Football Folly

[Dusty Ayres]

Some people just don't get it, and so they do the most stupid things, sports-wise:

The Brothers Ford got many Torontonians spluttering out their morning coffee today with the proclamation that they had hopes of bringing an NFL franchise to the city. Let us set aside—for a moment—the fact that the NFL has given us every indication that they aren't interested and that previous attempts to bring a team here have failed miserably. Let us set aside that the notion of finding private partners to build a one-billion-dollar stadium (the estimated cost of an arena big enough to meet the NFL's preferred seventy-five-thousand-seat threshold) is right now only a pipe dream. Let us set aside the appearance that the Fords are conflating their personal hobbies with the city's interests. Let us set aside the uneasy feeling of hearing numbers like "one billion dollars" bandied about when this week members of the public have been asking the budget committee to please, just please, reconsider one-hundred-thousand-dollar cuts to various community services.​

http://torontoist.com/2011/01/football_folly.php

Fellow Torontonians, is Mayor Ford and his brother right? Or wrong? (Apologies if this topic's already been discussed.)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Why would the NFL need a new stadium? Why don't they just use Rogers Centre?

Sure, the field dimensions are sized to CFL standards, but who cares? It works for the Bills well enough. Surely it has enough capacity. And it already has a dome!

 

[Canadave]

No to the NFL in Toronto, god damn it.

The city is already home to one of the oldest professional football teams in North America, and one that plays a superior game, IMO. If anything, Toronto should be investing in a new 25-30,000 seat stadium for the Argos, not sinking billions into an NFL team.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Isn't Buffalo like, 5 minutes casual walk away from Toronto or something? Why in the hell would the NFL agree to that?

 

[Dusty Ayres]

Why would the NFL need a new stadium? Why don't they just use Rogers Centre?

Sure, the field dimensions are sized to CFL standards, but who cares? It works for the Bills well enough. Surely it has enough capacity. And it already has a dome!

The NFL thinks themselves above the CFL or any other type of football, and apparently SkyDome isn't big enough for them (even though it was built for all kinds of sports and events!) so they want Toronto to build a new stadium to host a NFL team.

No to the NFL in Toronto, god damn it.

The city is already home to one of the oldest professional football teams in North America, and one that plays a superior game, IMO. If anything, Toronto should be investing in a new 25-30,000 seat stadium for the Argos, not sinking billions into an NFL team.

Hear, hear-and let this new stadium be built with private money!

Isn't Buffalo like, 5 minutes casual walk away from Toronto or something? Why in the hell would the NFL agree to that?

Buffalo is 2 hours drive away from Toronto, not a casual walk across the Peace Bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I was jokingly exaggerating but still, the Bills can't be happy with that proposal, to put it mildly, can they?

 

[Canadave]

Why would the NFL need a new stadium? Why don't they just use Rogers Centre?

Sure, the field dimensions are sized to CFL standards, but who cares? It works for the Bills well enough. Surely it has enough capacity. And it already has a dome!

The NFL thinks themselves above the CFL or any other type of football, and apparently SkyDome isn't big enough for them (even though it was built for all kinds of sports and events!) so they want Toronto to build a new stadium to host a NFL team.

It would be the only stadium in the league with a capacity below 60,000.

That said, I don't know if you could sell 60+ K tickets for an NFL team in Toronto...

 

[The Great Meech]

Sales for the Bills in Toronto series have been anemic, but, then again, it's the Bills. They haven't played a playoff game in over 11 years. There are plenty of football fans in Toronto, and we're bigger than most NFL cities (Toronto's population is 2.5 million; the metro area has roughly 5.5 million people in it. Only New York, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Houston, and Miami are bigger than us among cities with an NFL team. Atlanta and Washington are both roughly the same size as we are.) An NFL team in Toronto isn't completely crazy.

The thing is, I still don't think an NFL team will fly. We're sick of losing teams, and an expansion team would be in the cellar for a decade. Any pre-existing team willing to move here would probably not be much of a competitor, either (especially if they're the damn Bills.) More than that, freedom of team may have already picked us apart. I'm a lifelong Torontonian who cheers for the Jets. Two friends of mine who know something about football are Bills and Packers fans, respectively. I'm not about to cheer for the upstarts who just showed up downtown. I just don't think a lot of Torontonian NFL fans are willing to cheer for--or pay for--the regularly losing new kids.

 

[Canadave]

^ Exactly. Toronto fans are fickle (aside from the Leafs, obviously). It's annoying for any number of reasons, and as a Jays\Argos fan, I do agonize over the oft-pitiful attendance, but it's definitely a big chunk of the reason why I have my doubts about the NFL in Toronto. I think it would fold\move relatively quickly, and likely mean the end of the Argos while it's at it.