Dream of NFL north of border sacked
Bills in Toronto series was supposed to be first step toward landing team here
Eight years ago, when the Buffalo Bills announced their extended plans for Canada, there seemed to be a real sense Toronto’s long-standing search for an NFL franchise was about to come to an end. Now, as NFL owners prepare to decide which of three teams (San Diego, St. Louis, Oakland) they will allow to relocate to Los Angeles, Toronto has never seemed quite so far away.
Here is a glimpse at how the landscape looked then compared to now:
Potential Ownership
THEN
On Feb. 6, 2008, Ted Rogers, one of the richest people in Canada, was sitting on a stage in Toronto, talking about a ground-breaking venture many believed was the first step down the road to relocating the Buffalo Bills. His eponymous communications company had agreed to spend $78 million to lease eight games over the next five years.
Rogers was estimated to be worth $7.6 billion, making him the secondrichest Canadian.
“I think it’s a dream come true for the city, for the province” he told the room. “I think it’s a dream come true for southern Ontario. It’s a great opportunity.”
Bills in Toronto Series
Boosters had no doubt the series would succeed in Toronto. Phil Lind, vice-chairman of Rogers Communications Inc., suggested the next step would be for the Bills play a split schedule — with half their home games in Buffalo, the other half at Rogers Centre.
Organizers prepared a lottery system for the expected waves of ticket demands.
“In Southern Ontario, this is NFL territory,” Lind said in May 2008. “The CFL’s great, wonderful, terrific, but this territory is NFL territory, at least if you’re 50 and under. If you’re older, fine, you can go for the Argos or Hamilton or whatever.”
Concerns in Buffalo
Ralph Wilson, the 89-year-old owner of the Bills, suggested the series was a salvation for his franchise, based as it was in a struggling economic corner of New York. The Bills had sold their home games to a foreign country, but for $9.75 million apiece, well above what the franchise could have generated at home.
The Bills had the lowest average ticket prices in the NFL.
“What am I going to say to the fans of Buffalo? I’m going to say, ‘Hey, I can’t speculate,’ ” Wilson said the day of the announcement. “I can’t speculate what’s going to happen in the future.”
Fear in Canada
On June 10, 2008, two months before the Bills were to play their first game in Toronto, a Canadian senator introduced Bill S-238, with the purpose of preventing foreign football leagues from playing in Canada. Larry Campbell drafted the proposed legislation to protect the CFL: “Somebody needs to get passionate about this issue, or you’re going to wake up one day and it’s over.”
Under the terms of his proposal, anyone caught playing for a foreign football league in Canada would be subject to fines and, in the wording of the bill, “imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.”
Jon Bon Jovi
In the summer of 2014, a Torontobased group teamed up with a worldrenowned leader, with musician Jon Bon Jovi lending his celebrity to a team that included MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum and the Rogers family. Together, they would bid in the auction for the Bills, with owner Ralph Wilson having died that March, at 95.
Donald Trump was reported to be another potential bidder, but Terry Pegula, who owned the Buffalo Sa- bres, was seen as the most serious competition.
The Toronto group planned to have Bon Jovi as its principal — with at least a 30 per cent ownership stake, as per NFL rules.
NOW
Potential Ownership
On Dec. 2, 2008, five days before the Bills were to play their first regularseason game at the stadium bearing his name, Ted Rogers died, at 75. His personal wealth — estimated at $7.6 billion — and his vast network’s thirst for content seemed to be Toronto’s best hope for snaring the Bills and luring them into Canada full-time.
Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports business consultant, said Toronto has been lacking a swashbuckling entrepreneurial spirit in its subsequent efforts with the Bills: “You need a Ted Rogers type of person.”
Bills in Toronto Series
It did not turn out well. Prices were high and demand was low, and trouble was obvious by the very first game, a pre-season exhibition with Pittsburgh. Several workers sprinted around outside the Rogers Centre before the game, handing out tickets to passersby. Some of those tickets had a printed face value of $255.
“I think the Toronto series has turned into pretty much a joke,” Bills centre Eric Wood told a Buffalo radio station in 2012, the second-last year of the contract. “It’s a bad atmosphere for football. I mean, nobody wants to play there.”
Concerns in Buffalo
Terry and Kim Pegula won the Bills with an NFL-record bid of $1.4 billion, and there is a sense the team is finally secure in Buffalo. That could make life difficult for prospective owners in Toronto, since the NFL might consider Southern Ontario to belong to the Bills, according to John Vrooman, an economics professor at Vanderbilt University.
“This is why a second NHL expansion team in Toronto makes perfect sense in terms of hockey fan welfare, but is not likely to happen because it would result in negative sum for internal NHL profit,” he wrote in an email to the Star. “The competitive economic damage to the Leafs would always exceed the gains to a second team in Hamilton.”
“I think the Toronto series has turned into pretty much a joke. Nobody wants to play there.” BILLS CENTRE ERIC WOOD
Fear in Canada
Earlier this week, the loonie dipped below 71 cents for the first time in more than 12 years, and the weak dollar would only add to the astronomical purchase price of an NFL team. Toronto does not have a stadium suitable for an NFL team, nor does there seem to be any urgency to have one built.
Toronto has been mentioned only in passing as three teams — San Diego, St. Louis and Oakland — vie for the spot in Los Angeles, along with London, England.
Ganis suggested that San Antonio, Texas, would also be on any list of new potential homes.
Jon Bon Jovi
By the end of August 2014, as the auction for the Bills entered its final stages, the New York Post reported Bon Jovi had parted ways with the Toronto group. He did not return, and the group eventually lost in its bid.
It is not clear if another group plans to mount another charge at any of the teams preparing for the upcoming NFL shuffle.
“I’m not saying it’s not possible,” said Ganis.
“I’m saying the community needs to be prepared to act, and not in some conservative . . . manner.”