Bernard Glieberman

Bernard "Bernie" Glieberman (b. Detroit, Michigan) was an American real estate 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.

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 and the United States. Glieberman put up the money while Lonie usually handled media relations and football operations. These operations proved controversial and invariably died within a few seasons.

The Rough Riders and Shreveport

In 1991, Glieberman and his son arrived in Ottawa to bail out the troubled Ottawa Rough Riders franchise. The team was losing money (and would, indeed, fold before the decade was out) and was over $1 million CAD 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.

However, relations between the Gliebermans, the league, and its fans soon soured. Bernie merely provided the money but Lonie was making controversial and unpopular moves. In 1993, the younger Glieberman fired general manager Dan Rambo while ordering the team to sign and play former National Football League Pro Bowl defensive lineman Dexter Manley despite his skills having badly faded and a nasty cocaine habit getting him banned from the NFL. Lonie also interfered with the team's training camp, driving away assistant coaches Jim Daley and Mike Roach. Meanwhile, Bernie made noises about moving the team to the United States, further driving down enthusiasm.

Rather than stick it out in Ottawa, Glieberman sold the Rough Riders to Bruce Firestone for $1.85 million, instead opting to be the first owner of the Shreveport Pirates in 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. 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.

All-American Football League

After the failure of his CFL experience, Glieberman tried again in football. In 1997, Glieberman, John Ritchie, and former Shreveport coach Forrest Gregg started the All-American Football League with the objective of playing by March of 1998. Glieberman planned to play a 20-game season in the spring and summer, buy television time from networks, and make money by having the league sell the advertising rather than the network. The league would be a single-owner entity in much the same vein as the early days of Major League Soccer. The league also planned to have players directed to markets where they might be popular (the "South Florida Business Journal" giving the example of a failed University of Miami player playing for a Miami AAFL franchise).

Despite Glieberman's ambitions and some minor media attention, the league never got off the ground. The league's plans included teams in Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Miami, Boston, Washington, and Tampa.

Return to Ottawa

In May of 2005, 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 few parties were interested in running the team, leaving the CFL little choice but to turn to the Gliebermans.

The first move made by the Gliebermans was typically controversial: bringing 71-year old Forrest Gregg into the system after the latter had been out of professional football for ten years since his failed tenure as head coach of Glieberman's Shreveport Pirates. Gregg did not help his own cause, famously forgetting starting quarterback Kerry Joseph's name during a radio interview. Lonie's Mardi Gras 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 and his staff, leaving them to coach the final game knowing that it would be their last. The Renegades missed the playoffs.

On March 2, 2006, Lonie resigned his post with the Renegades, leading to speculation that Bernie Glieberman would sell. The Renegades lost $4 million in 2005 but Glieberman agreed to continue operating the Renegades if the team received a $2 million loan from the league. This proposal was rejected and, unable to find a buyer after Glieberman backed out on March 22, the Renegades suspended operations for the 2006 season. New ownership is expected to revive the Ottawa franchise in 2010. [ [http://www.sportsnet.ca/football/cfl/2008/03/20/Ottawa-Cohon-0/ CFL confident of Ottawa's CFL return - Sportsnet.ca ] ]

NFL Franchise

Rumours have surfaced that Bernie and his son Lonie are interested in bringing an NFL team to Toronto.fact|date=May 2008

References

External links

* [http://www.cbc.ca/sports/columns/newsmakers/gliebermans.html CBC Sports Online: Newsmaker: The Gliebermans (part one)]
* [http://www.cbc.ca/sports/columns/newsmakers/gliebermans2.html CBC Sports Online: Newsmaker: The Gliebermans (part two)]