Report: Argos, CFL looking into an NFL team for Toronto

[MisterF]

Another hockey team in southern Ontario won't happen until the situation in Atlanta, Nashville (how long before Del Baggio moves them to Oklahoma City? 3 years is my guess) and Miami gets sorted. My guess is by the next CBA these teams will have to be addressed. Tampa Bay is remarkably successful though at the gate and they have a horrible team (apart from Lecavalier and St Louis), so they will stay put.

Even then, the only way another team comes here is if one of the aforementioned moves. Bettman would rather see expansion teams go to Las Vegas and (if Del Baggio doesn't move Nashville) Oklahoma City, so there's no shot at a new team coming. It will essentially take Balsille to buy Atlanta or Florida and move them (with the other team hopefully being bought and moved to Winnipeg). Then the issue of territorial rights will come up and you'll probably see something go to the courts due to anti-trust and whatnot. If anyone tells you a team can't come to Ontario because of territory rights, tell them its BS and there's nothing in the league Constitution. It's just a myth and there's nothing that could stop Balsille from moving someone into Copps Coliseum.


As for the Ottawa CFL team, if I'm not mistaken the owner of the Rough Riders team that died in 1996 owns the rights to the name, and wants payment for its use. That's why the Renegades were the Renegades. So whether a new team would pay for the name or not, it beats me, but considering how unstable Ottawa football franchises have been over the last two decades I don't think I'd want to waste money on a name.

This is exactly why the NHL isn't sustainable in its current form - each country brings the other down. It should be split into Canadian and American leagues. With the fan base we have in this country we could easily support our own league and attract the best players, and cities like Hamilton and Winnipeg could finally get the top tier teams they deserve (and probably multiple teams in Toronto and Montreal). It would help hockey grow in the US too since they see the Canadian teams as baggage, and they see the game as foreign.

But I'm getting way off topic here. The Ottawa Renegades failed because of incompetent ownership, not lack of support in Ottawa. With decent owners a team should thrive there. I'm not big on the idea of the NFL in Toronto.

 

[Dan416]

Sounds like a good idea. Split the NHL in half.

 

[wyliepoon]

Star

Link to article

Bills to get $78M to play in Toronto


Apr 29, 2008 06:40 PM
JOHN WAWROW
The Associated Press

BUFFALO, N.Y.–The Buffalo Bills will receive $78 million – more than double their calculated 2006 operating income – to play eight games in Toronto over the next five years.

The payment to the Bills was disclosed for the first time in Rogers Communications' 2008 first-quarter report released today. The Toronto-based company is part of a consortium that negotiated a deal with the Bills to have them play five regular-season and three preseason games, starting this year, at the downtown Rogers Centre.

As part of the agreement, the Toronto group is effectively leasing the home games from the Bills. Buffalo will provide the team, the NFL provides an opponent, while the Toronto organizers will be responsible for selling tickets, concessions and promoting the event.

In becoming the NFL's first team to play annual games outside the United States, the Bills are scheduled to host Pittsburgh in a preseason match at Toronto on Aug. 14, followed by a regular-season game against Miami on Dec. 7.

Rogers spokeswoman Jan Innes would not comment beyond the one-paragraph statement included in the company report, except to say the $78 million figure was in Canadian currency. The Canadian dollar hovered around par to its U.S. counterpart during the first quarter this year.

Innes declined to say whether any portion of the payment has been made to the Bills.

Bills spokesman Scott Berchtold also declined comment, citing a policy that the team does not discuss financial details of its business relationships.

The deal, announced in February, was reached with a group headed by Rogers CEO and founder Ted Rogers, and Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors.

Rogers also owns the Blue Jays as well as the Rogers Centre.

The Toronto group is using the eight-game series to show the city can support its own NFL franchise. The Bills sought the agreement to generate additional revenues by expanding their market to Canada's largest city and financial capital, a 90-minute drive from Buffalo.

The $78 million payment eclipses what Forbes calculated the Bills made in 2006, in the magazine's annual financial breakdown of NFL franchises. Forbes calculated the Bills had an operating income of $31.2 million after bringing in $176 million in revenues that year.

Broken down, the Bills will make nearly $9.75 million per game in Toronto, something they'd be unable to make at Orchard Park, where the small-market team has perennially had the lowest ticket prices in the NFL.

The Bills' average ticket price for this season is about $51 at Ralph Wilson Stadium, which has a 72,000 seating capacity.

Ticket prices for the games in Toronto have not yet been released, but are expected to average more than $100 at a facility with a 54,000 seating capacity for football.

Demand is already high after more than 100,000 single-ticket reservations were made for the eight-game series through a Web site established by the Toronto group. Tickets will be distributed via a lottery starting next month.

 

[wyliepoon]

Post

Link to article

Ban NFL season games in Canada: Bill

Senator Larry Campbell introduces the Canadian Football Act that would ban foreign teams from playing league games in Canada

Sean Fitz-Gerald, National Post Published: Thursday, June 12, 2008

National Post

National Football League teams would be banned from playing regular season games in Canada under a bill that has been introduced to the Senate, a piece of proposed legislation that also aims to "prevent the expansion of the Canadian Football League outside of Canada."

Senator Larry Campbell spent weeks drafting Bill S-238, amid speculation the NFL may be moving closer to making a full-time home in Toronto. The Buffalo Bills have been contracted to play eight games at Rogers Centre over the next five NFL seasons, which some view as the first step toward a possible relocation.

The bill received its first reading on Tuesday, and it demands "no person owning or operating a football team within a foreign league shall require or permit that team to play football in Canada."

It goes on to declare "no person shall play football within Canada as a player on a football team within a foreign league."

Exhibition games are excluded.

The Bills will stage the first of five regular season games in Toronto this season.

"The CFL is a Canadian institution," Mr. Campbell said in a recent interview. "We like to protect all of our other cultural icons, but there doesn't seem to be the same vigour with the CFL. I don't think that's true, and I'm going to prove that."

He contends the CFL could not co-exist with the NFL in Toronto, an opinion shared by B.C. Lions president Bob Ackles.

"I think it behooves all of us in the Canadian Football League to do what we can to make sure it doesn't happen," Mr. Ackles has said. "I've spoken with the Prime Minister. I take this very seriously."

Under the terms of the bill, violators could be jailed for up to two years, or face a fine.

Speculation about the NFL's future in Canada was set swirling anew during Super Bowl week in Phoenix, Ariz., last winter, when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced the Bills would take part in the unprecedented international venture. Tickets have gone on sale, and talk of the NFL's potential impact has lingered through the opening of CFL training camps.

"It's not so much frustrating," Toronto Argonauts co-owner Howard Sokolowski said. "What it would be is, it would be a shame if the NFL came to this country and, in any way, hurt the CFL. The CFL is a cultural institution as much as it is a sporting institution, and something this country has been proud of and celebrated for more than 100 years."

Mr. Campbell could not be immediately reached for comment.

"There's always this idea that, if it's your own money your own money you're spending, you can do whatever you want," Mr. Campbell said recently. "Sorry. That doesn't happen in my world. You should be looking out the good of the country and the good of your community."

National Post

 

[Jayomatic]

Holy !@#$, can they actually do some real work in the senate instead of making up these stupid bills?

 

[Kitsune]

Great, from no NFL football to no lecture notes being allowed anymore, this government needs to get a life !