4-5 years ago, I clearly thought that the Impact (at that time) would easily become the #1 team of the summer season in Quebec.
Drogba and Piatti had installed a winning culture within the organization, and we felt that the club had a winning culture and had broadened its partisan base.
As for the Alouettes, the organization was losing on the field, it was learned that management was overvaluing attendance, and the club was put under trusteeship by the league to be sold, only to be put back under trusteeship a second time.
Saputo’s lack of vision
At the time, the Impact had the opportunity to become the #2 team after the Habs. Instead, Joey Saputo took the open decision to become a sales team, i.e. to develop players and sell them on the international scene, then reinvest in the team. To this end, Tony Marinaro’s question at Gabriel Gervais’s conference: what to do with the $15 million obtained from the latest player transfers? Gabriel Gervais struggled to answer. He probably has the toughest job in Montreal professional sports… defending the indefensible!
The customer experience at the stadium is stagnating, not to say declining. The club has difficulty filling Stade Saputo when a star like Lionel Messi is in town, television audiences are stagnant and confidence in the coaching staff is non-existent, as demonstrated by the turnover of recent years… In short, there’s nothing very exciting when it comes to Montreal CF.
The Alouettes’ winning mentality
As for the Alouettes, you could take everything I’ve said above, read the opposite and you’d have your summary. Although in a peculiar situation with trusteeship and two changes of ownership, the coaching staff was able to convince everyone involved with a plan to get the team back on the road to victory and success.
PKP quickly understood that he should not be in charge of the team’s football decisions, but concentrate on rebuilding the team’s branding. Despite an ordinary start to the 2023 season, the club was not distracted by the team’s performance. The result: the Alouettes won the Grey Cup last fall.
As Maxime Truman often reports on X, audiences are growing and the atmosphere at Perceval-Molson Stadium is improving week by week.
The team, once on life support, is consolidating its position as Montreal’s #2 professional sports team. Not just Montreal, but the Alouettes buzz is slowly taking over Quebec!
The recipe is simple when you’re an owner:
- Trust your coaching staff.
- Give them the means.
- Don’t interfere with the team’s line-up.
- Demonstrate progress on the pitch.
Marketing will take care of itself later.
Toronto is the future of CF!
At least through the MLSE model. MLSE manages all of Toronto’s professional teams, in addition to the Blue Jays. It’s an integrated model that allows for consolidation of resources and more effective media/marketing deployment. I have the impression that PKP fits this definition quite well.
With Québecor, he already has a well-honed marketing infrastructure, and this may well be the kind of challenge he’d like to take on.
Otherwise, I can’t think of a better one for CF Montreal than the FC Bologna branch. The danger is that the team will become indifferent in the eyes of its fan base. Tragically, this is already the case to some extent, as season tickets are declining and, publicly, people like to buy their tickets by the piece.
I’m not calling for the sale of the team, but in the offices of Stade Saputo, we should seriously ally ourselves with the Montreal Alouettes:
- Organize joint promotions.
- A major joint marketing campaign in Greater Montreal.
- And integrate the two teams’ marketing teams.
Otherwise, I see no future for CF, and the team must act quickly. Otherwise, the club’s future will no longer be in Montreal, but with another owner who could move the Montreal 11.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Saputo will see the light at the end of the tunnel!