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Season-ticket holders of the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats will get first priority to buy tickets for eight Buffalo Bills games that will be played at Rogers Centre in Toronto over the next five years.
As expected, the scheduling of five regular-season and three preseason games in Toronto has been approved by the NFL and will formally be announced at a news conference in Toronto next Wednesday. However, according to sources, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is expected to confirm that the games will be played in Toronto during his annual Super Bowl week news conference in Arizona tomorrow.
The fact that Argos and Ticats season-ticket holders will get priority is good news for the CFL. It suggests there has been dialogue between the two leagues about the impact of the Bills playing in Canada.
However, to take advantage of the priority, the CFL season-ticket holders will have to purchase all eight Bills games at once.
Though the NFL schedule isn't due out until April, it's anticipated the Bills' 2008 regular-season game in Toronto will be played in December, after the CFL season is complete.
News of the NFL's approval isn't surprising. Last week ESPN reported Buffalo would "almost certainly" get approval from league owners to play a regular-season game in Toronto in 2008.
In October, Bills owner Ralph Wilson Jr. asked the NFL for permission to play eight home games in Toronto over five years, beginning this year. Buffalo would play one regular-season contest each year at Rogers Centre, with three exhibition contests sprinkled in over the five-year span.
The plan, Wilson said, was to attempt to expand the Bills' market as well as its fan base by playing games in a more vibrant Toronto marketplace. The hope would be that playing games in Canada might result in more Canadian businesses purchasing the high-end seats at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
The Bills attract a solid group of fans from southern Ontario, between 10,000 and 15,000 a game, depending on the opponent. Metro Toronto boasts a population of about five million people, compared to 1.25 million for the metro Buffalo area. Another factor, too, is the strength of the Canadian dollar and the health of the southern Ontario economy compared to the economic sluggishness plaguing Western New York.
That has prompted many to see the Bills' plan as the first step toward relocating to the richer, more financially appealing Toronto marketplace. Wilson, 89, fanned those flames last summer when he announced he wouldn't sell the Buffalo franchise in his lifetime but that it would be sold to the highest bidder upon his death.
Talk of the NFL coming to Toronto has existed since the 1970s. But the combination of Wilson's statement, the Bills playing regular-season games at Rogers Centre, the strength of the Canadian dollar and the deep pockets of the Toronto NFL group headed by Ted Rogers and Larry Tanenbaum has many believing the NFL's arrival in Toronto is inevitable.
Argos co-owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski obviously think so, too. They reportedly spoke to CFL commissioner Mark Cohon and the other league owners about buying an NFL franchise for Toronto to ensure the Argos' long-term survival in the city.
The overwhelming belief is that if the NFL does come to Toronto, it will not only spell the end of the Argos and Tiger-Cats, but kill the CFL. But in November, Cohon said he has a strong line of communication with Goodell and that the NFL commissioner's top priority is protecting the CFL's eight teams.
With reports from The Canadian Press and Matthew Sekeres
