Will the Bills exhibition games in Toronto lead to their eventual move to Canada?

Question

..and the destruction of the CFL and a huge part of Canadian identity.

Answer 1

I hope not. The story of the NFL is about gambling. The Vegas connection to the NFL is terrible. The game is not as good as the CFL game but that doesn't mean anything. Big money wants NFL in Toronto and that is it.

Answer 2

The CFL really needs to take steps to make expansion more likely to succeed to protect themselves from this.  With 8 teams, if Toronto is displaced, the league dies.

Ralph Wilson has said that the Bills will be in Buffalo as long as he lives but on the same token seems to be talking out of the side of his mouth on this as he has something of a claim on Toronto with the NFL.  It seems like he doesn't want to deal with the backlash, but on the same token seems to intend for his heirs to inherit a team in a much healthier financial market.

You can make a lot more money selling tickets in Toronto than Buffalo and your TV share is much larger.

Ralph Wilson is an old man.

It is possible the owner of the Sabres will buy the Bills and keep them in Buffalo, but it is also possible he won't and the heirs will move the team to Toronto.

I think the CFL needs to seriously address this by first becoming a league of 8 equal members rather then a league of 3 big market teams putting the breaks on expansion to protect their merchandising areas and 5 "small" market teams.

I think the others need to start consistently outvoting BC, Montreal, and Toronto --- the teams that likely take in more than the others off merchandising.   A team in Victoria, Surrey, and/or Kelowna makes sense for the league as a whole, but would cut into BC's merchandising share.  Ditto for a team in Quebec cutting into Montreal's merchandising or a team in London cutting into Toronto's.  But expansion in these areas would pull all 3 teams into the same financial realms as the other 5.

The salary cap was a great first step.  I think the next step needs to be increasing the practice squad to 25 members @ 40K each to create the neccessary pool of developing canadian talent for expansion.  This will also drive down salaries per player as those players will have to figured under the cap.

I think the CFL will need to expand with teams that have less than ideal stadium situations to get into needed markets.  25-30K is a great stadium criteria, but to insist on a likely 80M stadium off the bat is frankly shutting down any chance of expansion in Canada.  Better to allow teams to "get away" with temporary seating for say 50% of the seating with the understanding 30K permanent seating will be required by the end of the first decade in the city.  Getting a 4-6K stadium bumped up to 12K with lots of restrooms and temporary vendor stands is chore enough for a city without a CFL team.  Governments are much more likely to shell out to keep what their voters have than to bring in a new CFL franchise.

I think for the first 5 years, expansion teams should be required to hire a football guy who has run CFL teams with winning records for most of their careers. New teams have to win quickly to stay viable in year 3-6.   I think expansion terms should be very favorable along those lines.

Using team #9 as an example... Every playoff team would be able to protect their 10 top paid players.  Every non-playoff team could protect their 15 tpp.  The expansion teams would pick 56 players roster from the remaining pool of players from each team's rosters and their practice squads --- so an expansion team would get 7 players from each team.  Their players would get 3-4 year deals at near the minimum. This would give the expansion team a very large, young, and solid nucleus for local fans to adopt. Their team salaries would be capped at 3M for the first 3-4 seasons --- maybe longer until the team strings together 3 consecutive years of 23K+ attendence. (Most expansion teams struggle with attendence drops in years 3-6.)  I'd also give them the first two picks in the draft.

I'd want an expansion team to have a cheap, young, deep roster that might allow them to get into the playoffs in year 2.  I'd want them to be able to compete and have a much lower break even point--- allowing for say 15-18K attendance averages to be survived for a year or two--- but to have a low enough cap that if things really collapsed, their players could be reabsorbed by the other teams with little financial difficulty.

The other part of keeping salary caps low is that the more you expand, the better the odds of an expansion team getting into the playoffs.  Each expansion adds easy wins for the previous expansion teams for 1-3 years. (For example if Ottawa comes in with Moncton and then you add Quebec, Quebec probably plays Ottawa and Moncton twice and gives them each 2 more wins for at least the first year.)

The CFL needs more teams for more TV content (allowing for possible US TV money), higher Canadian TV viewership, more travelling fans, and for more regions watching TV and stocking and buying merchandise.

IMO the only way to get there is to do the near impossible --- get all the teams on the same page.

Answer 3

Maybe, but is also being marketed there, like London, beacause they want to take American football a worldwide sport.

Answer 4

I think so...   Its not really related, but its like the situation in the NHL. Its marketed to people who never played hockey or skated in their life.

Kind of like the NHL. Its sad there are so many teams in the southern half of the USA.  I mean come on, how is it that Winnipeg and Quebec City do not have teams?  But, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina and Atlanta do? Not to mention Florida and California having multiple teams.  

I live in Minnesota, and it really made me mad when the Northstars left town for Texas.  I would rather see a team in cities likes Grand Forks ND, Duluth Minnesota, Rochester NY, Syracuse NY, Portland Maine, Hartford Connecticut, Madison Wisconsin, Quebec City, Hamilton, Fairbanks, Seattle...

ITS SAD AMERICAN SPORTS IS ALL ABOUT CASH NOW...

Answer 5

That is classic.  The Bills would be better suited for CFL play.  I don't think the NFL has any expansion ideas.  The league is still trying to get an existing team to move to LA.  I doubt that Toronto is on the radar.