On-field woes, challenging economy led to $1.1M loss for Riders

The Saskatchewan Roughriders hope a bounce-back on the field will lead to a similar return to form in its finances.

The CFL club reported a $1,103,872 loss during the 2023-24 financial year.

The club’s total revenues were $35.6 million, which decreased from $39.7 million the previous year, though that one was helped by the team hosting the 2022 Grey Cup.

“It was reflective of what last year was. It was a disappointing year on the field and, as a result, we didn’t have overly strong financials,” said Riders president and CEO Craig Reynolds.

Despite this, the club had a positive EBIDA (earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization) of about $1.5 million.
The team also saw higher expenses with the team spending $36.7 million in 2023 compared to $35.8 million in 2022.

Kent Paul, the club’s chief financial officer, said the team’s challenges on the field, as well as economic challenges in general, led to the loss.

“Two consecutive years of a 6-12 record and not playing in the playoffs have challenged the team’s fans sentiment and ticket sales,” Paul said. “The economy with high inflation and increasing interest rates over the last couple of years has affected everyone in Rider Nation and challenged their disposable income and ability to attend Rider games.”

Paul said a playoff game can often bring in around another $500,000 to the club.
Last seasons gate receipts brought in $14,037,247 to the club – about 40 per cent of the team’s overall revenues. It’s a drop from the $15,939,738 the team saw in the 2022 season.

Reynolds admitted they still had work to do when it comes to season-ticket sales.
“The positives are we saw an increase of about 30 per cent in our new season-tickets but we have seen two straight years of decline here. The number this year should be in the 10 per cent range,” Reynolds said. “We have been able to make that up with single-game tickets.”

The club said it is taking steps to help with affordability including introducing youth pricing at 50 per cent off, continuing with $99 family ticket packages, continuing with $5 beer, $5 menu items and family meal, limiting ticket and concession price increases to be less than inflation, and lowered the price of 9,000 seats in the stadium in the year prior.

“Our strategy is really around trying to get young families and youth to the games,” Reynolds said. “There’s no doubt we need to get younger – that’s the focus for us. Get younger season-ticket holders and more families engaged.”

One of the biggest decreases for the team was in sponsorship revenue, dropping from $10,481,989 to $7,963,371.
Paul said the 2022 number included one-time funding from select partners, including the Grey Cup.
“In 2023, we saw a return to what we would call normal levels,” Paul said.

The club also saw a decrease in their concession revenues, going from $1,100,239 to $579,038.
Paul said this was due to the introduction of $5 beer on game-days prior to the game as well as lower attendance.

The club saw an increase in merchandise, CFL distributions – an amount of money given to all teams by the league – and interest.

The Riders have total assets of $75 million which includes the Mosaic Stadium.
The Club’s Stabilization Fund increased to $9.6 million.

Saskatchewan is off to a 2-0 start to begin the season, something Reynolds hopes is a positive sign of things to come.

“There’s one known correlation in pro sports and that’s winning impacts your organization in a positive way,” Reynolds said. “We’re anticipating a build here as the team builds momentum. We’re off to a really good start but we hope to see that build and hopefully that will result in positive financials.”

The Riders’ home-opener is on Sunday when the team hosts the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

“The tickets are trending positively,” Reynolds said. “The reality is we sell the majority of tickets in the few days leading up to the game. It’s a change in consumer behaviour that happened post-COVID.