Schooners Sports and Entertainment is a sports ownership group that was previously in negotiations with the Canadian Football League (CFL) for an expansion team that was expected to begin play sometime in the 2020s as the Atlantic Schooners. Had the team taken the field, it might have begun playing in Moncton, New Brunswick, before moving into a new stadium in the Dartmouth community of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The prospective team had the same name as a conditional CFL franchise that was granted by the league in 1982 only to fold the following year without playing a game. As with the original Schooners franchise, the most significant impediment to this application was the inability to secure funding for a new stadium. On March 15, 2023, TSN reporter Dave Naylor revealed that Schooner Sports and Entertainment (SSE) "is no longer involved in pursuing a team for Atlantic Canada".
History
2017
In November, the CFL conducted discussions with a group in Halifax interested in securing a franchise for the city; the group made a "very credible" pitch to the CFL head office. According to TSN analyst Dave Naylor the group consists of Anthony LeBlanc (former president and CEO of the NHL's Arizona Coyotes), Bruce Bowser (president of AMJ Campbell Van Lines) and Gary Drummond (former president of hockey operations for the Coyotes).
2018
In June, the ownership group, which was then named Maritime Football Ltd., met with Premier of New Brunswick Brian Gallant and Moncton mayor Dawn Arnold, to discuss the possibility of a Halifax team playing some games in Moncton. Later that month, the group met with the Halifax Regional Council in private about plans to bring a CFL team to Halifax, with the possibility of playing at Université de Moncton while a stadium in Halifax is being built. The possible stadium locations were narrowed down to two sites, in Dartmouth Crossing and Bayers Lake Business Park. It was then revealed that the Maritime Football Ltd. ownership group preferred the Shannon Park location in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia to develop a new stadium. The stadium was estimated to cost between $170 and $190 million and would seat 24,000 and have a business model similar to the Ottawa Redblacks, who entered the league in 2014.
On October 30, Halifax City Council unanimously voted in favour of proceeding with a business case analysis of a stadium in the Halifax municipality. Following this positive momentum, Maritime Football Ltd. and CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie announced that the group would proceed with a season ticket drive to further gauge interest in addition to running a team name contest in the hopes of making an announcement on the team name just prior to the 106th Grey Cup game. The target year for the proposed team to enter the league was 2021, with the team name including the word "Atlantic", but no franchise was actually awarded in this announcement. Further to the previous discussions with Moncton and New Brunswick politicians, it was also suggested that the potential new franchise could begin play at Croix-Bleue Medavie Stadium in Moncton, which has previously hosted CFL matches, while the stadium in Halifax is built.
On November 23, two days before the 106th Grey Cup, Maritime Football Ltd. and commissioner Ambrosie announced the new team would be called the 'Atlantic Schooners,' the same name adopted by the ill-fated conditional franchise of the early 1980s that folded without playing a game. At that time the Maritime Football Ltd. partnership changed their name to Schooners Sports and Entertainment (SSE). By December 21, the SSE had sold over 6,000 season ticket deposits.