Toronto Bills and a bridge in Brooklyn for sale

Hamilton Tiger-Cats
1

Don't get excited about the Bills moving to Buffalo. They have a hidden agenda.

Their lease on Wilson Stadium expires in a few years and they want a better deal. Either a new stadium with a retractable dome or a sweetheart lease on what they have.

They have no guarantee that they would do well in Toronto and they know it. Consider:

The Argonauts rarely draw over 30,000 fans a game, their ticket prices are 1/3 lower, they do a great job of building community relations (NFL teams are the worst).
There is no guarantee that the Bills won't find out that there are 30,000 football fans in Toronto and they come to every game. If they start drawing 30,000 fans in Toronto, they won't be around long.

The Rogers Centre is only 7 years newer than Wilson Stadium. They won't want to sign a long term lease on a 25 year old stadium.

If they wanted to move, Los Angeles has a lot more potential. It's twice the size of Toronto, and they would be more likely to get someone to build them a new stadium, Canadian cities don't build new stadiums to keep football teams. Ask the Renegades. Or the expansion plans for Halifax, that died over Halifax having a 15,000 seat stadium.

Why would the Ti-cats be unable to survive when the BC Lions thrive less than an hour from a NFL team, the Seahawks?

The Toronto Bills? The funiest thing since the Hamilton Predators. Somebody forgot to tell the Board of Governors.

2

Does this mean Buffalo is finally getting a NFL team ?

3

Somebody should go stick a Canadian realtors for sale sign on there see what happens.

4

This very well may be a ploy for a new stadium in Buffalo. However, there is a very real concern about the bills coming to T.O. I’m not saying they will, but if they do it will be the death of the CFl in the East.

First the reality that Buffalo would move to L.A. is very unrealistic unless the state and city governments would pony up to build a new state of the art stadium. As it stands right now there is no way the gov’t will buld that stadium.

Now on to T.O.:

  1. Roger’s Centre holds 50+ thousand. It will sell out for every game the Bills have there. Preseason or regular season.

  2. Ticket prices for those said Bills games will be astronomicla compared to Leafs tickets let alone Argo tickets.

  3. This ticats would be aunable to survive because of the sponsorships they would lose to the Bills if the located to T.O. I wouldn’t say it;s because they would lose ticket sales because I don;t think your average person who goes to a CFL game could afford to go to a Toronto Bills game.

  4. As for the B.C. Lions. The Seahawks aren’t in B.C. Just like as of right now the bills aren’t in T.O. If the Seahawks were o move to B.C. The lions would be facing the same threat.

The NFL is the KING of pro sports leagues. It is a multi billion dollar machine that every major company wants to be a part of because of the widespread population the can reach through the NFL.

The NFL coming to T.O. as it is planned right now is not an issue. It’s the relocation of the Bills to T.O. that is the problem.

If the Bills move to T.O. I would think the fate of the Argos would not be far behind. The CFL loses the Argos, The CFL goes not too long after.

5

I thought that the Rogers Centre was bigger than 50,000. That's the minimum size for the NFL, the Jets moved out of Shea Stadium because it only seated 61,000. If Rogers Centre isn't bigger, the Bills would only want it while a new stadium was being built. They would be spotting the Giants and Jets almost $10,000,000 a year in ticket sales.

6

I put 50+ I'm not sure exact I think it's around 55,000 but they have talekd about a plan to dig the field down and put in roughly 10,000 more seats.

7

The Bills aren't going anywhere. The NFL is phasing in a new format where all teams will play at least one game abroad. The Bills are staking their claim on Toronto. Only makes sense. Also, the Bills are just locking up corporate dollars by selling corporate booths, skyboxes, etc in Toronto.
They have tapped the east (Syracuse, Rochester) dry. Now they have to tap the North (Ontario)
They are only going to be playing one regular season and one preseason game in Toronto. Thats it.

8

Oh for sure as of right now thats it. The worries people have are for when Ralph Wilson dies and the team goes on the open market. The group of Roger's and MLSE are setting themselves up to bid on the team and bring it to T.O. That's the worry. You can consider this next phase with Buffalo a dry run and experiment for the NFL to test the viability of the market. Although I think most will agree an NFL will have no problems succeeding in T.O. with the coproate dollars available.

9

Do the math...

there are 330 million American residents and 30 million Canadians

Tickets in Toronto would be sold for Cdn$, and, all right, thats flying high just now, but you can bank on it taking a swoop in the American Presidential election period, next year.

Do you really believe that 50,000 + Torontonians are going to pay the big bucks to watch Buffalo? Bills are going to have to cough up a lot of giveaways to attract 20,000 AND play a pretty exciting game to boot, which is less than likely...

The CFL did not "work" that well in the USA and the NFL will not work at all in Canada.

Such being said, the two Leagues are in fact "brothers" and feed off of each other...

If the Bills were to play in Hamilton, it would be more of a "threat" than their appearance in Toronto...

Lifter

10

As I said in a related thread, I hope this isn’t the thin edge of the wedge. On CITY TV tonight, McKenny said the plan is for the Bills to play 5 games in Toronto over the next few years. That’s not much but I hope it isn’t the beginning of a bigger threat to either relocate a team (prbably the Bills) or buy an expansion team for Toronto. Buffalo alone cannot support a NFL team so they’re looking to Canada to expand their market–fair enough. But once the trend has started, where does it stop? If the City of Buffalo continues to slide, how long before ownership looks to Toronto where they will have established a fan base? Even if the Bills stay in Buffalo, their games in Toronto will prove that Toronto fans love 4 down football and make it an attractive site for an expansion team.

The people who have been mentioned as pursuing a NFL team for Toronto have very deep pockets (the Tannenbaum-Rogers-Godfrey group and the Cynamon-Sokoloski group). Money won’t be an issue especially with the dollar at par.

There is no doubt in my mind that a NFL team in Toronto will wipe out the Argos in no time followed by the Cats. The NFL is a huge economic and media juggernaut. And there’s nothing that the average fan can do but standby and watch to see how it all unfolds.

An Argo-Cat fan

11

bring on the nfl, the more football the merrier, cfl is too small to survive, at least with the nfl, you have 16 games per weekend, the cis football is boring, and cfl has too much off-field drama & politics.

12

This subject comes up every coupleof years. The media talks about it for a couple of months, drumming up a lot noise. Then nothing happens.

MHO? There are too many places in the States that would sell their souls for an NFL team (200 Billion dollar stadium no problem!)for the NFL to expand outside of the States.

And If/when they do decide to expand outside of their own country, think MEXICO!

But what do I know.

13

Buffalo has plenty of resources for the Bills to survive. They get $100 million a year in tv revenue. by comparison, the Ti-Cats get 2 million.

If Green Bay can support an NFL team, why can't Buffalo? Ticket sales are only a small percentage of an NFL teams revenue. They are the majority of a CFL team's revenue.

There are no cities available for the CFL to expand. They want a minimum size stadium of 25,000 and there are no Canadian cities that have one that is unused.

14

The seating capacity for CFL football is 53,506. It has been suggested that the windows restaurant could be removed and more seats added.

2. Ticket prices for those said Bills games will be astronomicla compared to Leafs tickets let alone Argo tickets.
[url=http://www.greatseats.com/liveticketdetail.asp?event_id=572233]http://www.greatseats.com/liveticketdet ... _id=572233[/url]

Here are some ticket prices for Bills/Bengals game November 4,2007. Asking prices range from $65.00 to $420.00. Leaf ticket prices are in the same range depending on who the opponent is.

[url=http://www.greatseats.com/sports/hockey/toronto_maple_leafs/]http://www.greatseats.com/sports/hockey ... ple_leafs/[/url]
3. I don;t think your average person who goes to a CFL game could afford to go to a Toronto Bills game.
I disagree. Unless demand is extremely high for the Toronto NFL team, I doubt that people would pay much more for a ticket than what they are paying now for Bill's tickets.
15

Seating capacity for an Argos game probably doesn't count the seats that they cover. It might be impractical to convert the sky boxes, as that might cost money, rather than raise money.

NFL teams get to keep 100% of sky box money, but the visiting team gets 40% of the gate receipts.

16

Lifter: If you don't think that the city of Toronto would support an NFL your dead wrong. An NFL team in Toronto would be a huge success. It is the exact market the NFL wants.
I can honestly say with no doubt in my mind every game the Bills play here will sell out.

I hate to admit it but there is a huge population base in southern ontario that is chomping at the bit to get an NFL franchise here. The product has already been sold to Canadians and is already successful. Just look at the TV contracts that Rogers and Bell Media signed this year.

The 2 leagues are not brothers. If the NFL feels they need to start exploiting this market they will do it as seen with the Bills wanting to play here 2 a year.

The NFL is coming to Canada. Let's just hope the CFL can work something out that will make it viable. There are more people now that see the CFL as bush and the NFL as THE league that I would be very worried about where entertainment and sponsorship dollars go.

17

Six of the eight teams in the CFL wouldn't know the difference if the NFL put ten teams in Toronto. I can't believe that the Edmonton fans will stop coming to the games on the grounds that there is an NFL team 1000 miles away in Toronto.

I also don't think that the Ti-cats will be seriously affected. College football didn't die in places like Dallas, San Diego, The SF Bay area, Georgia, North Carolina, etc. on the grounds that the NFL has landed.
Why should Canadians ditch the CFL?

18

You seem so sure that the NFL is coming to Toronto. What is your information?

19

I'm sure they are going to be playing the games the Bills asked for. T.O. will be hosting the 2 games a year.

I'm not sure the Bills necessarily will move to T.O. but I do think in the nearer future a team in T.O. is not as impossible as it once seemed. I said as recently as a year ago that we'd never get a team. But the more I see going on the more i change my mind.

The CFL will notice the NFL being here when the Argos fold. Toronto will not support both. Aside from the Leafs, it's not a passionate city. If the Argos fold, the CFl will start to lose major corporate sponsors as well as TV revenue. It's the largest media market in Canada.

Hamilton will be affected because you have a lot of casual fans (15,000 approx) that could chose to spend there entertainment money on an NFL team 45 min away. Now I know the Bills are that far, but Canadians would love to support a Canadian NFL franchise.

As for the comparison to college football. Football is life in the States. Americans can't get enough.. You're talking about 100,000 people at college games, 80,000 people at NFL games and in Texas 15,000 people at a high school game on friday nights. Americans can't get enough football.

I'm just stating the situation that people need to be aware of. It's not like I have inside knowledge. But I do look at the fact that there is a very real possiblity that T.O. could an NFL team.

20

If Hamilton would be affected by having an NFL team 45 minutes away, they would be suffering now. The Bills have been 45 minutes away since 1960.

If Toronto isn't a passionate city, how come the Blue Jays held the major league record for attendance for over a decade, 4,000,000?

I think that the real problem is that Toronto is like Los Angeles and New York. Namely, because there are so many other diversions, they tend to ignore teams that aren't winning. In New York and Los Angeles, you are either in the playoff hunt or forgotten.

Are the corporate sponsors really going to forget about Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver on the grounds that the NFL is half a continent away? If that is the case, Vancouver already has an NFL team an hour away and would be forgotten now.

What you are missing is how good the CFL is at marketing it's game. I was at the Rough Riders game in Hamilton, and I was amazed at how deep the Ti-Cats community ties are. The NFL doesn't do business that way. They collect the big TV revenue, sell the tickets and unlock the gate.

Los Angeles lost two NFL teams in the same year because the NFL doesn't know how to build the community roots that the CFL does and, when they had to build them to survive, they chose instead to move both franchises.

The average NFL team wouldn't have the faintest idea how to print up a few thousand growth posters to give out at a home game. My three year old already loves the Tiger tacked up on our closet door.

The Ti-cats have already started working to make him a fan for life. They have a whole marketing strategy with summer football camp, cheerleader camp, letting the kids have a turn at the adult jobs like being the pa announcer, selling $12 tickets on the day of the game to high school kids, the works.

You would never see an NFL team doing that kid of stuff. They don't discount tickets for children at all.

The Ti-Cats have a youth booster club that includes a couple of tickets to the last home game of the season, a cheap sports bag or something, newsletters, etc. They also will send Stripes the Tiger to a birthday party. I thought that there were more twirlers on the field before the game than players. Those are the paying customers of tomorrow.

The Argos had a promotion with some retail outlet that provided a deal on four tickets to a game. That is designed to make the game affordable for a family.

You will rare;u see that with an NFL team. They perceive of themselves as having an adult, mixed drink crowd. They would consider a family, no alcohol section to be more trouble than it is worth.

That stuff works. The toughest baseball ticket here in New York City isn't the Yankees or the Mets, even if they were in first place. It is for the Staten Island Yankees, the Hudson Valley Renegades and the Brooklyn Cyclones, who play in the short season New York Pennslyvania League. All three teams put a lot of effort into the sort of things that the Ti-Cats do, and they are more likely to sell out.

You said that football is life in the United States and it isn't in Canada. Don't you think that the NFL owners don't think about that when they see the Argos and BC Lions covering seats because they have no hope of selling them? Or seeing the Argos and Al's playing playoff games before 25,000 empty seats? Do you really think that the NFL owners feel immune?