Stable Argos ownership helps Toronto NFL hopes
Tanenbaum just eliminated one key hurdle in bringing team to Canada
Less than a year ago, Larry Tanenbaum was one of the principals in a bid to purchase the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Alongside the Rogers family and singer/celebrity sports fan Jon Bon Jovi, his group made it to the short list of potential Bills buyers, although by all accounts, the billiondollar bid from eventual winner Terry Pegula was never seriously threatened.
The Tanenbaum/Bon Jovi/ Rogers bid was more notable for the fact it was accompanied by speculation that it aimed to bring the Bills to Toronto, which upset a great number of people in Western New York. Bon Jovi backed out, the process moved on, and Pegula won and vowed to keep the team in Buffalo.
This week, Tanenbaum actually did buy a professional football team, and it will involve a Toronto move, but only from one part of the city to another. But with his purchase, along with Bell Canada, of the Toronto Argonauts, it is worth noting that one of the key elements of the oft-mentioned NFL-to-Toronto storyline has now been satisfied: the Argos are squared away, with plans to tuck them into BMO Field. That means the NFL would be seen as less of a threat. And it could mean an opening.
At a Bloomberg economic conference in Toronto on Thursday, Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, said he still sees the NFL in this city at some point in the future, though the timing is very uncertain.
“They still see Canada as an obvious choice for an NFL team,” he said, according to a report in The Toronto Star, but added that he’s presently focused on MLSE and the Argos.
Through an MLSE spokesman, Tanenbaum on Friday declined to comment further. But that does not prevent us from speculating.
Any talk of the NFL coming to Toronto in recent years has always been accompanied by the caveat that commissioner Roger Goodell, who grew up nearby in upstate New York, wants no part of a move that would deal a serious blow to the Canadian Football League.
As long as the future of the Argos was in doubt, which has been the case for at least a decade, the NFL was obviously a major threat to the CFL’s prospects in Toronto. Had the NFL suddenly arrived, the Argos would have gone from a moneylosing franchise in search of a more suitable home stadium, to a money-losing franchise in search of a stadium that was competing with a juggernaut franchise that plays the same sport.
This week’s news assuages some of those concerns. With the Argonauts now owned, pending completion of the transaction, the franchise appears as secure as it has been in recent memory. While it’s far from certain that the move to BMO Field will create the fan interest in the Argos that has failed to materialize under successive owners, the new group has committed a lot of money to take a shot at it. Bell, in particular, should be particularly motivated to keep the Argos afloat, since a stronger Toronto franchise brings more value to the CFL’s media rights, which Bell holds.
Which means that someone — have I mentioned that we’re speculating here? — who was, say, the owner of the CFL franchise could take a run at the NFL with little fear that success in that drive would imperil the Argos.
That the NFL would be a major asset to a broadcaster is obvious in a world where live sports rights have ever-increasing value; the notion that Tanenbaum could partner now with Bell, instead of with Rogers, Bell’s MLSE corporate frenemies, in an NFL play just makes the prospect all that more juicy.
And now is the part where we must add a pile of provisos and caveats. With the Bills ensconced in Buffalo, the list of potential relocation targets is short, and to the extent that any franchise movement is in the offing, the NFL is definitely going to eye Southern California before southern Ontario.
There are already proposals in play to build stadiums in the Los Angeles area, with some combination of the Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers and St. Louis Rams, or perhaps two of those teams, linked to possible moves.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are forever being suggested as a candidate to move to L.A. or London — Toronto would be like splitting the difference, location-wise — although their owner says he’s committed to northern Florida.
There’s also the not-insignificant problem of the lack of an NFL-sized stadium. But if the Bills were ever going to move to Toronto, a new stadium would have been a must in that scenario, so the hurdle is one that various well-heeled folks thought could be overcome before.
None of it means the NFL in Toronto is imminent, or even likely. But things can change fast: Los Angeles had two teams, then none, and at times looked certain to get a team back and at others those bids have looked stone dead. Now they might have two teams again.
If Toronto is to enter the NFL club, there are a great many boxes that remain to be checked off. But one of them, next to “Save Argonauts,” has just been ticked. And it’s a meaningful one.
Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, said he still sees the NFL in this city at some point in the future.