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Title: Is Jon Bon Jovi going to buy the Buffalo Bills and move them to Toronto? | National Post
Category: Sports
Posted By: stemmer
Date: 2013-11-25 10:40:35
Canadian

   

That would be some serious coin to both buy the Bills AND build an NFL sized stadium in Toronto. We're talking in the order of billions for something that might not even work out. I can't see the city, province or feds giving any taxpayer money to help build the stadium. Then again the provincial Libs gave the Raptors $500,000 to help host the 2016 All Star game even though MLSE is a private company worth billions.

   

I hope not - it would likely mean the end of the CFL.

   

I used to think like that but now I'm not so sure. This isn't the 80's with teams facing low attendance and bankruptcy having to be bailed out by owners with big pockets.

The CFL is now a vibrant, well run, financially viable league that, because it has created a mystic appeal about itself being purely Canadian, can and will survive without Toronto. People now realise that the CFL is as good a product as the NFL just with a smaller budget. Look at Rider Nation. That's what every other team is looking to become and trust that as the league grows, except for Toronto they eventually will.

So, let Bon Jovi try and bring the Bills to Toronto because given the poor attendance and requirement for MLSE to purchase tickets to make the games they already play there look halfway sold out it's probably gonna fail.

Besides the NFL owners sure as hell aren't going to let Toronto have an NFL team when the second largest sports market in the US, Los Angeles, is without one.

What Canada needs are a couple more franchises for the CFL not a NoFunLeague one. So Halifax get off your asses and build that Stadium.

   

First off AFAIK MLSE has nothing to do with the current Bills games in Toronto. That's all Rogers' doing (which is probably a reason why the experiment is a failure). MLSE would be the ones involved with any move of the Bills to Toronto as the NFL would never want a media giant like Rogers directly involved with one of their teams. They do not want to negotiate with an owner/operator of a team for a Canadian television deal.
Second the CFL WILL die without a team in Toronto. There is no way TSN is going to want to stay on board with their largest market by population no longer in the game. Ottawa and Hamilton need Toronto as a rival.
Third there is a surprising amount of support to keep the NFL out of LA. They failed to hold on to two teams (Raiders and Rams) so there is a lot "f@$# you" sentiment among Americans who say LA does not deserve another shot.

   

Sorry, I should have said, "the end of the CFL as we know it today."

I think it would lead to a slow decline, but not necessarily kill the league. Ultimately, I think the CFL would become a one division league with 6 or 7 teams in it.

IMHO, one of the reasons the Riders are so strong is the lack of sports options in that province. If they had hockey, soccer and/or baseball teams like other major cities do, I wonder if the support would be as strong as it is. Still, there is no disputing the strength of that franchise - but not every franchise is that strong.

Who knows if Montreal will remain as stable as is has been once Calvillo retires and the team isn't as dominant? The Lions are another team that seems to have its support go up and down. Remember the Concordes? I certainly do. Tack on an Ottawa franchise that just keeps dying and we have the recipe for failure.

A couple huge things to consider are corporate sponsorhips and TV. It might affect corporate sponsorships from corporations (Toronto still has the most HQs in Canada) - after all, if you're not tapping the GTA market (1/5 of all Canadians), why sign up for a huge long term deal? What about TV revenues? Again, access to the GTA market rears its ugly head.

Now, if we had a couple more franchises, then I would agree that losing Toronto wouldn't hurt so much - still, there has been talk of teams in the Maritimes for most of my life and they've never come to fruition.

Finally, it's not as big a deal for LA not to have an NFL team, simply because every other major centre in the country does (including three others in California - one of which is San Diego 100 miles south of LA). The big difference lies in that LA has about 3% of the US population (10 million out of 300 million), while Toronto has roughly 20% of Canada's population (7 million out of 35 million).

Honestly, I hope I'm wrong and the CFL could survive losing Toronto, but I tend to be a glass is half-full kinda guy...

   

You're right I was wrong about MLSE it is Rogers. As for the CFL dying because of no team in Toronto well I respectfully and completely disagree. They already don't have a worthwhile fan base in Toronto so saying losing a market you have an extremely low rating in is going to cause the demise of an entire league is disingenuous.

TSN may broadcast out of Toronto but they have satellite facilities in all the other major cities which will still need coverage so playing that no TSN card won't wash anymore.

As for no advertising, that's another red herring, there are 35 million people in Canada and just 2.5 million in Toronto. That leaves 32.5 million people that they can market the game for. Hell, just look at Southern Ontario. The best thing for Hamilton would be the demise of the Argonauts. They'd be the only Canadian game in town and with the affordable ticket prices for CFL games compared to the NoFunLeague it would make them extremely enticing for area football fans.

I'm sorry but the arguments that you bring forward have been used for the past 50 years to entice rich Canadian football fans to invest in a team that has been on the downswing in popularity and attendance for years and the size of the market doesn't seem to matter.

Why would the city and advertisers bother doing that? Simple. Toronto for the past 5 decades has always felt that they need a CFL team to show that the city will support football. Then, they can use that fact to get what they really feel they deserve as the center of the universe. An NFL team.

Here's a read for you.

http://cfl.ca/article/cfl-on-tsn-and-rd ... ngs-winner

Why would they dump a ratings winner even without Toronto and here's the regular season attendance by team. Note that Toronto which is the largest market, has one of the largest stadiums and is the supposed flagship of the league is the lowest in attendance except Hamilton which played their home games in another city.




Do I want the Argo's to fail or fold.? No, I'd actually love to see them go head to head with an NFL franchise because I firmly believe the CFL fanbase in Toronto would stay with the Argo's and the dream of the NFL in Toronto would quickly die amid a sea of low attendance, overpriced tickets and elitist arrogance.

   

Torontonians.....bunch of wannabe yank wankers

   

Did you read this in that article?



If you lose the Argos, you lose those ratings AND the rivalry. That's going to hurt any network, even TSN.

As much as it pains the ROC to say it, we need Toronto in the CFL to keep it strong.

   

It is possible and doable. It'll sure kick the shit out of the Argos. They won't even have to win to fill up the Rogers Center for a decade before the luster wears off.

BTW, MLSE was owned by the Ontario provincial teacher's pension fund and you have to wonder just how "private" that arrangement was seen in Queen's Park.

I just thought of something.Maybe it's part of a legal finagle to get the Bills out of a class action suit in the States over concussions? They're coming up here to "hide out".

   

I hope we never half to find out. But if we do I still have alot of faith in the CFL being able to hold it's own against the NFL, even in Toronto and I still think the NFL will tank in TO especially if the team does as well as they're doing in Buffalo.

   

Bon Jovi still has that much money to buy a team.

   

Looks like this was all poppycock anyways...

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/bon-jovi-r ... --nfl.html

   

That's good news but it bothers me that some newspaper reporter for a newspaper in Toronto would even print a story that he hadn't researched or verified, especially on Grey Cup day.

It smacks of a personal agenda and someone trying to steal the spotlight away from the CFL on it's biggest day. Hopefully the prick that thought this was a good idea and his editor are taken to task for their blatantly yellow journalism and could anyone tell me if the National Post is a staunch backer of an NFL franchise in TO, because if it is that'd explain alot.

   

The NFL will never locate a team in Canada on a permanent basis. They are the sharpest business people in sports. The lion's share of their revenue comes from TV broadcasting rights and the experiences of the NBA and MLB show that Americans have very little interest in watching Canadian teams play, even against American teams. No viewers, no TV money. No TV money, no team.

   

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