Jim Lawson, Woodbine Entertainment Group chairman, named chair of CFL board of governors

The CFL has a new chair for its board of governors, and he's a name that will be familiar to many from both a football perspective and a business perspective. The league announced Tuesday that they've appointed Jim Lawson, the current chairman of Ontario's Woodbine Entertainment Group, for that role, which will see him working with the various teams' representatives and the league office. Lawson has vast experience in law, business and corporate governance, which should make him a good fit for the league (and could potentially help to address some current and future issues it faces), but he also has an intriguing connection to Canadian football: his father, Mel, was the quarterback who led the Hamilton Flying Wildcats to a 1943 Grey Cup victory (a milestone the current Hamilton Tiger-Cats celebrated earlier this year). All in all, Lawson's hire seems like a smart move that should solidify the CFL's top ranks and perhaps could open doors for the league down the road.

Lawson's connections to Woodbine in particular may prove interesting. The group, which is Canada's largest racetrack operator, runs two Ontario tracks (Woodbine and Mohawk), two off-track wagering sites and numerous other connected businesses. Chairing a board like that for a complex, sports-related business should be excellent experience to prepare Lawson for this job, but perhaps even more importantly, his connections there could potentially help the Argonauts' stadium quest. The team's likely going to need a new facility within five years thanks to the Blue Jays' desire to install grass in the Rogers Centre, but most of the options suggested thus far have sparked plenty of opposition, with the idea of sharing BMO Field in particular coming under heavy fire. Doing something in partnership with a racetrack or an off-track site might be a way to get the money required for an Argos-only venue. Lawson's hire isn't about that, of course; he's being brought in to run the league-wide board, not to help the Argos get a new stadium. Still, it presents potentially intriguing possibilities.

More importantly, though, bringing in an outsider as the board chair seems like a positive move to stabilize the top of the CFL. The chair had been held by Tiger-Cats' owner/caretaker Bob Young, and while he did a good job by all accounts, it looks better for the league to have a neutral party running the board than any particular team's owner. Lawson has a wide range of experience, including being a partner at law firms Torys LLP and Davis Ward Phillips and Vineberg LLP and serving on the board of companies such as Algoma Steel and Sleep Country Canada, so he should be well-equipped to handle the various challenges of the CFL's board of governors. It's not a simple job or an easy one, especially with several key issues coming up (Ottawa's return to the league, the possibility of future expansion, a new stadium in Hamilton, the Argonauts' stadium crisis and more), but the league seems to have found a capable person for it.