Bernard "Bernie" Glieberman is an American
real estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
mogul and the president of Crosswinds Communities. Despite having made his fortune in real estate, Glieberman was perhaps best known for, with his son
Lonie, making several unsuccessful and controversial forays into sports team ownership and management in the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
.
Glieberman's father died when Glieberman was 17 years old, and after this the young Bernard took over control of his family real estate holdings. By the age of twenty-one he was a partner in a real estate firm, and at thirty-one he was able to buy out his partner's shares. By 1971, he had started the Crosswinds Communities corporation, which he runs and in which he is the sole shareholder to this day.
Football involvement
From 1991 to 2006, Glieberman was involved as the financier of several football operations in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and the United States. Glieberman put up the money while Lonie usually handled media relations and football operations.
The Rough Riders and Shreveport
In 1991, Glieberman and his son arrived in Ottawa to bail out the troubled
Ottawa Rough Riders
The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. Formerly one of the oldest and longest-lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine ...
. The once-proud team had not had a winning season since 1979. The franchise was also in dire straits off the field as well as it was over
C$1 million in debt. With his son as the franchise's frontman, Bernie bought the team for a dollar, assumed the debt, and provided the capital city's team with what must have seemed like stable ownership. Their first season,
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
, showed a good deal of promise; the Rough Riders finished 9-9, only their second non-losing season in 13 years.
[Back in town again]
CBC Sports
CBC Sports is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for English-language sports broadcasting. The CBC's sports programming primarily airs on CBC Television, CBCSports.ca, and CBC Radio One. (The CBC's French-languag ...
, 2005-06-09.
It did not take long, though, for the Gliebermans to lose most of the goodwill they had built up. Before the
1993 CFL Season
The 1993 CFL season is considered to be the 40th season in modern-day Canadian football, although it is officially the 36th Canadian Football League season.
CFL news in 1993
On February 23, the Sacramento Gold Miners were announced as the CFL's ...
, the younger Glieberman fired general manager
Dan Rambo
Dan Rambo is a Canadian and American football scout, and executive who served as general manager of the Ottawa Rough Riders.
Playing career
Rambo was born in Libby, Montana. He attended Carroll College where he led the NAIA in rushing with an av ...
, a move that he later called a serious blunder in hindsight. He then signed former
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed thro ...
defensive lineman
Dexter Manley
Dexter Keith Manley (born February 2, 1959) is a former American football defensive end for the Washington Redskins, Phoenix Cardinals, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL). He also played in the Canadian Football Lea ...
, who had been banned from the NFL for life due to
cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
abuse. However, Manley had not played a meaningful down of football in almost a year, and it was soon apparent he was nowhere near his old
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed thro ...
form. When Lonie demanded that the coaches not only keep Manley in the starting lineup, but also bring back a couple of players cut in training camp, assistant coaches
Jim Daley
Jim Daley (born 1951/1952) is a Canadian football coach, who currently serves as the special teams coordinator for the St. Francis Xavier X-Men. Daley is a longtime coach who served in the Canadian Football League from 1990 to 2014.
Daley starte ...
and Mike Roach quit rather than comply. Meanwhile, Bernie made noises about moving the team to the United States, further driving down enthusiasm.
[
When it became apparent that the CFL would not even consider allowing one of the league's oldest franchises to move south of the border, Glieberman reached a deal with the league in which the Rough Riders franchise was split in half. The Canadian half was sold to Bruce Firestone for $1.85 million and retained the Rough Riders' name, colours and history. The American half became the Shreveport Pirates, part of the ill-fated CFL USA expansion scheme. The Pirates, like the whole expansion, were a failure, going 8-28 over two seasons. Glieberman initially attempted to stay in for the long haul, trying to move the team to ]Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...
. However, city officials were put out upon discovering that Glieberman had faced a number of lawsuits over his CFL career for not paying the bills, and that an antique automobile he owned had even been impounded due to his non-payment on a scoreboard for Independence Stadium Independence Stadium may also refer to:
* Independence Stadium (Bakau) in Gambia
* Independence Stadium (Namibia) in Windhoek
* Independence Stadium (South Africa) in Mthatha, a football stadium in South Africa
* Independence Stadium (Tanzania) ...
.
All-American Football League
After the failure of his CFL experience, Glieberman tried again in football. In 1997, Glieberman proposed an All-American Football League with the objective of playing by March 1998. Glieberman planned to play a 20-game season in the spring and summer and make money by having the league sell television advertising rather than the network. The league would have been a single-owner entity, but the teams would have been operated locally. It also would have signed players before the draft in hopes of controlling costs.
Return to Ottawa
In May of 2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
, Glieberman resurfaced in the CFL, purchasing the Ottawa Renegades after a season in which the league had financed the team. Lonie was once again installed as team president. The Renegades had struggled both financially and in the standings almost since their inception, and owner Bill Smith was sinking in red ink. He sold majority interest to Glieberman while remaining as a minority owner. The first move made by the Gliebermans was typically controversial: bringing 71-year-old Forrest Gregg as head of football operations after the latter had been out of professional football for ten years since his failed tenure as head coach of Glieberman's Shreveport Pirates. Lonie's Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras (, ) refers to events of the Carnival celebration, beginning on or after the Christian feasts of the Epiphany (Three Kings Day) and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday, which is known as Shrove Tuesday. is French for "Fat ...
promotion of trying to lure women to Renegades games by offering them beads (a reward traditionally given in the celebration for the baring of breasts) was also criticized. Before the Renegades' final game of the 2005 season, Lonie announced the firing of popular head coach Joe Paopao
Joe Paopao (born June 30, 1955) is a former professional Canadian football quarterback and coach in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Paopao played 11 seasons in the CFL and was a member of the BC Lions, Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Ottaw ...
and his staff, leaving them to coach the final game knowing that it would be their last. The Renegades missed the playoffs.
Claiming $4 million in losses, Glieberman sought a $2 million loan after Smith pulled out. The league, however, was not willing to agree to this, and put the Renegades up for sale on March 22. Unable to find a buyer, the league suspended the Renegades' operations on April 9.CFL suspends operations of Renegades
Canadian Press
The Canadian Press (CP; french: La Presse canadienne, ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Pre ...
, 2006-04-09.
References
External links
CBC Sports Online: Newsmaker: The Gliebermans (part one)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glieberman, Bernard
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Businesspeople from Detroit
American Jews
American real estate businesspeople
Canadian Football League executives
American sports businesspeople