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MLSE & Bon Jovi to Pursue NFL/Buffalo Bills

nfitz said:
And yet there are no links between the city of Buffalo, or upstate New York, and Buffalo Bill Cody. However William's father comes from Toronto (or at least Toronto Township, now called Mississauga), and Buffalo Bill spent some time there as a child, even being baptized there.

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Very interesting. An All-American frontiersman has a strong connection with Mississauga.
 
well ... the one interesting thing is they can build a stadium without violating the lease - they just say they are building it for the Argos, who just so happen to need a home. Also - looking at how much support the Argo's had decades ago, I think a NFL team could work very well here.
 
Videodrome said:
We can't even put butts in seats for the Bills In Toronto games!
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Yeah, but that wasn't for our own team and they totally blew the marketing and ticket pricing. I'm a die hard Bills fan and I went to two of those games, both when I got freebies. I wasn't going to pay $100 to sit in the 500 level, especially as the team was going into the toilet AND playing mediocre teams.

So, if I only went with freebies, imagine how people who aren't Bills fans felt about all that.

It's not a fair barometer of how the city would do with its own team but it's certainly true that if Rogers hoped to prove how deep the market here really was, they went about it in a very poor way.

Kitsune said:
well ... the one interesting thing is they can build a stadium without violating the lease - they just say they are building it for the Argos, who just so happen to need a home. Also - looking at how much support the Argo's had decades ago, I think a NFL team could work very well here.
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An NFL stadium would have to be at least 70K seats and a new Argos stadium would be, at most, about half that. There's no way to pull that bait-and-switch.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Yeah, but that wasn't for our own team and they totally blew the marketing and ticket pricing. I'm a die hard Bills fan and I went to two of those games, both when I got freebies. I wasn't going to pay $100 to sit in the 500 level, especially as the team was going into the toilet AND playing mediocre teams.

So, if I only went with freebies, imagine how people who aren't Bills fans felt about all that.

It's not a fair barometer of how the city would do with its own team but it's certainly true that if Rogers hoped to prove how deep the market here really was, they went about it in a very poor way.
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Excuses excuses. If NFL support were as high as people think the stadium would have been full no matter how bad the Bills were. Just like London. Besides, it takes two teams to play football and the Bills played some very good teams here. Ticket prices dropped to a figure more in line the NFL average and still the crowds kept shrinking. If you think tickets would be any cheaper if we had our own team you're fooling yourself.

Not gonna happen.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Yeah, but that wasn't for our own team and they totally blew the marketing and ticket pricing. I'm a die hard Bills fan and I went to two of those games, both when I got freebies. I wasn't going to pay $100 to sit in the 500 level, especially as the team was going into the toilet AND playing mediocre teams.

So, if I only went with freebies, imagine how people who aren't Bills fans felt about all that.

It's not a fair barometer of how the city would do with its own team but it's certainly true that if Rogers hoped to prove how deep the market here really was, they went about it in a very poor way.
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I have long held that their intent was never to prove how deep the market is here nor do I think they blew the marketing.

I think they were trying to show how much they could charge here and get a relatively small, but profitable, NFL crowd to fill Rogers Centre. One of the obvious obstacles to getting an NFL team here is the lack of a stadium that meets the NFL minimum size of 60k. I think the folks at Rogers were trying to show that with inflated prices in a 52k stadium, and with a disproportionate number of private boxes, they could generate better than average (upper end actually) game day revenue in the smaller stadium and then convince the NFL that they could host a team in a smaller venue. Getting into the NFL without having to spend $1B on a new venue would clearly be a big win!

I really think the ticket pricing was a calculated risk that backfired....and by the time they got around to the face saving price reductions, it was too late....the market had already decided it was a too expensive event and I bet a good number of prospective/interested fans were not aware that in the last couple of years of the event the prices had been reduced significantly.

Just look at how much was paid to the Bills......they were receiving 1.5 - 2 times what they would normally earn in Orchard Park per game...from a stadium that is barely half the size of the Ralph.

Like I said, I am neither a NFL fan nor someone that knows that NFL would work here but I think the Bills in Toronto series was structured in such a way that it really does not advance our knowledge much beyond knowing that NFL fans in Toronto won't pay twice the price in Toronto that they would pay in Buffalo.
 
MisterF said:
Excuses excuses. If NFL support were as high as people think the stadium would have been full no matter how bad the Bills were. Just like London. Besides, it takes two teams to play football and the Bills played some very good teams here. Ticket prices dropped to a figure more in line the NFL average and still the crowds kept shrinking. If you think tickets would be any cheaper if we had our own team you're fooling yourself.

Not gonna happen.
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I go to a dozen raptor games a year a dozen baseball games and a few TFC games. If Toronto had a NFL team I would support it probably with season tickets. I don't go to any of the Argo games but I have gone to all the Toronto Grey Cups. Maybe people can debate which game has the better rules but there is no question the NFL has the better athletes. Plus like many sports fans I am a ESPN.com addict. It makes a difference that there is somewhere to follow the sport online. Im sure there is a CFL equivalent website but ESPN is the gold standard. When the NHL decided to put its games on OLN ESPN basically dropped NHL support from their website. Its come back but its nowhere what it use to be. Anyways I don't support the leafs mainly because they constantly suck but they want the most money for the privilege to watch them.
 
MisterF said:
Excuses excuses. If NFL support were as high as people think the stadium would have been full no matter how bad the Bills were. Just like London.
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Again...don't know how well a Toronto NFL team would do but I do believe the next best place for the NFL would be London.

NFL fans I know like to use the Green Bay Packers as the example of how a Regional team works......they talk about how small Green Bay is but how people drive from all over Wisconsin and the upper half of Illinois to see their games....drives of 10 and 12 hours are talked about...etc etc. Well, from London, that same area has a population of about 60 million. I have a brother that lives in Glasgow and has not missed a single NFL game at Wembley...him and his group of 8 buds make the trek every time there is a game.

Include in that the most excellent Wembley already exists so any potential new owner does not have to build it.

Add in that it probably generates a new North American live TV time slot (3 pm Sunday games in London would be 10 a.m. on the East coast of America....when networks are starved for live content) and it is not hard to figure out why the NFL is looking so hard at London.
 
sixrings said:
I go to a dozen raptor games a year a dozen baseball games and a few TFC games. If Toronto had a NFL team I would support it probably with season tickets. I don't go to any of the Argo games but I have gone to all the Toronto Grey Cups. Maybe people can debate which game has the better rules but there is no question the NFL has the better athletes. Plus like many sports fans I am a ESPN.com addict. It makes a difference that there is somewhere to follow the sport online. Im sure there is a CFL equivalent website but ESPN is the gold standard. When the NHL decided to put its games on OLN ESPN basically dropped NHL support from their website. Its come back but its nowhere what it use to be. Anyways I don't support the leafs mainly because they constantly suck but they want the most money for the privilege to watch them.
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Yes the talent in the NFL is higher for the most part, but that doesn't change the fact that CFL players are elite athletes by any measure. Besides, real sports fans don't thumb their nose at everything that isn't the highest level. Russian hockey fans support the KHL, American football fans support college football, etc. This "nothing but the best" attitude from Torontonians is bizarre. But then again maybe it's not a "nothing but the best" attitude at all, because that doesn't explain how a Toronto FC fan could make a comment about the level of athletes in the CFL. MLS is much lower down the soccer totem pole than the CFL is in football. I suspect that it's more of a "nothing but American" attitude. This is the kind of thing that people in the rest of Canada are talking about when they criticize Toronto for being too American.

TOareaFan said:
if you go to http://espn.go.com and under other sports click on "CFL" it remarkably takes you to a network that they still own about 20% of:

http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/
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lol...exactly what I was thinking. TSN's coverage of the CFL is top notch. Their NHL coverage is second to none, although that'll probably change with Rogers getting the rights. I any case I find it a little strange that anyone would decide which sport or league to watch based on the quality of a foreign sports network's website.
 
MisterF said:
Yes the talent in the NFL is higher for the most part, but that doesn't change the fact that CFL players are elite athletes by any measure. Besides, real sports fans don't thumb their nose at everything that isn't the highest level. Russian hockey fans support the KHL, American football fans support college football, etc. This "nothing but the best" attitude from Torontonians is bizarre. But then again maybe it's not a "nothing but the best" attitude at all, because that doesn't explain how a Toronto FC fan could make a comment about the level of athletes in the CFL. MLS is much lower down the soccer totem pole than the CFL is in football. I suspect that it's more of a "nothing but American" attitude. This is the kind of thing that people in the rest of Canada are talking about when they criticize Toronto for being too American.
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My support of the MLS is that I hope that one day the MLS players will be much closer skill level to other leagues like Premier League. The CFL will never have players at the skill level of NFL. As for the rest of your post describing "Real sports fans" who are willing to watch anything because its sports I find ridiculous. Why not just spend Saturdays down at the local field watching peewee soccer. People in general naturally want to watch the best. It is why more people watch the Oscars then the Razzies. Its why people who might not even be sports fans watch the Olympics but not the Pan Am games. Its no offense to the Juno awards but they aren't respected the same as the Grammys are. Do real car drivers like driving a Toyota just as much as a Ferrari as well? BTW I don't go to the Honda Indy but I have gone to Montreal's F1.
 
sixrings said:
My support of the MLS is that I hope that one day the MLS players will be much closer skill level to other leagues like Premier League. The CFL will never have players at the skill level of NFL. As for the rest of your post describing "Real sports fans" who are willing to watch anything because its sports I find ridiculous. Why not just spend Saturdays down at the local field watching peewee soccer. People in general naturally want to watch the best. It is why more people watch the Oscars then the Razzies. Its why people who might not even be sports fans watch the Olympics but not the Pan Am games. Its no offense to the Juno awards but they aren't respected the same as the Grammys are. Do real car drivers like driving a Toyota just as much as a Ferrari as well? BTW I don't go to the Honda Indy but I have gone to Montreal's F1.
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So you're driving a Toyota in the hopes that it'll someday turn into a Ferrari? I don't quite get watching a sport based on what it might hypothetically become someday - you're still watching inferior athletes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it doesn't make any sense to ignore a sport because of inferior athletes but support another sport despite them. Anyway, a more accurate comparison between the NFL and CFL would be the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Or a Ferrari and a Porsche. The talent gap is much smaller than people make it out to be.

Sure people generally want to watch the best but where you're wrong is that people generally don't want to watch only the best. Scottish soccer fans watch their local teams even though England is next door. Every country (even non-independent ones like Scotland) support their domestic leagues even if they're not the pinnacle of talent in their respective sport. Except Canada, and especially southern Ontario. As for football, in the States they don't only watch the NFL. College and high school football are huge there. They watch the sport at all levels because they simply love the sport. Torontonians have an NFL or nothing attitude, which is a big reason the NFL isn't interested. They know a fickle market when they see one.
 
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