TORONTO — In November, CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie will present the Gray Cup for the final time.

Ambrosie made a surprising announcement Saturday that he will retire in 2025. The 61-year-old Winnipeg native will officially step down once his successor is found.

“I feel like I’ve jumped to the point where I’ve helped bring the league to a much better place,” Ambrosie told The Canadian Press. “I’m launching at a time when the foundations of the league are infinitely stronger than they were.

“Now I can turn it over to the next person and wish them good luck. I’ll be the biggest cheerleader in the CFL, which I feel like I have been, and I can continue that for many years to come. It was simply the right time for the league and for me to make this change.

Ambrosie, who played nine seasons (1985-93) as an offensive lineman with Calgary, Toronto and Edmonton, became the league’s 14th commissioner on July 5, 2017, succeeding Jeffrey Orridge. His tenure of over seven years is the second longest ever behind the late Jake Gaudaur (1968-84).

Ambrosie’s decision is shocking, considering it was made last year during his annual Gray Cup speech. Ambrosie said he had no immediate plans to step down. Conventional thinking suggested that Ambrosie would remain on the job at least until Season 26, when the league’s broadcast deals expired.

“It’s been almost seven and a half years, seven days a week, sometimes like 24 hours a day,” Ambrosie said. “I would like to give back to (my wife) Barb and the girls and really invest in my family.”

By retiring in 2025, Ambrosie said he was giving his successor time to acclimate to the job and prepare for negotiations over new TV deals. Once the new broadcast agreements are signed, the league’s collective agreement with the CFL Players’ Association can be reopened.

But there have been signs of discontent. In September, Winnipeg president Wade Miller criticized Ambrosie and the CFL after Blue Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros was forced to leave the club during the 35-33 Labor Day victory over Saskatchewan due to an apparent head injury.

According to a league source, the CFL board of directors recently voted on Ambrosie’s leadership. Although it was unclear whether the vote was to extend or terminate Ambrosie’s contract, the source added that it was a sign of dissatisfaction with the league’s dwindling distributions.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because the CFL has not publicly announced the board’s vote. When asked if there had been a vote, Ambrosie declined to comment.

CFL Board Chairman Scott Banda said that while the search for Ambrosie’s successor will begin shortly, the league has time to establish the right process to find the best candidate.

“The beauty of what Randy has provided to the league is this opportunity to remain in this role until a replacement is found,” he said. “I think it (hiring a new commissioner) will happen at the most opportune time.

“The strength we have here is Randy’s willingness to remain commissioner and continue business as usual, which takes any pressure off the board.”

Ambrosie’s decision comes with the league and game in good shape.

The BC Lions (Amar Doman), Montreal Alouettes (Pierre Karl Péladeau) and Edmonton Elks (Larry Thompson) all now have solid ownership. The Toronto Argonauts, long an attendance problem in the league, clinched second place in the East Division with a 38-31 home victory over Ottawa last week before a league-high 20,487. season.

That could bode well for Toronto when it hosts Ottawa in the East Division semifinals on Saturday. Last year, the franchise drew 26,620 fans to BMO Field — the largest crowd for an Argos game since moving there in 2016 — for its 38-17 East Division loss to Montreal, while enjoying a 41.1 percent increase in match day revenue.

The majority of CFL games this season (46 out of 77 before this weekend’s game) have been played in the final three minutes. And this is the case in 60 percent of competitions over the past three years.

And there is parity with eight out of nine teams finishing 2024 with seven or more regular season wins. Entering the weekend, this year’s games had an average of 51.6 points, up 20 percent since the league returned to play in 2021.

Attendance remained stable at 22,901 fans per game, the highest since 2019 (22,928). Last year’s playoff attendance was 109,239, the highest since 2015 (109,842).

Attendance in British Columbia, Toronto and Montreal – the CFL’s largest markets – is also up. The Lions’ attendance has more than doubled since 2021 to nearly 27,000 people per game while according to the league, attendance at Argos stadiums has increased by 75 percent since 2021.

Montreal’s growth is more than 60 percent since 2021, with year-over-year increases of 19 percent. And according to the CFL, its television audiences are on the rise after an increase of 9% in 2023.

Ambrosie, who stands six-foot-four and weighs 250 pounds, was also a hit with a majority of CFL fans who appreciated his outgoing, gregarious personality and easy approachability.

“My best days in this job have always been walking into a stadium, shaking hands with fans, talking to them and sharing their experiences, their passion and their love for the league,” he said. “Maybe someone will say one day that I’ve been a good ambassador for the league and that’s something I can be very proud of.”

But there were obstacles.

Ambrosie’s CFL 2.0 initiative, his vision to create an expanded global reach for the league, never fully came to fruition. The plan included exhibition games played in Mexico and potential television deals there.

In 2020, the CFL was the only professional sports league not to play due to the global pandemic. Ambrosie made repeated appeals to the government for financial assistance, but none came. No game would have cost the league $60 million to $80 million.

In 2022, the CFL experienced only its second players’ strike and the first since 1974, before it and the CFL Players’ Association ratified a seven-year collective agreement. Despite the social harmony, the union filed grievances against the league over issues such as revenue sharing and health and safety policies.

Ambrosie has long supported adding a 10th CFL franchise in the Maritimes, but the league appears no closer to that goal even though it has played games in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Ambrosie also faced the harshest player discipline in CFL history. In 2022, the league suspended Saskatchewan defensive lineman Garrett Moreno four games for his dangerous hit on Ottawa quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, verbal comments about Masoli’s legacy and a reckless tackle during a previous game.

In May, it suspended quarterback Chad Kelly for Toronto’s preseason and first nine regular-season games for violating its gender-based violence policy.

In April, the league indefinitely suspended retired Montreal defensive lineman Shawn Lemon for betting on championship games while playing with the Calgary Stampeders in 2021. Lemon remains suspended indefinitely after withdrawing and having launched an ultimately unsuccessful appeal.

And in December 2021, the CFL trumpeted its partnership with Genius Sports, a data, technology and business company. But the league has drawn criticism from fans and media over its difficulties in providing up-to-date game statistics.

Ambrosie said he has regrets, especially about the 2020 season.

“I would like to come back to 2020 and slow everything down,” Ambrosie said. “The world was spinning like a top.

“I wish now, looking back, that we would have slowed everyone down a little and thought things through. But we couldn’t find the bottom because no one knew where COVID was leading us.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 27, 2024.

Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press