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An exhibition game or two? Maybe.
But will the Toronto Raptors play regular-season games in Buffalo? No chance.
“We're not thinking home games. No, no, no, no. We're not giving those up,” said Richard Peddie, president of Raptors owner Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd. “We have our fan base here we want to service.”
Peddie was responding to a report in Wednesday's Buffalo News in which local officials and the News publisher suggested the Raptors could be looking to expand their presence in upstate New York by playing preseason and perhaps even regular-season games at HSBC Arena.
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“They're very eager about having some of their games played in Buffalo,” New York Senator Charles E. Schumer said Tuesday.
Buffalo News publisher Stanford Lipsey said the Raptors are “very interested, and I would expect us to get a preseason game in 2009.”
How about regular-season games? Said Schumer: “I wouldn't say it's done, but I think it's on the table.”
To which one MLSE insider said in response: “He's at a table set for one.”
The Raptors have a history of moving their training camps to different markets and holding preseason games beyond the Air Canada Centre in an effort to expand the NBA team's footprint beyond the Greater Toronto Area.
The Raptors have previously held a training camp in the Buffalo area and, two seasons ago, played a preseason game in Rochester, N.Y.
“We're booked for this year and we're probably in the process of being booked for next year,” Peddie said. “We like to take those games coast to coast, but that being said that [Buffalo] is a market that has been good to us and if the arena is right and the economics work, we'd look at it.”
According to Schumer and Lipsey, the notion of having the Raptors play games in Buffalo came from conversations they had with MSLE chairman Larry Tanenbaum, who has been part of the effort to have the NFL's Buffalo Bills play preseason and regular-season games at the Rogers Centre.
Peddie said that bringing the Bills to Toronto did not necessarily translate into playing NBA games in Buffalo.
“We know there is a relationship there, but really we have nothing to do with the Bills,” Peddie said.
And while the Bills' interest in Southern Ontario was in part inspired by the ability to enhance revenues compared to what they might make playing at home, it's unlikely the Raptors would be able to command a premium over what they earn at the ACC by playing in Buffalo.
The Raptors sold out 31 of 41 home dates last season, and season-ticket renewal rates for 2008-09 were at 90 per cent as of June 30, according to an MLSE spokesman.
