the NFL in Toronto

The National Football League (NFL), is, and has always been the dominant professional competition in American football and the leading U.S. professional sports league.

It has long been rumoured to be considering placing one of its franchises in Canada's largest city, (and the hometown of yours truly) Toronto, Ontario.

Toronto is the fifth most populous city in North America, making it one of the continent's largest markets and an intriguing city in which to operate an NFL franchise. While there are professional Canadian football teams in Toronto and nearby Hamilton, there are no professional American football teams in Canada. Despite being in Canada, Toronto is actually further south than existing NFL franchises in Minnesota, Seattle and Green Bay. Furthermore, San Diego Chargers executive Dean Spanos, speaking in regards to international NFL play, stated in January 2008 that "the long term goal is globalizing our sport" and that "it is possible that within five or 10 years, the league will have franchises outside the United States."

There has been speculation that current NFL franchises, most commonly the Jacksonville Jaguars and the nearby Buffalo Bills, may possibly be relocated to Toronto. There has also been speculation that the New Orleans Saints or Minnesota Vikings could be moved to Toronto. However, a new stadium in the works has all but silenced the Vikings rumors (for now). Similarly, ramifications resulting from Hurricane Katrina have reduced the prospect of moving the Saints. The Jaguars are often mentioned due to the fact that they struggle to sell out Jacksonville Municipal Stadium even with its capacity reduced by covered-up seats. The Bills, on the other hand, are mentioned not because of attendance problems but because of the team's proximity to Toronto; the advanced age of Bills owner Ralph Wilson, who has no apparent successor; and the persistent economic and population problems that plague the Buffalo region, forcing the Bills to keep their ticket prices the lowest in the NFL.

Toronto would most notably be competing with Los Angeles, the second most-populated city, and metropolitan area, in the United States, to lure an NFL team.

The NFL has had a presence in Toronto since back in 1959, when the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL) played (and lost to) three NFL teams in a three-season span. These exhibition games, which had been first tried in Ottawa in 1950 and would be imitated by Montreal, were played by CFL rules in the first half and NFL rules in the second. Injury problems led to many of the Argonauts' losses; the Argos at this time were in a rut and had missed the playoffs several times since 1953.

The Bills themselves, then an American Football League team, tried their hand with a game against the nearby Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Unprepared, and suffering from some injuries, Buffalo lost the game 38-21.

After several years, the American Bowl series brought three preseason games to the city between 1993 and 1997, two of which featured the Bills.

Former Toronto Blue Jays CEO and President Paul Godfrey has been interested in pursing an NFL franchise for Toronto since 1988. Before recent developments, most skeptics believed that it would be too expensive to bring an NFL team to Toronto and most possible investors may shy away from the approximately $1 billion (US) price tag that an NFL franchise comes with. Then-NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue himself dismissed the prospects of a Toronto team in 2006, although he left the door open to including Toronto in the NFL International Series.

How does Buffalo fit into the "Toronto in the NFL" equation?

For many years, the Bills have had a large market in southern Ontario. In fact, the Bills average 15,000 Canadian fans to Ralph Wilson Stadium per game. On October 18, 2007, the Bills announced plans seeking approval to play a pre-season and at least one regular season game in Toronto in an attempt to capitalize on the Canadian market. The team has a Canadian sales office and a radio affiliate in Toronto, CJCL. The NFL's television rules have also been applied in a similar manner to secondary markets in the United States, so that nearly all Bills games are televised in Toronto, on CFTO and CITYTV, except for home games that do not sell out (the Toronto television market extends to the Canadian border in Fort Erie, Ontario, well within the 75-mile radius of Ralph Wilson Stadium, and is thus subject to the league's blackout policy).

On January 30, 2008, it was announced that the Bills reached an agreement to play five regular-season and three exhibition NFL games over the next five years in Toronto.
The first of these games took place in the 2008 NFL season. The first game in the series was announced April 3 (although it had been leaked through various sources throughout March) and featured the Bills facing the Pittsburgh Steelers in an exhibition game August 14; this date was one day before the Toronto Argonauts play in the same stadium and the same date and time as a Hamilton Tiger-Cats game (although the latter game was in Winnipeg). Buffalo won the game, 24–21, but the game was marred by reports that the game organizers had to give away over 10,000 tickets to assure a sellout crowd, an accusation that Ted Rogers denies. The regular season game will take place on December 7 against the Miami Dolphins, after the end of the 2008 CFL season. Ted Rogers is effectively leasing the team from Wilson at a cost of $78 million (Canadian) and has hired his own general manager and management staff to handle the games.

There is speculation that when Ralph Wilson, Jr. dies, interests may bid for the franchise in the hopes of moving the Bills to Toronto.

Ted Rogers, owner of Rogers Communications, Rogers Center and The Toronto Blue Jays, and Larry Tanenbaum met and discussed the possibility of an NFL franchise in Toronto. Tannenbaum said that he and Ted Rogers were "highly interested" in bringing an NFL franchise to Toronto. He also stated that he was going to "pursue it more rigorously" as soon as the NFL gave him word.

On Thursday, April 3, it was announced that the Bills will play the Pittsburgh Steelers in a pre-season game on Thursday, August 14, 2008, at Rogers Centre. On April 15, the regular season match was revealed, with the Bills hosting their division rivals, the Miami Dolphins, on December 7. Both games will have standard ticket prices ranging from C$55 to C$295 and VIP tickets from C$325 to C$575. The average standard ticket price of C$183 drawfs the highest priced average in the NFL, that of the New England Patriots, at US$88.

The biggest roadblocks to bringing a team Toronto into the NFL thusfar have been:

- The Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts currently play in the city and have in the past been protected from American competition. The World Football League intended to place its own franchise in Toronto known as the Toronto Northmen, but then Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau threatened to pass a Canadian Football Act to prevent such a move. The WFL backed down and moved the team to Memphis, Tennessee, where it became known as the Memphis Southmen and later the Mid-South Grizzlies in a failed bid to join the NFL.

American teams that have made their home in Toronto include the Continental Football League's Toronto Rifles (1965-67) and the Arena Football League's Toronto Phantoms (2000-02). Any NFL team that entered the Toronto market would have to deal with the Argonauts as well as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who play in nearby Hamilton, Ontario and have vehemently opposed any presence of the NFL in Canada.

- The Tiger-Cats responded to the Bills' move to play games in Toronto by making an April Fool's Day mock announcement on April 1, 2008 that they would move one of their home games against the Montreal Alouettes to Ralph Wilson Stadium, and would play the Bills in a rematch of their 1961 contest, which the Tiger-Cats won, in June 2008 (when the Bills would be in minicamp and the Ti-Cats would be playing preseason).Tiger-Cats fans, while acknowledging it was a hoax, reacted positively to the idea.

The other major issue would be stadium. Although Paul Godfrey believed that the Rogers Centre could be home to an NFL franchise, it is unclear if the Rogers Centre could be the home long-term. Rogers Centre (formerly known as Sky Dome), a retractable roof stadium, has a maximum capacity of 54,088 when configured for CFL games; in comparison, the smallest NFL stadium in terms of capacity (excluding the exhibition-only stadiums in Canton and Honolulu) is Chicago's Soldier Field, which has 61,500 seats. While extra seats could be added near the end zones as a result of the shorter NFL field, a large-scale expansion would be very difficult because of the stadium's design. This means that a new football specific stadium would have to be built. David Miller, mayor for the city of Toronto, has stated that funding for a new stadium would not come from the City of Toronto and would have to come from private funding. Counteracting this small capacity is the large number of luxury boxes in the stadium, which count as "unshared" revenue in the NFL's revenue sharing and collective bargaining agreements.

Will we see an NFL club in Toronto? it may still be too early to say for sure, would it be through expansion or relocation? If Toronto were to get a team into the NFL, would it work or be a failure? Is a Toronto team in the NFL something better in our hearts and minds then can ever possibly be on the field? These are all questions we may never know the answers to, but as a fan of the game, I for one would definitely like some answers!!

What do you think? will we see the NFL in Toronto, and just these exhibition games, but an actual club to call our very own? why won't we? post your feedback on this topic as I would love to get the input of others on this one and see just where we all are on it.

Until next time........