Once a Big Man on Campus, ex-University of Calgary basketball player Ted Hellard never took a business course in his life. But he parlayed his personal intensity and natural entrepreneurial smarts into a fortune, building one of the continent's most dazzlingly successful Internet marketing companies.

Now, as front- man for a local ownership group, the wealthy founder of Critical Mass is determined to resurrect the Calgary Stampeders, a Canadian Football League franchise that's fallen on hard times. His base pay: $1 a year.

Is this progress?

"People generally consider me a logical person," counters Hellard, a long, lean 50-year-old whose words spill out in a quiet staccato that's vaguely reminiscent of a muzzled AK-47.

Dave Lazarowych, Business Edge
Stamps co-owner Ted Hellard is settling right in as part of the new ownership group looking to turn the CFL team around.

Before confessing that he hasn't witnessed a CFL game in 15 years, he gets to the point: "But it's more passion than anything. Getting involved in this was an effort to revitalize an important part of the roots of the culture of this city."

There's no disputing his word on that. Since Hellard and his golfing buddy John Forzani rounded up co-conspirators such as ex-CFL commissioner Doug Mitchell, Rob Peters (founder of Peters & Co.) and eight other heavyweights, then purchased the team from an absentee landlord named Michael Feterik, sparks have been flying at McMahon Stadium.

Personally negotiating player contracts in tandem with general manager Jim Barker, Hellard has been doing exactly what he promised: Spending big money (by CFL standards) to revive a moribund franchise that had devolved from a league flagship to national laughingstock within a few short years.

After assembling a strong administrative staff (including key people from Critical Mass and head coach/VP Tom Higgins), Hellard and Barker started forking out bucks for high-profile free agents, most notably signing quarterback Henry Burris for a reported $900,000 (including incentives) over three years.

It's all been a bit shocking to the peanut gallery. One columnist accused the Stamps and archrival Edmonton Eskimos of "spending like Imelda Marcos.”

Hellard doesn't bother to argue.

It's all part of the master plan, in direct contrast to the previous pinch-penny regime.

"Some people would say the way to make this business work is to cut expenses," Hellard shrugs. "My approach is the exact opposite. The way to make this business work is to actually spend money.

"It's about product. You put the quality on the field, they generally tend to show up in droves."

And despite much tut-tutting about his free spending posing a threat to the CFL's barely enforceable salary cap ($2.6 million, exceeded by every team in the league last year), Hellard insists the Stamps covered costs by cutting unwanted players.

More to the point, Hellard and his executive committee (Forzani and Mitchell) have firmed up the corporate blueprint for going forward.

Though he's careful not to knock the previous ownership, he does concede the management group found things in "a significant mess. (The club) was definitely not run as a business. We've worked hard to put proper business structures in place."

That includes encouraging a value-oriented business model by deep-sixing freebie season tickets. Last year, about 5,000 of an announced 23,152 season tickets were either outright freebies or else changed hands in exchange for services. That's not a system Hellard can live with.

"You buy your ticket or you don't buy your ticket. That was a big shift for us," he says, while acknowledging that 1,000 tickets must be set aside as "committed comps" for players and CFL officials.

The new strategy frees up 4,000 tickets in McMahon Stadium's high-rent district, ie. the red and so-called super-red seats.

"Super-reds haven't been available to the public for years. Our goal is to sell 20,500 paid season tickets, which would be the highest in the league.”

Sources indicate 15,000-plus have been peddled so far, less than a month before training camp. Corporate sponsors, too, have been climbing aboard more enthusiastically than they did last year.

So how about those Eskimos, anyway? Though he'll always dance to his own tune, Hellard is acutely aware of the Eskimos' spotless track record of stability, consistency and long-term success. He's not too proud to admit he wants to emulate it.

"Without question, Edmonton's a key model for the entire CFL," he says with a crisp nod. "They haven't missed the playoffs in 33 years, the most consistent franchise in the league.

"They also spend a lot of money," he adds archly. "They're the most profitable franchise, too."

For the moment, anyway.

(Tom Keyser can be reached at keyser@businessedge.ca)