Buoyed by a home playoff game and fans’ robust response to a new look, the Saskatchewan Roughriders announced “strong financial results” at their Annual General Meeting on Tuesday.
The community-owned CFL team realized a profit of nearly $2.1 million — the sixth-best surplus in franchise history — during the 2024-25 financial year, which ended on March 31st.
As well, the EBIDA (Earnings before Interest, Depreciation and Amortization) soared to the $4.7-million range.
“It was a good year financially … obviously a bounce-back year on the field,” President-CEO Craig Reynolds said.
“Anytime you’re able to have several major revenue items grow and manage your expenses, you tend to have a really good financial year.
“Hosting a home playoff game is important and certainly adds to the bottom line. That certainly is one of the reasons for the revenue growth.
“You can’t talk about last year without talking about the success of merchandise sales and the Alt Logo, Alt Jersey launch. That had a significant impact on the financial statements.”
The Obsidian Green alternate jerseys and logo helped merchandising revenue border on $6.5 million — a 60-per-cent increase from 2023-24.
“We were reasonably confident that it would resonate with our fans, but I don’t think we had any idea how much it would resonate,” Reynolds said. “We saw that from the launch, on Day 1 and the days following.
“We quickly realized we were going to blow past our projections. It vastly exceeded our expectations.”
Chief Financial Officer Kent Paul, celebrating his 10th anniversary with the team, presented a financial statement that included net income of $2,087,770 — a turnaround of $3,189,142, year over year.
The EBIDA figure of $4,673,068 represented an ascent of $3,167,679 (or 210 per cent) from 2023-24.
Paul referred to EBIDA as “one of the key financial measures the Club has focused on the past several years” because “it provides a more consistent measure of the Club’s core operational profitability as it removes the Club’s amortization expense. A significant portion of that expense relates to the Club’s one-time, up-front capital investment in Mosaic Stadium.”
The Club also paid $3 million in facility fees to the City of Regina to support the financial sustainability of Mosaic Stadium.
Paul cited total revenues of $40,836,975 (up from $35,579,893) and expenses of $38,749,205 (compared to $36,681,265).
Overall, there were “strong financial results,” according to Paul.
It helped considerably that the Roughriders posted a 9-8-1 record after back-to-back 6-12-0 seasons. The Green and White finished a strong second in the West Division before defeating the B.C. Lions 28-19 to advance to the Western Final.
The home playoff game produced $1.5 million in revenues.
In the months that followed, the Roughriders saw new season tickets grow by 78 per cent over the previous year.
“There was excitement around the team,” Reynolds said. “Although we didn’t finish the way we wanted to, we saw really good growth, hosting a home playoff game.
“I think there was some good momentum. We were able to retain our core and bring back the majority of our team and all of our All-Stars, so there is some excitement and expectations around that.
“As well, we’ve really been trying to focus in on providing value to our season-ticket members and then communicating that value. Some of these things we’ve done in the past, but we haven’t really communicated it to the extent that we maybe wanted to.
“We’ve introduced some new opportunities and some new value items to our season-ticket members, and we’ve been communicating some of the flexible options. Those types of things are important.
“The other thing we’ve done is we’ve really made a concerted effort to reach out to the business community, the small business community, to grow our season-ticket base not only from our fans, but from the business community throughout Saskatchewan.”
Overall, Reynolds noted “marginal growth” over the previous year in total season tickets, “reversing a trend we’ve seen since the pandemic, which was positive.” The season-ticket base is now in the range of 15,500.
Another positive note: The Roughriders carry a 3-0 record into Saturday’s game against B.C. (5 p.m., Mosaic Stadium).
“I’m fairly confident we’re going to see some attendance growth this year,” Reynolds said.
“We’ve already sold 7,000 more tickets than we did at this time last year. Now, there’s lots of time left and lots of things can change, but that’s certainly a positive trend.
“This game (versus B.C.) is also trending quite positively at this stage right now.”
Along the same lines, the Club’s Stabilization Fund has increased to $10,420,275, which is the largest balance since 2018. The Fund stood at $9,645,190 after the 2023-24 financial year.
The total assets stand at $73 million, including $37 million in capital assets that relate primarily to the team’s investment in Mosaic Stadium.
Tuesday’s night’s Annual General Meeting, held at Mosaic Stadium’s SportsCage Lounge, was the final official function for Dave Pettigrew as Chair of the Board of Directors. He has served the maximum term (nine years) on the Board, as has Terri Strunk.
The Board welcomed two new members — Darren Anaka and Tina Svedahl.
Blair Ross, Regan Exner and Greg Yuel were elected to new three-year terms. The join Douglas Hodson (incoming Chair), Andrew MacCorquodale, Rhonda Ekstrom, Mackenzie Kilshaw, Edmund Bellegarde and Susan Flett.
