IS TORONTO’S NFL DREAM OVER?
Owners are talking about relocating franchises, but we’re just not part of the conversation. Sean Fitz-Gerald breaks down why,
Marc Ganis, the oft-quoted sports business consultant from Chicago, was explaining how cities win and lose National Football League franchises: “The meek may inherit the earth, but they’re not going to own an NFL team.”
All 32 owners will convene in Houston next week to decide which team – or teams, since three have applied — will win the right to move to Los Angeles, the second-largest market in the United States. Ganis, though, was speaking specifically about a Canadian market, a city with a long history of finishing among the runners-up in the pursuit of an NFL team.
Toronto had its best chance to win a team when the Buffalo Bills were on the market two years ago, said Ganis, president of Sportscorp Ltd. He said that hopeful ownership group, fronted by musician Jon Bon Jovi, should have been more aggressive financially.
“Other than the size of the market, the compelling case has not been made,” he said. “The people who live there, the people who are the leaders there, had the opportunity to be bold and pay a lot of money to get a team to come, and they didn’t.” Now what?
“Now,” he said, “they have to sit back and hope and wait that some opportunity comes up that might fall into their laps.”
Speculation is swirling through a handful of cities as the NFL prepares to shuffle its deck chairs again this month, but it has been quiet around Toronto. Following a long pursuit of the Bills — including the ill-fated series of games at Rogers Centre — several experts agree Canada’s most populous city does not appear to be the most popular potential destination.
The loonie is slumping badly. The Bills series was not exactly a glowing endorsement of Toronto’s thirst for the NFL game. Any city that loses its team to Los Angeles — whether it is San Diego, Oakland or St. Louis — would likely jump the queue for a new team. And there are other factors, some of which have dogged Toronto’s pursuit for decades.
“Part of the problem is the NFL is used to being the 800-pound gorilla in any market,” said Sal Galatioto, a sports business consultant based in New York. “You get an NFL team in Toronto, are they going to be the 800-pound gorilla in that market? No, they’re not going to displace hockey in Canada.”
Galatioto, president of Galatioto Sports Partners, suggested the border remains a
“(Toronto has) to sit back and hope and wait that some opportunity comes up that might fall into their laps.” MARC GANIS
hurdle.
“Even though most Americans think Toronto is in the U.S., it’s not,” he said. “And there’s sort of a psychological barrier to that. There just is.”
Terry and Kim Pegula, who already owned the Buffalo Sabres, won the Bills auction with a league-record $1.4-billion (U.S.) bid. The Bon Jovi group, which also included Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment chair Larry Tanenbaum and the Rogers family, reportedly tapped out at around $1.1 billion (U.S.).
(Theirs was not explicitly presented as a Toronto-based bid, but the expectation was they would eventually move the Bills north of the border.)
The cost to buy in keeps rising. With the purchase price, the relocation fees and the costs of building a new stadium, Richard Peddie, the retired chief executive of MLSE, rounded the estimated total cost of luring a team to Toronto at around $3 billion.
“Who’s the rich Canadian who pays for that?” he asked. “No individual was stepping up to buy Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment at $2 billion, and it’s a cash cow.”
Canada’s leading telecommunications companies — Bell and Rogers — teamed up to split MLSE four years ago. The NFL forbids corporate ownership, requiring one shareholder to own at least 30 per cent of the team.
“I don’t think that Toronto is necessarily off the table,” said Courtney Brunious, associate director of the University of Southern California Sports Business Institute. “It’s just that it may not be as big a priority as some of the other things that have come up over the last decade or two.”
Los Angeles has been vacant since the Rams and Raiders left following the 1994 season, for St. Louis and Oakland, respectively. Next week, NFL owners will decide which teams might be allowed to return. Rams owner Stan Kroenke has plans to build a complex in Inglewood, near the airport. A second stadium proposal, in Carson, would house both the Raiders and Chargers. Reports suggest owners would be willing to allow one stadium and two teams to proceed, with a handful of scenarios and resulting chain reactions.
Toronto has been mentioned, but only on the periphery, alongside London. According to Paul Godfrey, chief executive of Postmedia Network Inc. and a longtime NFL booster in Toronto, that is not necessarily a bad thing.
“When you’re chasing a sports team, you don’t necessarily want it in the media each and every day,” he said. “One thing I learned about the NFL is that the more time you talk in the media, the less likely it is they are prepared to talk to you.”