Craig Reynolds, President and CEO of the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders, shared information and insight on Thursday as the keynote speaker at the latest event in the Regina & District Chamber of Commerce’s Luncheon Series.

Reynolds’ presentation focused on the 2022 Grey Cup, the 2023 football team and 2023 business operations. But before he began the presentation, Reynolds spoke directly to Regina business community leaders who were in attendance about the support received by the Riders.

“We’ve been through a lot and the one thing I will say about the Regina business community is they’re massively supportive of our organization. We certainly appreciate that support and thank them for their continued support over the last few years,” said Reynolds.

In the Grey Cup portion of his address, Reynolds presented some amazing statistics from the week-long event that culminated with the Toronto Argonauts defeating the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the championship game.

• An estimated 210,000 people attended events through Festival Week.
• The game and festival generated $67.8 million in economic activity in Canada, adding $25.7 million to Saskatchewan’s GDP.
• Spectator spending was nearly $17.6 million.
• 99 per cent of the attendees rated the Grey Cup positively with 94 per cent rating it as “excellent” or “very good” for an overall rating of 4.6 out of five.

Reynolds mentioned that organizers did investigate the one per cent of the attendees who had a lower rating for the Grey Cup.

“We drilled down on that one per cent and if you can believe it, those people also had a good time but they were mad at us over the offensive line so they rated us lower,” said Reynolds jokingly.

Expectations for the 2022 were high with the fanbase expecting the Riders to play in the Grey Cup game. However, a tumultuous season ended with the Riders finishing fourth in the West Division and missing the postseason.

“As you know, the one constant in sport is change and that’s very true. There’s no secret that expectations last season were very high and we fell short. When you have a year like we’ve been pointing to, there’s going to be more significant change,” said Reynolds. “I believe Jeremy O’Day, our general manager, and Craig Dickenson, our head coach, had a really great offseason.”

Reynolds stressed that heading into 2023, the Riders are focused on returning to Rider Nation.

“We can’t wait to get back to basics and get back to our core to provide the best experience we possibly can to our fans . . . We need to work extra hard to build a team that our fans are proud of,” said Reynolds.

In addition to struggling on the field, the Riders have been dealing with post-pandemic challenges, inflationary issues and an aging fan demographic. Reynolds said the major challenge is finding a way to overcome the post-pandemic challenges.

“I think there was this thought process that the pandemic would end and everything would bounce back to where they were previously and that was not the case.  I can tell you that it’s just not that way, not only in our industry but in the business generally. It’s events entertainment across the board,” said Reynolds.

“You combine that with the economic inflationary pressures and we all know that it’s the discretionary spending that goes first. It’s not just us, it’s the events industry that needs support and have people show up like they’ve never done before.”

Reynolds is confident that by focusing on families, returning to the community and providing the best possible in-game experience for the fans that the Riders will have a successful 2023 season.