Bills To Play 8 Games In Toronto Over 5 Years

Our best friend here at Bigsoccer's TFC board, Bobby Mac is reporting that over the next 5 nfl seasons the bills will play 5 regular season and 3 pre season games at our very own Rogers Centre. The average price for one of these games is hardly a bargain at $250, YES $250 a ticket.

Thoughts?

Unless they are going to be playing the Pats I'm not going.

I still hold a grudge against the Bills for continually playing Rob Johnson over Doug Flutie even though they would never win with Johnson playing. Flutie would get them in to the playoffs only to have Johnson get them out year after year.

First they said they werent gonna have a team in Toronto because they dont want to hurt the CFL. LMAO BULLSHIT, they are slowly going to kill the argonauts until the fans demand for a toronto nfl team, and when that happens, the CFL will die.

and for an average ticket of 250 dollars? wtf im a student, theres no way ill afford that for one damn game. it would be cheaper to drive to buffalo and attend a game.

Good. I hate the Argos and rest Crappy Football League & their fans a lot now.

As for NFL is concern, I will try to watch it and see what the hype is all about.

We don't need another football team in Toronto.

We already have Toronto FC and thats all that matters.

This is clearly a trial balloon for the oft' discussed potential of a full out move. I know that they're plugging it as an attempt to "expand Buffalo's fanbase" but I think most reasonable people can file that in the "for family reasons" department.

The back of my head fear is that this is the start of the sequence of events that will lead to re-opening the Argos at BMO possibility.

And for those that think that the NFL in T.O. would kill the CFL you guys clearly don't understand the economics of the league (ie. primarily gate driven revenue) or how much it's tied to the West's cultural identity. Maybe because my family is from Winnipeg I feel secure in stating this but I assure you that even if the league only had 4 teams the Prairies wouldn't let their teams die.

And for the record I do hate the Argos - I'm from Burlington and my pointy-ball alleigences run Yellow-and-Black - but can say that it would be a sad day for Canada if the only major sports league run exclusively by Canadians for Canadians was to lose its team in our country's premier city due to the attraction of a foriegn league. Not that I'd ever support them using BMO though; even if it was a question of the Argos survival.

Mike.

Yeah, but Major Canadian companies and Canadian media will sponsor a Canadian NFL team over CFL because profit they can make. All the major Canadian sports channel would rather boardcast Toronto NFL team game over CFL and pay big bucks to NFL instead of CFL to get TV rights.

Argos will prolly move to Ottawa if NFL ever came to Toronto. The Argos wouldn't move to BMO field unless their owners are willing to pay millions and millions of dollars of rebuilding BMO field, which I highly doubt they will do since they don't have the money to do so.

Hear, hear!

Wow 5 years, that's enough time for the Bills to have a new stadium built somewhere in Toronto. That's too bad for the CFL i've seen a few good games on TV in the past such as the 94 Grey Cup where BC's Lui Passaglia hit the game winning field goal to beat the Baltimore CFLers that was cool.

This is not a move to bring the Bills to Toronto. This is a move to mine money out of Toronto, while keeping the team in Buffalo.

It is also an effort by Buffalo to claim Toronto as part of its marketing area--a very important thing in a franchise league. Now, no other team could move to Toronto.

I find the Honda Civic driving, Mississauga-living, lets-go-clubbing-on-Richmond-every-Friday crowd that loves the NFL, but can't be bothered with the Canadian Football League, pathetic and self-hating. They remind me of the crowd that shows up to cheer against the Canadian soccer team because they would rather cheer for the old country, even though they are 5th generation Canadian.

If you pay $250 (the cost of a season seat in the supporters section at BMO) to watch a potentially meaningless NFL game you truly do have more money than brains. Nothing against the NFL. It's a good--if over hyped--game. I prefer punting on third down, but I'll watch both games. I'm just not paying $250 for a product you can get 100km away for $45.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree about that. Note, however, that I'm suggesting that this is a "trial balloon" not that any decision has been made. The Bills situation is very much tied to what happens when Ralph Wilson dies and I think a Toronto move is a serious OPTION but far from the only one.

I do agree with your other point about mining T.O. for money though. It's not the gate per se but rather the much wealthier corporate clients that Toronto can provide... which is why a permanent move is such a possibility. On the whole however it's just another reason that I've lost a lot of interest in the NFL. When an old-school working class city like Buffalo can lose its team it really ruins my romantic notions of what sport is about. I still haven't accepted what happened to the Browns and even though it happened before my time I wish the Colts were in Baltimore.

And for what it's worth I prefer punting on fourth down because it's what I played in high school... though I'm fine with ever other wrinkle of the Canadian game.

Mike.

Thng is, what would happen as regards how the management treat the 'home' crowd in Toronto?

Would they play O Canada and the Star-Spangled Banner before the game?


Would they refer to them mainly as the Bills, and not say the Buffalo part (in order to 'invite' Torontonians to consider it their 'home' team) or would they treat it as an exhibition for both teams involved (kinda like playing an NFL game over in Wembley Stadium or something)?


How, if at all, wold they interact with the Argos - is there a set of 'compromise' rules between American and Canadian gridiron that would allow for them to play games against one another?


It's one thing to have a team like the Nikko IceBucks hockey team in Japan (who were the Nikko-Kobe IceBucks when they played some of their home games in the city of Kobe) where the second city is specifically named and included in the brand.

It's quite another to treat a team from New York State as Toronto's NFL team while making no effort to connect with the city or country in which these games will be played in.