Lions would have folded.

And if Braley hadn't stepped in to take over the Argos, then the league would have had to with the other 8 owners covering Argo financial loses for 5 years...that would have been real trouble. Another team saved by Braley. Thank you.

[dupsdell1]

David Braley is the best thing that happened to the CFL in the last 20 years other than the TSN contract.

Anyone questioning Braley's commitment to the CFL and the Lions needs to be forced to be sent to a re-education camp where he/she learns about the history of BAD owners in the CFL then be re-integrated cautiously back into football society!!!

Wally Buono needs no contract with term with this owner. Braley's made it clear Wally stays as long as he wants. I do think that he's made this city less FA friendly than what MTL and other teams have achieved.

Dennis Skulsky is possibly a different situation and wants a bit more security in his role which is understandable as he doesn't bring to the team what Wally does in that Wally is no 1 on the winning list of CFL coaches and knows the game and the CFL.

But when a business is sold new owners must take on the contracts and other liabilities and long term deals aren't good for new owners if they want to bring one of the ownership group to head BC.

Dennis might be getting a bit of a bad rap in that he is not a marketer and clearly they are not spending a lot of cash in that area. I say - in that case - if no cash work with the colleges and a supervising PR firm to get the public involved with contests for songs, posters, etc. Be creative.





Give me a break about Braley if I hear one more person saying how he saved the CFL I am going to puke , he at the time yes wrote some checks to keep the teams alive , I tell you if David did not hire ackles back in 2002 the lions would have moved or folded , He knows nothing about running a team as a business man he has run the lions into the ground and Dennis is just to blame also . David B did nothing with the Argos at all , all he does is get grey cups to help pay for all the money he losses owning 2 teams . it can not be fast enough until he sells this team and takes Dennis with him.

I see on Tweeter that the Ticats players were signing fan autographs post game - that if the game is not ending late night is a good thing too.

[Lions4ever]

He also said they've been trying for 3 years to secure the 300 piece UW Huskies Marching Band and finally managed to come up with a date that fit for both the Lions' schedule and the band's schedule. I think that is another indicator that there is a lot more effort going on behind the scenes in terms of promotions and marketing than the detractors want to accept. Just because things don't happen doesn't mean it's from lack of effort.

Yes, October 3 is the Huskies bye week.

[Lions4ever]

He resigned to take the OC job at UMiss.

College geeks will insist on calling it "Ole Miss".

Hotty toddy!!