The Saskatchewan Roughriders held their annual general meeting on Tuesday night in Harvard Media's SportsCage Lounge at Mosaic Stadium.
During the meeting, the Riders unveiled the team's final financial numbers from the 2024 season, which resulted in a net profit of $2.1 million.
Chief Financial Officer Kent Paul reported increased revenue in 2024, driven by the opportunity to host a home playoff game, strong retail sales fuelled by the popularity of the team’s introduction of the alternate obsidian jersey and logo, and overall revenue growth in many areas.
Paul also stated the team continued to manage expenses closely, despite experiencing increases associated with increased revenues and continued investments in football operations.
The team’s balance sheet, according to Paul, is in a strong position with net assets increasing to $51.3 million and a stabilization fund, which has increased to $10.4 million, the largest balance since 2018
At the gate, the Riders saw more fans take in games at Mosaic Stadium. The 2024 season saw an increase in overall gate receipts from $14 million in 2023 to $14.4 million in 2024. That increase was driven by record-setting single-game tickets, including breaking the new Mosaic Stadium’s single-game attendance record for the Labour Day Classic. Unfortunately, the growth in single-game tickets was offset somewhat by a decrease in season tickets.
However, when presenting the 2024 financial details, Paul and Riders Chief Executive Officer Craig Reynolds noted 2025 is looking brighter, with a 78 percent year-over-year growth in new season tickets heading into 2025. Reynolds is pleased with the team's position entering this fiscal year.
“Anytime you're able to have every major revenue item grow and then manage your expenses, you tend to have a really good financial year. I think hosting a home playoff game is important, certainly adds to the bottom line and is one of the reasons for the revenue growth. You can't talk about last year without mentioning the success of the alt logo and alt jersey launch. That had a significant impact on the financial statement.”
In 2024, the Roughriders sold $6 million in merchandise.
"It vastly exceeded our expectations. I think we were reasonably confident that [the alt jerseys] would resonate with our fans, but I don't think we had any idea how much it would resonate," Reynolds said.
Reynolds also revealed the obsidian jersey and logo momentum is continuing in 2025.
“It’s still selling very well. We are actually ahead of where we were at this time last year in terms of our merch sales, so it continues to do quite well. We also introduced the colourized indigenous logo over the weekend and that’s been very popular. I think that the alt program still has several years left to it and it continues to sell very, very well.”
Hosting the West Division Semi-Final in 2024 also helped the bottom line, according to Paul.
“The net, you'd probably do about $350,000 to $400,000 on a home playoff game itself.”
Paul also noted the number doesn’t take into account concessions, merchandise sales and other revenue opportunities. Meanwhile, Reynolds acknowledged attracting new fans is a key to revenue growth for the franchise.
“What I will say is I'm fairly confident we're going to see some attendance growth this year. This game is trending quite positively at this stage compared to the same point last year. We've already sold 7,000 more tickets than we did at this stage last year.”
In 2024, the Riders increased their visibility with player appearances and fan engagement throughout the province, which Reynolds believes is crucial to the team.
“The reality is about 50 percent of our fan base comes in from outside of Regina, which is a big number and would be unique. Certainly in the CFL, there's no other fan base or market like that. It's really important for us to do the outreach, such as being present in Saskatoon for training camp or hosting the away parties we do. That's really, really important.”
Reynolds stated Riders have furthered their goal of introducing the game to new Canadians and other non-traditional ticket buyers.
“We focus quite heavily on our school programs, largely delivered through the foundation, but our mental wellness programs and our reading programs. We're getting to new Canadian youth through the school system and I think that may not pay dividends immediately, but I strongly believe it's going to pay dividends down the road.”
The Riders return home on Saturday to take on the B.C. Lions. Catch the pre-game show with Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk and Wes Cates at 2 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder have the game call at 5 p.m. You can hear everything on the 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.