NFL announcing legend John Madden retires

Legendary NFL broadcaster John Madden has made his last call.

NBC announced the former coach's plans to retire Thursday morning. Though he spent the last three years working NBC's Sunday night NFL game, he served as an analyst on all four major television networks since retiring as the Oakland Raiders coach in 1979.

"It's time," Madden said. "I'm 73 years old. My 50th wedding anniversary is this fall. I have two great sons and their families and their five grandchildren are at an age now when they know when I'm home and, more importantly, when I'm not."

Known to many for his annual "Madden NFL Football" video game, the 73-year-old Hall of Famer's final game was February's Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals.

After beginning his coaching career as an Oakland linebacker coach in 1967, he was promoted to head coach two years later. At 33, he was the American Football League's youngest coach. He retired after winning the Super Bowl, and joined CBS the next season.

Famously afraid of flying on planes, he traveled to most games by a specially-equipped bus.

He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Porn airs during Super Bowl XLIII

Super Bowl fans in Tucson, Arizona, caught a different kind of show during Sunday's big game.

Just as Cardinals' superstar Larry Fitzgerald watched himself sprint into the end zone on the stadium's Jumbotron during Sunday's Super Bowl, 10 seconds of eye-popping pornographic imagery "flashed" across the screens of those watching at home.

"We are mortified by last evening's Super Bowl interruption, and deeply apologize to our customers for the inappropriate programming," Comcast Cable said in a written statement.

"Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act," the statement added.

Comcast, and several local television stations that carried the signal, say they are currently investigating what caused the interruption.

"It appears this material was only viewed by some Comcast customers," local Tucson television station KVOA-TV said in a written statement.

Television station KVOA added "when the NBC feed of the Super Bowl was transmitted from KVOA to local cable providers and through over-the-air antennas, there was no pornographic material," KVOA President and General Manager Gary Nielsen said in a separate statement.

$3 million gets you 30 seconds

NBC says advertisers are still buying the $3 million spots for the big game, despite a tough economy.

Despite record prices, a grinding recession that doesn't seem like it's going to end anywhere in the near future and the absence of two big advertisers this year, NBC says it's having no problem filling spots for Super Bowl XLIII.

The network has sold about 90% of its 67 spots for the championship game scheduled for Feb. 1 in Tampa, Fla., according to NBC spokesman Brian Walker.

Walker said advertising is "on pace or ahead of past Super Bowls," adding that NBC is "in active negotiations with about a dozen potential advertisers."

FedEx and General Motors will not be buying spots this year.
FedEx blamed the economy, while GM said the timing was just wrong.

NBC is charging, on average, $3 million for a 30-second spot. That's more than the $2.7 million average price for Super Bowl XLII in 2008, when the New York Giants' narrow victory over the New England Patriots was broadcast by Fox of News Corp.

The average price of a 30-second spot crossed the $1 million mark in 1995 and passed $2 million in 2000, according to TN'S Media Intelligence. But industry experts say that it's worth every penny.

"You have a better chance of reaching people with the Super Bowl than with any other media buy that's available," said John Ferret, professor of advertising at Boston University.

Some 97.5 million people tuned into the game last year, according to the Nielsen Company.

Only the World Cup can compete in terms of size and scope, but that's for a different type of "football" that doesn't generate much excitement among North Americans.

"The Super Bowl is completely unique in its ability to reach everybody at the same time," said Tim Calkins, marketing professor of the Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review. "There's nothing else that's even close."

Many of last year's advertisers will continue to run ads for the 2009 game, including soft drink makers Coca Cola and PepsiCo; auto industry companies like Audi, Hyundai and Bridgestone; online marketplaces like GoDaddy.com and E*Trade Financial, the pet food company Pedigree, and the National Football League, which advertises for free.

Iconic Super Bowl advertiser Anheuser-Busch is running 4.5 minutes worth of spots, a half-minute more than last year (for all of you trying to calculate that, and looking around for calculators, that's $27 MILLION dollars!!!)

"We're obviously the game's single biggest advertiser and have been for some time," said Bob Lachky, chief creative officer for Anheuser-Busch. "It's the one time when you can get, in one setting, the biggest concentration of adult beer drinkers at one time. This is a huge, huge selling platform for us."

The Super Bowl may be synonymous with beer for many Americans, but the spots are coveted by advertisers of all stripes, because of the unusually ad-friendly culture.

"What makes the Super Bowl unique is that this is the one time every year where, instead of complaining about advertising, we celebrate advertising," said Peter Blackshaw, chief marketing officer for Nielsen Buzz Metrics. "You can't really beat the reach and you don't have to worry about people flipping on the DVR fast forward button, because people like to watch the ads."

Super Bowl and the recession

But not everyone believes that Super Bowl spots are worth the money, and the recession has taken its toll on at least a couple of long-time advertisers.

FedEx won top ratings from the Kellogg School of Management for its 2008 Super Bowl spot, which showed a gargantuan carrier pigeon wrecking havoc on city streets. But for 2009, the shipping company refrained from buying a spot for the first time in 12 years.

"As a country, we are in unprecedented economic waters," Steve Pacheco, managing director of advertising at FedEx, wrote in a corporate blog. "A Super Bowl ad buy is not where we should put dollars at this time although, in the past, the value of doing so for FedEx has been indisputable."

General Motors, the official Super Bowl sponsor, used an animated, 60-second spot during last year's game to unveil its GMC Yukon Hybrid. But the automaker will not be airing a commercial this year. GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato said the company made that decision back in September.

"It just wasn't a good enough return on the investment for that, because we didn't have a major vehicle launch that aligned with the timing of the Super Bowl," said Cusinato. "Then we went to Congress, and the economy got worse and we started scaling back a lot of other sponsorships."

When auto executives went hat in hand to Congress last December, GM was strongly advised not to run a Super Bowl ad this year.

But not all automakers are shunning Super Bowl air time. Audi and Hyundai have both bought spots for the 2009 game.

Audi plans to run a 60-second commercial for the second year running, following its well-received "Godfather" themed ad for the R8 luxury sports car. Hyundai plans to unveil its 2010 Genesis Coupe with two commercials, featuring a race course run choreographed to the playing of cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Stuck with an expensive spot

Calkins of the Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review said that much of the air time was sold in September, and that some advertisers might regret their purchases, given the worsening state of the economy.

"Early in the fall, most of the spots were sold out," he said. "That, of course, was before the economy really went south. The advertisers were stuck with them. There was a very strong initial demand, and there's a very different climate right now."

But for GoDaddy.com, a domain name marketplace that keeps censors on their toes with its risqué ads, there is no time like the present. The company has purchased a Super Bowl spot for its fifth consecutive year.

"Our theory on advertising is that when the economy is having some issues, that is not the time to cut your advertising budget," said GoDaddy.com executive vice president Barb Rechterman.

The NFL in Toronto

Landing a National Football League team has always seemed a remote possibility for the city of Toronto.

After all, with a new NFL franchise estimated to be worth $1-billion US these days, who can blame the skeptics who view Toronto’s continuing fascination as mere rhetoric.

While these few exhibition and regular season are nice (for now) they're still not "Canada's own" we only have them on loan

New stadium a hurdle

The NFL’s head office, has reiterated on numerous occasions that the cities within the United States remain its only priority for an expansion team in the foreseeable future.

Even if the league were to consider Toronto, the Rogers Centre is currently not up to NFL standards with its seating capacity. The stadium currently holds roughly 55,000, significantly less than the 65,000 the league mandates.

Many also believe that the NFL will require any prospective owner to pour millions more into a new stadium if Toronto is to be granted a franchise.

“We’d like to try and convince them that we can adapt the Rogers Centre to house a National Football League team,” said Godfrey. “We think that adjustments can be made to the facility. But I also think a new facility can be built by personal seat licenses the way they’ve been done in the United States.”
- Paul Godfrey

Don't count on the city's help: Mayor Miller

Should Toronto land an NFL franchise, the funding for a new stadium may have to come out of the owners pockets.

Toronto Mayor David Miller has made it clear the city won’t help with any public money for a new facility and remains adamant of the area's loyalty to the CFL's Argonauts.

“If private people want to raise a billion dollars for the NFL franchise, good for them,” Miller said. “But the health of the CFL is very important to this city and to the country and I don’t want to see anything happen that’s going to risk this league."

Miller, who lived in Boston for a time, also doesn't see the NFL expanding into Canada under any circumstances.

“I understand how Americans think, and there’s no way on Earth that a team in Toronto is going to come before a team in the U.S., it just won’t happen,” he said.

"So if somebody has the money to buy a franchise it may be different, but it certainly won’t be an expansion team, not in the next 10 or 20 years.”

For his part, Howard Bloom, publisher of sportsbusinessnews.com, backs Godfrey on the expansion issue, but on a much larger scale. Based on the continued financial bonanza the NFL receives through the major television networks, Bloom sees four cities, including Toronto, added within the next 10 years.

"Four billion dollars in expansion fees is a tremendous source of revenue," he contends.

Bloom also predicts the NFL will expand its television coverage to include games from Thursday to Monday on a weekly basis.

"In order to be able to successfully play from Thursday to Monday, the NFL needs a strong presence with more teams. It’s not going to work any other way."

Billion-dollar bill for Buffalo

Some, however, are convinced Toronto's only hope lies with a neighbouring team about 130 kilometres west along the Queen Elizabeth Way.

Since Ralph Wilson has been the owner of the Buffalo Bills, the franchise has been a stabilizing entity in an otherwise struggling economy.

But there are growing fears in Western New York that the team will be sold and moved once the 87-year-old Wilson passes away. Moreover, no other local Buffalo,NY business owner has shown an interest in purchasing the Bills.

"It’s not going to stay in Buffalo unless you have the most amazing philanthropist in the world who’s got a billion dollars, and I can’t image who that would be," said Brunt.

"The team will be sold, and outside of L.A., there is no other market left where you can max out sponsorship and stadium advertising like Toronto.”

It not expansion, may not necessarily be by purchasing and moving the Bills either, The other teams currently in danger of losing there franchise in the NFL include : The 49ers, The Jaguars, The Saints, The Raiders, The Vikings, The Chargers, The Bengals and even The Falcons.... so a Toronto - Buffalo NFL game may even be a possibility some day! (a great rivalry waiting to happen!)

With the NFL continuing to avoid the issue, debates over the city's chance of landing a team carry on, but the question of whether Toronto can afford a franchise has been answered.

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........