The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are in the black once again after recording an overall operating profit of $5.1 million in 2017.

The club released its 2017 annual report today and the operating profit reflects a $2.3 million jump from 2016, largely due to increases in attendance, game revenue and overall Winnipeg Football Club revenue.

“The $5.1 million profit represents the great year we had both on and off the field,” said Winnipeg Football Club President and CEO Wade Miller. “We had a healthy football team, attendance increased six percent, we had a home playoff game and other large non-football events to help with that as well.”

All of that is a tidy way of saying the shine is coming back to the Bomber brand. The club missed the playoffs for four straight years through 2012-15 and posted just one winning season – 2011 – during a stretch from 2008-15. That has changed with back-to-back winning seasons and a 23-13 record over the last two years that is second only across the Canadian Football League to the Calgary Stampeders.

“I believe that chapter in our history has now been closed,” Miller said. “What (GM) Kyle (Walters) and (Head Coach) Mike (O’Shea) have done on the football field in the last two years in building a winning team, plus what we do in providing a game day experience has changed that. And we won’t stop, even when we win the Grey Cup.

“Then, when you look at what our players do in the community with over 250 appearances, with over 500 youth coming in from First Nations communities, to the amount of money Bombers fans have raised for Purolater Tackle Hunger… I’m really proud of what we’re doing.”

Some numbers from the Bombers 2017 financial report worth highlighting:

Revenue totaled $32.5 million last year, an increase of $2.9 million.

Total game revenue is up 14 percent to $13,267,198 with average attendance rising from 25,935 in 2016 to 27,400 in 2017 – an increase of six per cent – as the club played in its first-ever playoff game at Investors Group Field. Miller said season ticket totals are trending at the same pace as last year.

Asked whether it’s realistic to expect the average attendance of 27,400 to grow further, Miller said:

“We had great attendance last year and this season is lining up to be very similar. Hopefully it is higher because we’ve got an excellent schedule with a lot of Friday night games, something many of our fans were asking for. We took out some seats last year, built the new viewing decks that our younger fans really like.

“We also saw a shift last year of more people buying tickets in the 24-48 hours leading up to game day, something we hadn’t seen in the last couple of years, and we really believe that’s a product of the transportation logistics being resolved. Fans are finding it easier to get to the stadium now, and we saw that in our attendance jump in 2017.”

Asked whether it’s realistic to expect the average attendance of 27,400 to grow further, Miller said: “We had great attendance last year and this season is lining up to be very similar. Hopefully it is higher because we’ve got an excellent schedule with a lot of Friday night games, something many of our fans were asking for. We took out some seats last year, built the new viewing decks that our younger fans really like. “We also saw a shift last year of more people buying tickets in the 24-48 hours leading up to game day, something we hadn’t seen in the last couple of years, and we really believe that’s a product of the transportation logistics being resolved. Fans are finding it easier to get to the stadium now, and we saw that in our attendance jump in 2017.” The Bombers also saw growth in corporate sponsorships and hosted non-football events at the stadium like the Canadian Women’s National Soccer team international match against Costa Rica, Nitro Circus, a Guns N’ Roses concert, the 2017 Canada Summer Games closing ceremonies, as well as having the finish line for the Manitoba Marathon moved to the facility. All those events bring in a larger audience base to the stadium.

The issue here is those events do not consistently pop up on the calendar. The NHL’s Heritage Classic was a one-time event, as was the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Canada Summer Games. There are also fewer touring stadium acts like Guns N’ Roses.

The club recorded a payment of $3.5 million to Triple B Stadium Inc. as part of its contractual obligation in its stadium management agreement. That payment marked the fourth annual excess cash payment to Triple B. As well, a payment of $1.3 million was made to the City of Winnipeg which was related to an earlier Winnipeg Enterprises Corporation debt that was assigned to the club by the city in 2005.

Operating expenses jumped $700,000, or 2.4 percent, to $27.4 million. Overall football operations expenses were level in 2017 as the club benefitted from both a winning and relatively healthy football team. Marketing and administration costs were up $400,000.

The team also continues to fund public transportation to and from the stadium, a total which has now reached $3.8 million since IGF opened in 2013.

Miller also commented on what impact the success of the Winnipeg Jets in the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring might have on the football club’s bottom line. Hockey fans are spending a lot of dollars right now at the same time the club is pushing to sell tickets in advance of their season opener on June 14.

“It will be interesting to see what kind of impact that might have on our game day walk-up numbers,” said Miller. “But many of our fans have already purchased season tickets. What I can tell you is when you see that many people outside of an arena like we have in the last week and the civic pride and the support fans in Manitoba have for their sports teams, we believe that kind of energy is going to carry over to the Bomber season.”