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Now more than ever!

Agrios said being more than aware of the current challenges involved in the league and pro sports in general is the main reason involved in taking the time.

“We’ve had a committee in place working with a search firm. We’ve had a very high level of interest with what we believe has been a number of great candidates. We started with close to 80. We’ve had candidates from Edmonton, from out of town and we have candidates from out of country. We’ve narrowed it down considerably and our plan is to have a decision in the next few weeks.”

Agrios said she believes the answer is “all of the above” when it comes to the low attendance at the Eskimos’ first two home games.

“The first one is that we can’t minimize the impact of the weather. When it is raining, as it was before both of those games, as it was for both those games, the sales just stop. But after having said that, we do recognize that those numbers were low and that we can’t just sit there and do nothing. And when you look at it, it’s not just us. There’s a league-wide issue. There’s a pro sports-wide issue in terms of attendance at live sporting events.

“We have had feedback about affordability. Our staff is working extremely hard at coming up with initiatives that will help us sell more tickets. For example, we’re introducing $5.25 beer and $2.25 hot dogs.”

Why not $5 beer and $2 hot dogs? If you’re going to do it, do it?

“I can’t tell you the answer to that. But I can tell you they are working on some more affordable ticket options and the expectation on that us there will be an announcement on that shortly.”

There’s no crisis here. The community-owned Edmonton franchise has a heritage fund of $13 million and another $4 million in the bank from last year and the Grey Cup.

Rhodes left the franchise in great shape from a sponsorship standpoint. No so much in other areas.

“We understand that it’s very important to market, promote and sell tickets and one of the things we’re definitely looking at is hiring somebody who is strong on promotions and most importantly selling tickets,” said Agrios.