The league's only Commissioner was Major League Baseball Hall of Famer and Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame member Ferguson Jenkins. The league featured former major league players such as Francisco Cabrera, Floyd Youmans, Rich Butler and Steve Sinclair.
The CBL was based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The championship trophy was the Jenkins Cup.
The CBL was the brainchild of Tony Riviera, a former major league scout, and the face of the league. It was backed by former Microsoft product developer Charlton Lui, and later by former Yahoo! president, and part owner of the San Francisco Giants, Jeff Mallett. Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins was brought in to act as the leagues Commissioner.
Riviera's vision had big goals, and he followed suit by making big promises. Riviera stated that the CBL would be "AAA quality". He was rumored to have approached the Winnipeg Goldeyes about switching leagues, and even nominated Pete Rose for the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
The big plans initially appeared to be possibile. The league announced a national television deal with sports channel The Score. while a crowd of 5,100 took in the league's inagural game in London, Ontario.
However, despite early promises that the league could, and would, average over 2,000 fans per game, it was clear that the CBL was not remotely close to projections. Only two markets averaged over 1,000 fans per game: Victoria at 1,700 and Calgary at 1,000. Four teams averaged less than 300 per game: Kelowna (271), Saskatoon (256), Welland (181) and Trois-Rivieres (163). The national TV deal was cancelled after only six weeks after the CBL was unable to find enough sponsors to cover the production costs.
The Montreal franchise never played a game in Montreal due to a lack of a playing field.
The CBL's swan song was the All-star game, held at Calgary. Unwilling to absorb any more losses, Mallett pulled the plug on the entire operation, suspending operations following the game. A crowd of over 5,700 watched the final game in CBL history end in a tie. Despite losing as much as $4 million on the CBL, Mallett initially promised to bring the league back in 2004. However, the remaining assets of the league were quietly auctioned off on December 1, 2003 in Vancouver and the league never returned. |
