Elks: Edmonton Eskimos 2018 v5

MoontoScott

Registered User
Jun 2, 2012
7,718
8,326
How exactly are they held accountable though? Whats the process?
Its a mystery as far as I can see.

Like most of the corporate board scene its basically who you know. You get onto one board and pretty soon that turns into a very lucrative business of 10 boards even though this one is volunteer (I believe). It raises your corporate profile and puts you in with the right people. There is no evaluation process or scorecard. The worst move ever was when they overruled public opinion and hired ET. That was a critical turning point for the club, after that people lost confidence in the EE's ability to make sound choices. It hasn't gotten much better since then.

In any organization it all starts at the very top. I don't know how Rhodes has amassed so much power except with the compliance of a questionable BOD.
 
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Gord

Registered User
Oct 9, 2005
9,830
481
Edmonton
well, I left before the end of the 3rd quarter of the game and posted on the train ride home.
my disgust hasn't lessened since then.

the only part of the esks from the board all the way down I'm not completely soured on is the defense, believe it or not.
sure they have a few issues, but i think they've been hanging tough for the most part, especially the short field they've been forced to defend so often.
 

Jimmi McJenkins

Sometimes miracles
Jan 12, 2006
74,797
33,500
Alberta
I like how they've sacrificed the Special Teams co-ordinator as if that will make the fan base less, as Gord nicely states, disgusted.

They need to get to firing.
 

Valhallis

Registered User
Aug 2, 2005
750
685
That was one of the worst Eskimos games I've ever seen. Nothing really much to add that hasn't been stated already. Nothing will change. Axing the Special Teams coach now (which should have been done months ago) isn't going to fix this team. And now all that Reilly contract talk makes things even more depressing. Can't blame the guy at all for wanting out of this org though.

Any injury updates yet?
 

Drivesaitl

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Oct 8, 2017
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For clarity on the BOD they are not "idiots" they are Professionals, Business people, people that either own their own companies, have had prior and other board experience etc. Many of these individuals have extensive experience that warrants them being on boards and multiple of them also serve on other boards.

One doesn't have to wonder about the BOD as information is disclosed on who they are (I've cited this before) and the annual report is also always made available.

This Esks blog links directly to the Annual report;

Eskimos Hold Annual General Meeting - Edmonton Eskimos

This is the present board;

Board of Directors - Edmonton Eskimos

I've also posted on who some of these people are, and what they do.

So theres no mystery on who these people are (tons of info online just do name searches) and theres no mystery on how to find out more as the BOD has a general meeting as well as the Annual report to shareholders.

My own concern is that the BOD focus is not sport specific, Football background not too represented.
 

Drivesaitl

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So that I don't write a mile long post I'm dividing this up. My own opinion is the BOD is selective in reporting success.

For instance in the report (which I encourage anybody to look at) they report a 4% gain in attendance in 2017 over the prior year. While this is technically accurate it lacks broader perspective. That the org is currently in one of the lowest attendance ebbs seen since the 1990's when the league was on the verge of folding. The reported attendance avg of 32,400 in 2017 is still around 6k less than the average from say 2000-2015.
More specifically Rhodes was appointed President in Dec 2011 so its fair to take a look at what Attendance has looked like since 2012 season. In that time the average attendance through 7 seasons to present day has been 32,500. 2018 is running a bit lower at 32,100 and is only that high due to the one game free Student tickets promotion. Its important to compare what attendance was like prior to Rhodes. From 2000-2011 the average attendance was 38K fans. So taking all that into context the BOD report of increasing attendance is misleading. Shareholders ought to be pointing that out if they are not.

Next, the team is reporting less Net income this year and stands at just 500K. A fair amount of what would otherwise be reinvested profit was instead spent on the unsuccessful "One Empire" campaign, and the halftime entertainments. The BOD is targeting millennial and youth demographics but being they have no info on ticket buyer demographic they can't know if this is successful, they report it as a success. To a critical eye the One Empire and younger market targeting has presumably not been successful, because attendance has not actually increased. It just appears to e additional spending.

Len Rhodes is a more interesting study. I would not fault the BOD as much as I would fault Rhodes. (although fault to the BOD for hiring him) Rhodes is somebody who "led a partnership with the Disney institute to improve game day experience" see how that quote from his own Presidents statement sits with you.
Or this one;
"Together, with his on-field and off-field staff, his objective is to create legendary memories for guests at the stadium. Rhodes has overseen many upgrades at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium to significantly improve the game day experience."

This doesn't wash with the game day experience that most fans are reporting. Anecdotally anybody I know that still even goes to games (I stopped the last 2 seasons) is reporting a poor experience. Also here on this board people are reporting negative experiences viewing the club. What Rhodes and the BOD do not apparently get is that fan experience is largely about winning and losing. Getting blown out on home field is not a great experience.

If anybody likes this kind of information say so, if not I won't continue to report it.
 

Drivesaitl

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That was one of the worst Eskimos games I've ever seen. Nothing really much to add that hasn't been stated already. Nothing will change. Axing the Special Teams coach now (which should have been done months ago) isn't going to fix this team. And now all that Reilly contract talk makes things even more depressing. Can't blame the guy at all for wanting out of this org though.

Any injury updates yet?

I agree getting rid of McDiarmid isn't going to help too much but its been a sore point for years and McDiarmid has seemed unqualified for as long as he's been here. For instance the Bombers plan to utilize Sayles as a quick rush knowing he has great acceleration around the end. he gets to the first block easy. I mean he gets all of it. he was there so quick he could've just grabbed the ball. He didn't even have to dive. He came clean, with his elite speed, and got there easy. The Bombers were even I think somewhat kind in not just bringing that package again. I think they probably could've blocked 2-3 punts, we don't make adjustments.

Next is the Esks signed a retuner just recently. He was expected to make the difference. He can't make a difference when blocking is non existent and he's getting gang tackled moments after getting the ball which happened basically all day on Saturday. I think at that point there was no other way to go than the axe. The team got a useful returner and still no results.

As far as the mess the offence is in a few things. Walker out longterm is a huge hit. Our most reliable receiver. Add that Williams has been playing injured and now looks to be out with a shoulder injury. He hasn't been 100%. Reilly as noted hasn't been 100% and is playing banged up. Reilly can't even throw an accurate deep ball now and has been struggling with this for weeks. The team earlier in the year was making a lot of gravy on big shots. With Walker and Williams out, and Reilly injured this isn't possible anymore. This has huge implications because the Bombers on Saturday brought the house almost every down. The Bombers knew the risk/reward on this day would be very positive going with the blitz because a wounded Reilly wasn't going to be able to hurt them. Which leads me to believe they knew something of Reilly's condition heading into this game.

In simplest terms the Bombers carefully scouted their opponent, probably gained a lot of information, and the Eskimos had very little to go on in terms of scouted tendencies. Basically any of us would have said to bring the blitz. Punish Nichols and make him beat the blitz. We didn't do that, Winnipeg did, all day. That's coaching and preparation. We didn't even make adjustments. We didn't move the pocket, we didn't throw motion, we didn't execute or even play call screens. We sat there for 4 quarters getting annihilated. Basically putting Reilly in traction.
 

rboomercat90

Registered User
Mar 24, 2013
14,590
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Edmonton
My dieheard Eskimos friend (who's got connections) said there are whispers that Reilly is going to BC because it's closer to his Seattle home. Henry Burris apparently said something about this on TSN as well but I don't know the context.

Also Hervey is already there and the organization isn't being run by idiots.

That will be a sad day if it happens but completely understandable.
The Reilly rumours must be true. People aren’t even waiting until the Grey Cup to leak them.
 

guymez

The Seldom Seen Kid
Mar 3, 2004
32,644
12,154
Like most of the corporate board scene its basically who you know. You get onto one board and pretty soon that turns into a very lucrative business of 10 boards even though this one is volunteer (I believe). It raises your corporate profile and puts you in with the right people. There is no evaluation process or scorecard. The worst move ever was when they overruled public opinion and hired ET. That was a critical turning point for the club, after that people lost confidence in the EE's ability to make sound choices. It hasn't gotten much better since then.

In any organization it all starts at the very top. I don't know how Rhodes has amassed so much power except with the compliance of a questionable BOD.

So @I am the Liquor is basically right.
The only way to hold the board accountable is by not buying tickets. Even then its a hope and pray process that they make the right decisions. There needs to be an actual accountability process installed otherwise the same people that have already made stupid decisions will just continue to make stupid decisions. On and on it goes.
 

Cloned

Begging for Bega
Aug 25, 2003
78,946
64,127
The Reilly rumours must be true. People aren’t even waiting until the Grey Cup to leak them.

Who needs Reilly when you can have $2 hot dog nights???

(It'll actually be $1 hot dog nights next year as that's the only way they'll be able to draw any attendance...)
 

Drivesaitl

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The Reilly rumours must be true. People aren’t even waiting until the Grey Cup to leak them.

I've been saying Reilly will be gone for a couple weeks now. The Journal had an article on how the negotiation would likely have to put Reilly over .5M salary. This was the Esks leaking this information (much like the Oilers do) to make a difficult decision more palatable. Its gotten to the point where I smell what Sunderland and Rhodes are doing.

The Esks will basically come out and say they can't afford Reilly, cap, yada yada, and "we feel our salary can be better spent' round 2. Remember this is what Sunderland had to say last offseason. look at how its worked...
 

bone

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Jun 24, 2003
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Who needs Reilly when you can have $2 hot dog nights???

(It'll actually be $1 hot dog nights next year as that's the only way they'll be able to draw any attendance...)

Did you see many people actually get them. Whenever I tried with my daughter some 20 year old dude would walk by with an entire tray and the concession would say they are out and it would be a 15 minute wait.

Needless to say I wanted to watch the game and gave up on the hotdogs, however, in retrospect that was probably the wrong choice.


The promotion was a good idea, but as typical the execution was poor. To manage the lineups, probably should have limited it to 2 or 3 per customer per visit.

It was further compounded in that when my daughter inevitably became cold and wanted hot chocolate the only way to get it was to wait in line with the people waiting for them to cook hotdogs.

The game day experience on Saturday led to my first early departure in many years.
 
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Drivesaitl

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Although the Esks can be accused of doing some false leader advertising with the 2 buck hot dogs and those not being readily available theres also a significant and ongong problem trying to get any staff in to work the concessions. Also that charities rotate in to provide some of those volunteer staffers. Commonwealth has had no other events other than Esks and its hard to keep anybody interested in even coming in for a shift being that its so few events. So turnover and never knowing who you get in is probably a constant problem.

I think people take for granted that you just line up at a concession and its going to be running efficiently. I'm fairly amazed they get anybody to even perform these roles. Its worse than a carny job.

In fairness.
 
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rboomercat90

Registered User
Mar 24, 2013
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I've been saying Reilly will be gone for a couple weeks now. The Journal had an article on how the negotiation would likely have to put Reilly over .5M salary. This was the Esks leaking this information (much like the Oilers do) to make a difficult decision more palatable. Its gotten to the point where I smell what Sunderland and Rhodes are doing.

The Esks will basically come out and say they can't afford Reilly, cap, yada yada, and "we feel our salary can be better spent' round 2. Remember this is what Sunderland had to say last offseason. look at how its worked...
Same reason Tillman got rid of Ray.

I could almost live with this strategy if the organization had some kind of plan to replace Reilly. Hard to believe they do when he’d taken every snap for the last two years before the final minute of the Winnipeg game when he was finally too beat up to go back on the field.

If they knew they’d have trouble signing Reilly then other guys should have been getting game action just to see what they had. They pushed Franklin out last season by not giving him playing time even though there were ample opportunities to do so through out the year. I know he hasn’t established himself in Toronto but he’s miles ahead of anybody else we have here now. Complete incompetence from Sutherland and Maas on this one.
 

Drivesaitl

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Same reason Tillman got rid of Ray.

I could almost live with this strategy if the organization had some kind of plan to replace Reilly. Hard to believe they do when he’d taken every snap for the last two years before the final minute of the Winnipeg game when he was finally too beat up to go back on the field.

If they knew they’d have trouble signing Reilly then other guys should have been getting game action just to see what they had. They pushed Franklin out last season by not giving him playing time even though there were ample opportunities to do so through out the year. I know he hasn’t established himself in Toronto but he’s miles ahead of anybody else we have here now. Complete incompetence from Sutherland and Maas on this one.

Yep. I'm probably the biggest Reilly fan on the board but even I was saying you HAVE to be rotating in backups to get them some game experience and keep them interested. I advocated for a Wilkinson/Moon type understudy role. There is the comment thought that Reilly isn't that kind of dude, that the player himself was never too interested in carrying a clipboard to anybody. That's the one knock on Reilly that is legit, that he showed a dislike for not always being on the field.

Man, Bombers got Streveler upcoming who I can see being a star in this league and we got nothing.
 

Drivesaitl

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Did you see many people actually get them. Whenever I tried with my daughter some 20 year old dude would walk by with an entire tray and the concession would say they are out and it would be a 15 minute wait.

Needless to say I wanted to watch the game and gave up on the hotdogs, however, in retrospect that was probably the wrong choice.


The promotion was a good idea, but as typical the execution was poor. To manage the lineups, probably should have limited it to 2 or 3 per customer per visit.

It was further compounded in that when my daughter inevitably became cold and wanted hot chocolate the only way to get it was to wait in line with the people waiting for them to cook hotdogs.

The game day experience on Saturday led to my first early departure in many years.

I haven't been to a game in last two seasons but are all the concessions including in the additions still open? That's typically where I find the lineups to be less although that's franchise vendors with their own fare.

With attendance at 28K lineups should not have been too much of an issue. Its unfortunate it was.

The Hot Chocolate is an interesting comment. With the Esks trying to get a younger crowd, and for parents to bring their kids (they express wanting this for fan continuity) its unfortunate they can't make readily available such things as Hot Chocolate. There should be different lines for different things as is done by many vendors. Just have one staffer pouring hot Chocolates/Coffee on a cold day. Also, concessions should mostly be cash only imo. The lines move faster that way.

Finally, they should just issue a receipt for those that have paid for the dogs and have them wait on the side so more people can be served.
 

bone

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Jun 24, 2003
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I haven't been to a game in last two seasons but are all the concessions including in the additions still open? That's typically where I find the lineups to be less although that's franchise vendors with their own fare.

With attendance at 28K lineups should not have been too much of an issue. Its unfortunate it was.

The Hot Chocolate is an interesting comment. With the Esks trying to get a younger crowd, and for parents to bring their kids (they express wanting this for fan continuity) its unfortunate they can't make readily available such things as Hot Chocolate. There should be different lines for different things as is done by many vendors. Just have one staffer pouring hot Chocolates/Coffee on a cold day. Also, concessions should mostly be cash only imo. The lines move faster that way.

Finally, they should just issue a receipt for those that have paid for the dogs and have them wait on the side so more people can be served.

Yeah they are still all open, and to be fair I didn't go to them all, but checked at 3 of the ones that had hot dogs and it seemed to be the same at each. The one in the addition was the one was where I saw a dude with an entire tray to himself.

Generally, they have done a decent job of splitting products between the different stands. This weekend was just different because of the special and it just so happened that the hot chocolate was at a hot dog stand. Fortunately, the beer sales were in different lines, but those lines weren't an issue, likely because you can only sell two per person, and you don't have cook the beer before serving.

I suspect if they do the same promo again, they'll do better. They've gotten pretty efficient on the busy carry over 50/50 games so I suspect they'd learn how to get it right after some practice.
 

iCanada

Registered User
Feb 6, 2010
18,850
18,275
Edmonton
You know what gets me? Is side from winning in general, the fan experience hasn't even changed.

They've added a few side shows that's it. Its not like they've introduced wifi in the stadium or anything. And really we dont need it... just win baby.
 

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