Friday, October 19, 2007

NFL, Eh?


A published report yesterday indicates that the Buffalo Bills are interested in playing preseason and regular season games in Toronto. The people of western New York should be afraid, very afraid.

The Bills would like to play one preseason game in Toronto next season, and would like to begin playing one regular season game per year in Toronto as early as 2009. The team first has to get permission from Erie County, New York, per the terms of their current stadium lease which runs through 2012.

Currently, the Bills claim 15,000 season ticket holders from Canada. I did not realize there were that many. The Bills would like to cultivate the large corporate base in Toronto in order to sell tickets and to lease luxury boxes.

The Buffalo area has been declining in population and economic power for the last four decades. Buffalo is currently the #50 TV market according to Nielsen. In the NFL, only New Orleans, Jacksonville, and Green Bay are smaller (New Orleans was bigger before Katrina, and the Packers claim Milwaukee as a primary market in addition to Green Bay). The Bills have marketed themselves successfully in nearby Rochester and Syracuse, and are attempting to expand their regional footprint into Canada.


What about Toronto? Toronto is the economic and cultural hub of English Canada. It has a metropolitan population of around 6 million, or similar in size to Dallas and Houston. Toronto would be a no-brainer for the first international expansion of the NFL. The only drawback would be the stadium, as Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome) only holds 53,000 for football-similar to the Houston Astrodome. They would have to find a way to get a new stadium built. Unlike in the U.S., Canadian federal, provincial, and city governments rarely fund stadiums and arenas.

Bills owner Ralph Wilson is 89 years old. He has no intention of selling the franchise, and does not plan to keep the team in his family upon his death. Therefore, the Bills will have a new owner in the future. A new owner will be very tempted to move the franchise 90 miles to the north.

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