Editing Montreal Alouettes (section)

=== Re-branding and demise (1986–1987) ===
After quietly coming to terms with Skalbania, in 1986 the team attempted to embrace its predecessor's history and regenerate flagging fan interest by rebranding itself the "new" Montreal Alouettes. This would not prove to be successful, on or off the field. On the field, the team posted a 4–14 record, missing the playoffs in spite of once again finishing third in the East on account of the new "cross-over rule" the CFL had implemented for the 1986 season. Off the field, financial losses mounted and the team's attendance tumbled to 10,127 a game, including only 9,045 at the final home game (a contest against the BC Lions drew only 5200 fans, the smallest crowd at any CFL game since 1951).

Just before the 1987 season, [[Carling O'Keefe]] tore up its deal to serve as the CFL's presenting television sponsor. The collapse of the CFL's television deal proved a death blow for the Alouettes. The franchise had lost at least $15 million under Bronfman's ownership. While Bronfman was far better financed than Skalbania, he was unwilling to spend millions of dollars underwriting his professional sports holdings indefinitely. Bronfman's overall situation was not helped by the then-emerging news that his other professional sports team, the Expos, were at the centre of a [[Major League Baseball collusion|massive collusion scandal]] that was rocking [[Major League Baseball]]. Eventually, Bronfman decided to focus on the Expos and made it clear he would not field a football team for the 1987 CFL season unless the Alouettes sold thousands of additional season tickets. Neither the necessary season ticket sales nor a viable ownership group willing to take the franchise off Bronfman's hands materialized.

With the collapse of the league's television deal leaving several other franchises in serious distress, the league was not in a position to take over operating the team. Re-location was not an option either even though several Canadian cities had expressed interest in acquiring a CFL team (with [[London, Ontario]] being briefly considered). Even notwithstanding the logistical challenges of moving a team on short notice, no prospective city had a stadium that was suitable even for temporary use. At the time, the CFL was lukewarm to the possibility of expanding or re-locating to U.S. markets (the [[Canadian Football League in the United States|CFL's U.S. expansion experiment]] did not come until six years later).

The Alouettes played [[1987 Montreal Alouettes season|both of their two preseason games]] on the road. However, Bronfman was at the end of his tether and folded the new Alouettes on June 24, 1987, just a day before the [[1987 CFL season|1987 regular season]] started. The league had been well-aware of this possibility for months, and immediately released a previously-drafted eight-team schedule. However, the Alouettes' demise came so late that the June 28 ''[[Washington Post]]'' still announced an [[ESPN]] broadcast of an Alouettes–[[Calgary Stampeders|Stampeders]] game, a game that would never be played. To balance out the divisions, the easternmost-West Division team, the [[Winnipeg Blue Bombers]], moved to the East Division to take the Alouettes' place (along with this, the "cross-over rule" for the playoffs was scrapped until 1997).

The CFL held a [[dispersal draft]] for the Alouettes players. Some of the players left out of work by the team's demise (both on the Alouettes and players on other CFL teams who were cut to make room for former Alouettes) played in the NFL as replacement players during another [[1987 NFL strike|players' strike]] later that year. During the period that the Alouettes were inactive, professional gridiron football would return to Montreal in the form of the NFL-created [[World League of American Football]]'s [[Montreal Machine]], who played two seasons in 1991 and 1992 under American rules.