Bad news in store for CFR

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The most successful edition of the Canadian Finals Rodeo ever held at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton may also be the last. The lack of NHL hockey and the continuing baseball strike left a sports void which the rodeo was able to fill. CFR garnered more media attention than ever before. And attendance in the building was up by 7,947 over six rounds, in spite of a lower capacity due to renovations. But it is those very renovations, and the change in building management, which has cowboys, fans and administrators alike worried.

After protracted negotiations, Peter Pocklington, owner of Northlands Coliseum's major tenants, the NHL Edmonton Oilers, wrestled control of the building, parking and many other services around the building away from the Northland board this summer. Pocklington's claim that the team would have to be moved from the building built for them, after 22 years in the Alberta capital, was backed up by similar noise from major league sports franchises all over North America. After committee one public relations gaffe after another, Northlands finally caved into the pressure and agreed to give up the building (in return for some lease money) except for the week in November devoted to CFR.

Pocklington immediately gutted the building and rebuilt it in the image sports owners believe will allow them to make more money so as pay the incredible salaries earned by even mediocre athletes, while making, ahem, small profit, of course.

The new luxury boxes cut into the number of seats Northlands could sell for its one event, the CFR. So the gate went down, the concession money goes to Pocklington under the new arena management structure, as does parking and some other moneys. Yet the rodeo purses go up, and the profit margin on the rodeo, never that large, narrows or, indeed disappears.

All this worries the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association, who lease the CFR, their championship, to Northlands. As does the question of how new split management of the building will effect the one event still brought in by and original operators. While the CFR contract is up for review in a year or two, and neither Calgary nor Vancouver seems interested, the cowboys are looking around a bit more than the incredible success of the event in Edmonton would indicate.

Which is sad, according to observers. Rodeo has always been a sport of the working people of the West. Even today, the top athletes gross somewhere around $50,000 and have to pay large travel expenses out of that. And those are the top athletes. Others who ride or rope on the circuit pay for the privilege.

Yet the talk of the rodeo wasn't only about what was happening on the arena floor. It was also about how pampered multi-millionaire hockey players may not only be ruining their league they may be endangering the brightest spot in the Canadian Rodeo world, as well.