Starting to sound official... ARGOS OUT OF THE DOME!

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Jays turf Argos in favour of grass playing surface at Rogers Centre

TOM MALONEY
TORONTO — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Sep. 09 2013, 9:35 PM EDT

[i]…

Appearing on a radio show in March, Blue Jays CEO Paul Beeston said the parent company had given the team the green light to investigate re-engineering the stadium to accommodate a grass field. “It’s definitely going to happen. The only question is whether it’s 2016, ’17 or ’18.?

…[/i]

[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/jays-turf-argos-in-favour-of-grass-playing-surface-at-rogers-centre/article14211436/]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/b ... e14211436/[/url]

Nothing really new here and as I thought, Rogers can't get grass in soon enougn in their bowl to keep the place relevant. Good news a new lease allows for an early exit for tbe Argos. This is the start of excellent things to come for the Argos and really makes it official for Braley to get going on best plans. :thup:

I don't understand this fascination with grass. It's not going to win them games. They will still suck, no matter what the playing surface is.

But look at the now demolished Busch Memorial Stadium, the grass at least made it look better as a cookie cutter bowl thingy before they could get the new Busch Stadium built:

Here's with grass, an improvement:

Baseball really needs to be played on grass, football doesn't matter and with football so tough on grass when they play in wet weather, turf makes more sense.

So it means that the Argos have been given "official notice" to vacate by 2018. If they don't get a new home then they are gone.
Baseball stadiums do look a lot better with grass.

Yes, Rogers is hoping it doesn't work out for them with MLSE, they probably aren't confident at all Braley could do a stadium deal. We'll see, Braley loves a challenge of course. :wink:

The fact they throw NON news at the media on the first business day after Braley shoots down the overture by the "gang" says it all. Braley and the CFL are not stupid, What MLSE did is pretty much the same thing Melnyk pulled when OSEG put forward their stadium plan in Ottawa and all of a sudden Melnyk wanted to bring soccer to the city :lol: MLSE obviously got wind of something. So something is in the works :thup:

Yes Hf. Braley and Bob Young in Hamilton are owners that weren't going to be stepped on as "CFL rags" like some previous owners in both Hamilton and Toronto. Without their ballish approach there would be no new stadium in Hamilton even though by showing they were not going to stepped on like a wet rag, it did peeve off a group in Hamilton with the stadium issue and the fact that a CFL owner could actually talk back a bit and stand up for himself. No one expected that in Hamilton and I don't think they expected it in Toronto. MLSE isn't laughing any more and definitely does see some value in the Argos and CFL and Grey Cup. Which is a good thing. They don't want Rogers to get in on an NFL team, that would not be good for MLSE. They have to stay in the game. As I say, I see way more people wearing Jays hats then Leafs hats albeit that might not mean much I suppose.

It's also another reason why the NFL won't be comming to Toronto on a permanant basis. With the Jays using grass, they can't share the dome with any potential NFL team. It's still possible to do the one off series with the Bills, and playoff games for the Argos/TFC, but not on a permanant basis.

Now the Argos just need to focus on getting into BMO, redoing Lamport or building a new stadium.

Those Jays hats were probably give aways or sold on the cheap. I very seldom see a Jays jersey, the odd jacket, it’s mostly hats. I do see some Argo jersey and more jackets, though. Maybe I’m just more keen to CFL gear, cause I’m a fan.

Hammer wrote: It's also another reason why the NFL won't be comming to Toronto on a permanant basis.
I don't know Hammer. I agree it's a longshot but still a shot if Buffalo can't get a new stadium deal when the Bills are up for sale. NFL doesn't like the RC, it's home to their arch rivals in stadiums, MLB. So it's a wide open playing field as to who actually might be the best suitors for the Bills, suitor wanting to move them to Toronto. My guess is MLSE would play them out of an expanded and upgraded BMO first or if the Argos have a new home, MLSE might be in with the Argos on that to make that stadium fine until a new NFL stadium is ready, or upgrade the Argos stadium at that point.

That is pure speculation, I haven’t read anywhere that the NFL can’t come now.
The NFL has just started and the MLB is winding down in Sept. An NFL team could play their first week or two on the road and the Jays play their last week to ten days on the road. The grass comes out and field turf goes down.
Pre-season games are in Buffalo or in a CFL stadium, if the Jays make the playoffs the team plays in Buffalo.
Or they could get a new stadium, funded by Rogers.

[b]mikem wrote: Or they could get a new stadium, funded by Rogers.[/b]
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Except that it’s cost prohibative to keep laying down new sod and reinstalling turf. Low quality turf installations cost around $600,000 plus maintenance for high schools, and new Sod, you are looking at around $300,000 plus extensive maintenance, and this isn’t even premium stuff that you’d expect a pro team to use. Turf isn’t exactly as easy to reuse as you think, the infill needs to be replaced espicially after it’s removed, nevermind moving the soil and levelling to facilitate the turf and grass going back in. So you are going to drop $1 million (if not more) a season just to accomdate the field and also create potential schedualing conflicts. The MLB is still going to demand the Jays book for the post season in case they make it, and that runs till the end of October. The NFL is going to have a team play 7 away games in a row?

Now add that to LA & Anaheim being prime and easy to sell markets with regional rivals, as well as San Antonio, Sacremento, the age of the Dome, the small size of it (comparatively to other NFL stadiums), the lack of individual ownership for the team, the NFL typically not stepping on CFL’s toes and a Toronto team generating little in the way of additional TV revenue (given that the NFL competes with Hockey for most of the season) and how Toronto treats the Argos. That’s just another nail in the coffin.

That’s the other issue, it takes two days as it stands to reconfigure the dome for Football with Turf. How much longer do you think adding grass to the mix, and appropriate water drainage hookups/sprinklers and relaying sod will take? Also, 7 away games in a row, you don’t think that the NFLPA might have something to say about that if the NFL doesn’t?

It's funny that the G&M would mention that the Argos are "operating in the red" in a story about planting grass at Skydome, while the main tenant's owner said he lost "$300 million" on the Blue Jays from 2000 to 2008? The Jays payroll has doubled since then, but no mention of their losses?

The writer could also have noted that installing grass will cost $30-$50 million and will add millions of dollars annually to the Blue Jay operating costs. Then there's the loss of revenue from the Argos and other events leaving Skydome which are incompatible with grass.

I highly doubt grass will ever be planted at Skydome. This is just an exercise to rattle the Argos cage and make them look like orphans. The G&M is just helping out with this 6-month old story :roll: .

You nailed it.

The Jays have said, once the grass goes down, thats it. NO turf, ever again.

Keep in mind, with Rogers now the owner, they are likely happy if the Jay’s merely break even. The money they makeup is by having content they can broadcast on Sportsnet and pay nothing but the team operating costs to own it. This is a revenue stream the old ownership simply didn’t have, and there was no way the Jays old TV deal (in the throes of the MLB Steroid Scandels) was worth anywhere near as much.