With the CFL season in doubt, there’s one thing for sure: the Riders will take care of their fans.
On Monday the CFL postponed the start of the season. That would point to a season that’s not 18 games long. Riders CEO Craig Reynolds says that in the event they don’t play nine home games this season, there will be options for you if you have bought tickets.
“We understand the impact to our season ticket holders,” Reynolds says. “And we also understand the broader economic situation in the province. The reality is we’ll present a number of options to our ticket holders, and included in those options would, of course, be a refund.”
Some organizations have offered only credit for future events, and have been blasted on social media. In this time, the word “refund” will be music to the ears for some Rider fans.
Losing games is no small measure for the Riders. In the 2018 season (the most recent for which there are published numbers), the Riders took in more than $17 million from ticket sales, another $6.8 million in merchandise sales and $1.3 million in concessions. That’s more than half of their revenue for the year. And as of right now the Riders aren’t guaranteed anything. Not even the Grey Cup happening on November 22.
“We just have to work with what we know right now,” Reynolds says. “There’s so much uncertainty and it’s such a fluid situation. But right now we just continue to plan. Our Grey Cup office is up and running and fully functioning and continues to work on the plans as they can.”
“It’s hard to speculate what a post-COVID world looks like in terms of Grey Cup.”
All we know for sure is that we won’t see the Riders playing before July 1.
