The Edmonton Elks appear to be on the upswing after enduring the darkest chapter in franchise history, so much so that team president and CEO Chris Morris believes the team can be profitable in the relatively near future.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year was our first year. Within five years, I would expect that we\u2019re profitable \u2014 if not before that. I think that year three and four is where we have to start looking at where that would be a viability,\u201d Morris told 3DownNation in a recent wide-ranging interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel very strongly that this place can be not just profitable, but very profitable within a three-to-five-year window. The first year (2025), we knew \u2026 we were going to have to sort of rally and do the best we can and start turning some minds and hearts. This next year (2026), we feel we have a nice base in that area. Now we\u2019ve started to build our roster the way we want to \u2014 we start winning some games this year, and then next year (2027) is where we should start approaching where we\u2019re getting closer, we\u2019re somewhere in that range (of breaking even).<\/p>\n \u201cThen, years four (2028) and five (2029) is where we should be looking to be profitable again. We have a huge stadium here. We have lots of seats here. \u2026 They have the wrong guy here if he\u2019s sitting here telling you, \u2018We don\u2019t care about being profitable.\u2019 There\u2019s a whole bunch of pieces to building it and you have to build it right, but if you build it right in this city, you should be a profitable sports franchise, especially with football and especially with this facility.\u201d<\/p>\n The 57-year-old revealed that the Elks lost around two-thirds of their season ticket base over the last decade, falling from over 20,000 to 7,000. Morris cited a \u201ccatastrophic series of events\u201d as the cause of the collapse, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a record-setting 22-game home losing skid, and what he termed the \u201cshocking, alarming, and disrespectful\u201d manner in which the team changed its name.<\/p>\n Edmonton has missed the playoffs in six of the last seven CFL seasons, including each of the last five. For longtime fans of the team, this is an unthinkable failure. The club made 34 consecutive postseason appearances from 1972 to 2005, winning 10 Grey Cups during that time. Morris played along the offensive line for 14 of those seasons. He won three Grey Cup rings and never missed the playoffs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re that bad, it takes time to regain credibility. You start off by building the foundational pieces, doing the right things and doing business the right way, but the reality is now we gotta start showing on the field,\u201d said Morris. \u201cWe feel very good about heading into this next season and I think a lot of our fan base are starting to see that, but the reality is some of them are going, \u2018I gotta wait and see what\u2019s going to happen here.’\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cClose to 90 percent of the people who come in here who fill out surveys around their game-day experience are not just happy, they\u2019re over-the-moon happy with the game-day experience. There\u2019s a lot of positives going on \u2026 but it\u2019s like perfume on a pig if you\u2019re not winning games.\u201d<\/p>\n Edmonton was once the CFL\u2019s financial stalwart, consistently drawing crowds between 30,000 and 40,000 and posting annual profits of up to $6 million.<\/p>\n In the rare instances that the team lost money, there were always mitigating factors. Edmonton reported a $2.3 million loss in 2010 but paid $7.5 million toward the construction of the Commonwealth Community Recreation Centre, $1.3 million for new turf at Commonwealth Stadium, and bought out the contracts of then-head coach Richie Hall and then-general manager Danny Maciocia.<\/p>\n After the last few years, it\u2019s hard to envision the Elks consistently getting back to crowds of that size. On paper, CFL attendance has dropped 7.5 percent league-wide since 2015, though a significant portion of that decline can be attributed to the collapse in Edmonton. If the Elks are removed from the dataset, CFL attendance has fallen only 1.9 percent over the last 10 seasons.<\/p>\n This raises the question: what kind of attendance do the Elks need in order to be profitable? The answer is lower than what one might expect.<\/p>\n \u201c20,000 would be close (to making us profitable). At 20,000, depending on what your partnership is, depending on your merchandise, what your other streams of revenue are, you could be close. 22,000 to 25,000 is where you\u2019re like, \u2018OK, now we\u2019re making money, now we\u2019re going to be a profitable organization,’\u201d said Morris.<\/p>\n \u201cAveraging 25,000 if the team\u2019s winning? I don\u2019t think that\u2019s something that\u2019s beyond belief even in the next couple of years, but there\u2019s no amount of fairy dust that I can spread around here if we start off 0-7 again. It just doesn\u2019t matter, you have to be good. You have to have a good football product.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to dwindling crowds, it\u2019s clear the Elks suffered similar losses in the area of corporate sponsorship. Shortly after he was hired following the 2024 season, Morris took it upon himself to try to reconnect the team with the local business community. He was met with significant pushback and skepticism.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a meeting with several key prominent business owners and movers and shakers in the city when I first got here, and they were all just so angry about different things that had been done from a business standpoint and from a relationship standpoint,\u201d said Morris.<\/p>\n \u201cSitting in that room listening to all the things, all I could really say was \u2018Look, it\u2019s gonna be different.\u2019 You could tell by the looks on their faces, like, \u2018OK, there\u2019s been a bunch of presidents through here saying all that sort of stuff,\u2019 but I think over the last year, I\u2019ve become really good friends with several of them and it\u2019s been meeting after meeting and connection after connection, and now several of them are so invested with us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Morris indicated there\u2019s an upcoming gathering of close to 100 prominent local business owners scheduled to take place at the home of Grant Fedoruk, the owner and president of Leading Edge Physiotherapy. Entry is contingent upon interest in some form of partnership with the team.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, Fedoruk\u2019s biography on Instagram describes him as an Oilers and Cowboys fan. The Elks, apparently, didn\u2019t make the cut.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are people who were so disappointed with the way we were doing things that they just didn\u2019t want to be connected. For me, I can\u2019t as one person stand on top of a building here in Edmonton and yell out, \u2018The Edmonton Elks are going to be a great organization! We\u2019re going to be awesome, character, integrity, all these things!\u2019 and have people listen,\u201d said Morris.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to touch as many people as possible that have prominent and influential roles and get them to help me, and have them be out in the community saying, \u2018Hey, I talked to Chris and these are the things they\u2019re doing. This is how this business is gonna run moving forward, and the Thompson family is committed to this community.\u2019 (We need to) have them go out and be market multipliers saying, \u2018Look, this is why it\u2019s good to come back and be part of this thing.\u2019 I think we\u2019re well down the road on that. I think we\u2019ve got a lot of really good things going on here right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Morris said the team has retained over 95 percent of its season ticket holders from last season, which was a priority given how the base had dwindled. With so many renewals secured, the team is now making a push to garner new season ticket holders ahead of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re way ahead on season tickets (relative to last year). We\u2019re way ahead on partnerships. There\u2019s a lot of positive vibes in the city right now about how we\u2019re doing things,\u201d said Morris. \u201cWe\u2019re getting a bunch more (season ticket holders) in the hopper here. It\u2019s going to be a process, but we\u2019re making huge traction and huge headway this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Powered by RedCircle<\/a><\/p>\n The Elks were publicly owned from their inception in 1949 until 2024, when lifelong fan and local construction magnate Larry Thompson became the team\u2019s first private owner. A little over a year after the purchase was announced, Thompson died after suffering severe complications following surgery. He was 65.<\/p>\n Deb Thompson, Larry\u2019s wife, released a statement following his death expressing the family\u2019s enduring commitment to supporting the team. According to Morris, nothing has since changed.<\/p>\n \u201cDeb is very, very committed to making sure that this goes forward. I think she loves the community and she loves what it does for the community, but she also has that sense of, \u2018I know how important this was to Larry.\u2019 I think that\u2019s important to her because it was so important to Larry. She loves the sport, and her kids as well. They are fully committed to making sure this happens,\u201d said Morris.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what it should be. It should be all of us together with the same sort of vision for how this looks like and building it out together, and I think we\u2019re well on our way.\u201d<\/p>\n The Thompson family is also involved in the revitalization of nearby Clarke Stadium. The Elks will play their home preseason game there in May while Commonwealth Stadium plays host to the Canadian Men\u2019s National Team. Morris indicated there are plans for the venue to be domed and serve as a high-performance centre and community outreach hub, where kids from the local community will be able to visit Elks players every day.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Thompson family vision is to build out this section of Edmonton and to make sure that it\u2019s taken care of and to make sure that the kids here and the families here have opportunities,\u201d said Morris. \u201cThe Clarke revitalization is part of it and the family is very, very motivated and excited about what we can do to have an impact on the surrounding community.\u201d<\/p>\n One could argue that Commonwealth Stadium is an obstacle to the team\u2019s future success. Built in 1978, the venue is far larger than necessary by modern Canadian sports standards. Empty seats are bad for generating an engaging atmosphere, which is key to attracting fans.<\/p>\n