OverDrive - Johnston on becoming the CFL commissioner, the vision for the league and the spotlight of the teams

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

CFL Commissioner Stewart Johnston joined OverDrive to discuss becoming the CFL commissioner, the vision for the progression of the league, the values of the entertainment factor, the overview of the leadership in the league and more.

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this Saturday at 3 p.m. on News Talk 1010. Here he is, the new commissioner of the Canadian Football League, Stuart Johnston. Stu, congrats. Thank you for doing this. How are we feeling this afternoon? Hey fellas, I'm doing great and I just say bring it on. See what we got for you here.

We've been prepping for a while. It's great to have you. You've only been waiting for years for this opportunity. Exactly. Do you remember when we met a decade ago? I don't think the audience really cares that much about it. But anyway, I saw you at your introductory press conference today and I saw you last week in person when you're still here and uh... noodles was referencing you know your passion for football but i guess take us through this like this a big big game and you the commissioner of the canadian football league

what was so appealing about this and and why did you pounce on it mark it is a big game and uh... it's all uh... it all still feels even after today a little surreal. Um, obviously, um, growing up, spending more than half my life with you guys and, and with bell media and TSN, uh, that was a, that was a big move. And it took something pretty special for me to think about making that move. Uh, noodles, you mentioned my, my passion for football probably starts there. I like you guys. I love all sport. I wish we were doing this interview on the golf course.

But the passion for football's been there since I was a kid. And then I think the league's in a really good spot. There are a lot of great metrics that are showing growth and momentum. So I feel like there's excellent, there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the league and yet I think there's a lot of growth left with the CFL. And part

of that is really the ownership group, guys. We've all been around the CFL for a long time. There's been a mix of great owners in there, but to have nine really strong ownership groups at once I think that was that was a big part of the appeal as well. Well in terms of growth I've we've had this conversation on our show a lot with with every every league where you have your die-hard long-term fans that love the sport love the sport the way it is right now they're protective of the sport they're protective of the history, they're protective of the history, but at the same time you've got them, they're in. They're gonna be a part of this ride for a long, long time.

How do you marry, like respecting that, respecting the history, respecting the diehard fan with maybe doing things different or having a bit of a different vision to bring in new fans? How do you marry the two? Well, I think you do it with a lot of thoughtfulness you you think you do it iteratively it's continuous improvement it's not wholesale change you you and you do it with a lot of communication

you know I'm looking forward to a lot of communication with GMs, with team presidents, with owners, with the league office, with fans and with players. And then you want to take that input and you understand kind of where, what will it take to kind of push this forward and create more interest? So as you think about, you know, kind of changes to the, to the game itself, look, I love Canadian football and, and I'm telling you in 2025 that Rouge is here to stay. But I think that we've got to think about entertainment. How to constantly improve the entertainment value of the product we're putting out there. We know we have the

players. What is it going to continue to make it entertaining? And, and, you know, this comes from my, my time with you guys, it is, how do we get that content into the right hands? So how do you, you know, how do you expose it to folks that may actually like football, but they don't know it yet? Uh, and of course a lot of that is about the younger viewers and ultimately guys, the long, you know, I know you've got kids. My daughter played her first flight football game, grade nine, all girls and loved it. You know, I'm a big believer that if we can just get kids playing football, touching football,

learning, learning the basics, you're going to find people are going to fall in love with the game and that can only help with the fan base. So taking over, you have a unique skill set because you know the broadcasting game. You know, you were just talking about the entertainment. I mean, this is where you're coming from. Is that where you feel like your strength is? You can step into the league and go, hey, I've been on the other side here and had the rights deals and done a lot to sell the game. So now you're running the league, you know the other side here and you had the rights deals and and done a lot to sell the game.

So now you're running the league, you know the other side. Is this kind of where you can marry the two and help grow the game? Yeah, Jamie, I think so. I think that that's, you know, my comfort zone is certainly anything related to the media business where that's negotiating rights deals to driving distribution strategies of content. And then ultimately the second piece, Jamie, is revenue. I've been leading the ad sales team for the last eight years across all Bell Media platforms,

led the distribution revenue team. I think every business wants to improve their bottom line through top line growth as opposed to cost cutting. And that's where I want to come in and try and, try and help this team push us forward across all the different commercial avenues where we can grow revenue. But I've got some weak spots, I've got some gaps,

you know, in this, in my, I've got a learning spots, I've got some gaps. I've got a learning curve on football operations, as much as you and I, we all love football. Football operations is a complicated beast. And so there's areas where I need to make sure I'm listening, learning, actively studying, and eventually participating. With Stuart Johnston, the new head, the new commissioner of the Canadian football league. And that'll happen quickly.

I mean, something's gonna happen likely in the preseason, certainly into the regular season where you're gonna have to be judge, jury, and maybe executioner. I don't know if it'll ever get that far, Stu, but the commissioner, from a fan perspective, you're talking about the money and the profitability and growing the game and obviously fans can benefit from that but they're gonna see their quarterback get

hit in the head and say what's the commissioner gonna do on that like where do you stand on on your role in in taking on that role that's very something very different I mean you're you're gonna have to possibly suspend players and find players and find coaches and like how do you prepare for that? Well you're absolutely right Brian. The good news for me is that we have an outstanding operations team already and within that there are very clear protocols and guidelines basically almost every play you can think of illegal slash legal, slash suspension worthy, fine worthy is actually all documented and there is a process.

So I think as you know, I'm going to lean heavily on that, on the operations team, but I also want to bring my own judgment. And so, you know, this discipline you've seen in other leagues, disciplines carried out in various ways We're gonna land on the right way to to to to launch our discipline program But at the end of the day the buck stops with me, especially on anything that's egregious And I can tell you protecting star players is an absolute priority if we want to have the most entertaining product on

is an absolute priority. If we want to have the most entertaining product on the field, protecting our players and having them continue to play is incredibly important. So that gives you a glimpse of kind of my mindset. With Stewart Johnston, the new commissioner of the Canadian Football League, you were introduced today, same day as night one, round one of the NFL draft tonight. As you know, at TSN we have CFL NFL anything football it's on TSN I'm curious your approach you know because when you're in your previous job you understood the importance of the NFL the popularity of the NFL how do you look at it in the in the chair that

you're in now is it is the NFL a competitor with you do you appreciate the growth of the NFL because then that means ostensibly, you would believe the growth of football is there, like we were talking about a few moments ago, any way you can get people into loving the sport. Is that a viewpoint of the CFL? Take us through your viewpoint of the NFL, its popularity, specifically in the greater Toronto area, but throughout the country, and how it factors in and how the CFL looks at it. Well I'll start and say your last point is a starting point for me. Anything that drives the interest and fandom in the game of football of any kind I'm in favor of. I think if passionate football players and

passionate football fans will not be forced to choose which brand of that football that they want to watch. It's open for business for everyone. We have, I think, the NFL is the biggest sports league in the world. And, um, I have great relationships with many players that are many of the, the corporate folks and the execs at, at the NFL. And then it's my belief that we should have a strong relationship with the NFL. It doesn't mean a partnership necessarily, but a great relationship. Lines of communication can only help.

We actually are trying to achieve the same thing which is the growth of the sport and I know at an operational level our officiating operations crew great really strong relationship with the NFL I think that's important I don't see them really to answer your question maybe more succinctly Brian I don't see. I don't see the NFL as competitors. I see them as having similar objectives as we do. Which is amazing. Before we get you out of here, I mean, do you envision yourself at some point because of where you've come from?

Are you gonna storm into the production truck or into production and get after Eddie about something that he ran, maybe a uh... bad days on upon a team or something like that is the is the old stew johnston pretend potentially coming out from the tsn side you just have to keep state keep a professional on the other side

uh... i'm gonna be a bigger older than i ever have a half a half a day if you'd like to be a bit on speed dial into the truck. Anything I don't like. So I know the, the, the, the crew that we have, you mentioned Eddie, I'm sorry for the inside names for your listeners, but Hinesy and, and they're just, I've talked about this a little, a little bit throughout the day and a number of other calls where it said, this is the, this not all a world class professional production crew but they could not be more passionate about this league and

that is really what I think TSN and RDS have brought to the CFL for so many years and I think they would tell you I haven't had to call them hardly at all well that's a good sign and we haven't got to games yet so we'll hold you to that once we get there and the great cup is in Winnipeg this year. You'll actually you'll have to work this great cup weeks too because I'm sure you've been doing it for a long time and PSN they get out there and they have a good time. We put on a good show. Maybe you can bring in the harmonicas from LA.

That's right. Maybe you can lean into the harmonicas for the maybe for the anthem. That would be better. I like the ideas. Yes, we're going to have a lot for you. But we're obviously really happy for you and we couldn't thank you personally, us, on this show for all the support over the years.

We'll continue to do this down the road, so good luck with the new gig. The same to you guys. It's been a pleasure working with you all these years and I'm looking forward to staying in touch like this. Absolutely. There he is, Stewart Johnston, the new commissioner of the Canadian Football League. All new, all Canadian. The best of our great nation, one song at a time. This is Justin Bieber.

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