Edmonton Eskimos
Posted by Vi Hughes on Aug 11, 2016
Tuesday’s speaker this week was Scott Murray (pictured), VP of Ticket Sales and Service for the Edmonton Eskimos. He talked to us about the Eskimos from a business perspective. He explained that the team is community owned with 80 shareholders, and is run by a volunteer board of nine directors.
Together with the City of Edmonton, they have spent over fifteen million dollars on improvements to Commonwealth Stadium in the last five years. Football is a unique business model, with only 10 days a year of actual sales, and it is also quite cyclical in nature.
The Eskimos have always been supporters of various local organizations. One of these is the Telus Champions in the Community Program, where the players have made over eighty appearances per year in the community. Another is the donation of the profit from the game day 50/50 towards supporting junior football in Edmonton. They regularly support the U of A Golden Bears, the Huskies and the Wildcats junior football teams. They have also raised and donated over four hundred thousand to support ovarian cancer research due to the personal efforts in support of a former staff member with ovarian cancer. They also support the ABC council of Women’s Shelters through the volunteer efforts of several players who have taken specialized training so that they can provide counseling for young men in our community. This program is currently being expanded to other teams in the CFL.
They also support children and families in need, through partnering with various social agencies around Edmonton, by providing free tickets for the family to attend football games. They do this through a program where ticket holders, or private donors can donate either cash or their unused tickets to the Grid Iron Gang. Overall it was a very interesting talk, and he graciously answered many questions from the audience.
Scott Murray