Next Sunday, the NFL returns to Toronto as the Buffalo Bills host the Seattle Seahawks. The NFL’s experiment north of the border has been running since 2008 but it’s time for the league and the city to cut their losses and move on.
As convenient as the Buffalo Bills are geographically, the team hasn’t had a winning season since 2004 when they went a modest 9-7 and haven’t made the playoffs since 1999 when they were eliminated by the Tennessee Titans on a last-second play that has been short-listed on pretty much every sportscast’s Most Unbelievable Finishes list since, leaving Bills fans eager to reach for their trusty paper bags to put over their heads.
At 8-5, the Seattle Seahawks have been one of the league’s most pleasant surprises this season. Led by rookie quarterback Russell Wilson, the Seahawks are coming off a franchise-best 58-0 win over the Arizona Cardinals this past weekend. Yet despite who’s coming to town to visit the Bills, I don’t see an event drastic enough to change the fortunes of the NFL’s success in Canada.
Toronto has hosted six NFL games, all including the Bills and four of them being regular-season contests. After 2008 and 2010 preseason games where the Rogers Centre drew 48,434 and 39, 582 fans respectively, the crowds have dwindled in each of the first three years. From 2008 to 2010, attendance for Bills’ regular-season games dropped from 52,134 to 51,567 to 50,746 fans. While attendance rose to 51,579 for last year’s game against the Washington Redskins, none of the six games in Toronto managed to sell out.
Geographically-speaking, the Bills could be considered Toronto’s next full-time team, but with the Leafs, Raptors and Toronto FC, it’s fair to say that Canada’s largest city has suffered enough in sports futility. Toronto’s still fresh off witnessing their Argos win the 100th Grey Cup on home soil and while the CFL really doesn’t even begin to compare to the NFL in terms of marketing alone, some would take the Argos over the Bills any day. But overall, the NFL’s presence wouldn’t be kind to the CFL.
A permanent NFL team in Toronto would all but give the Canadian Football League their last rites. Since they play in the summer and mostly on Fridays and Saturdays, the Argos wouldn’t likely have any timing conflicts with an NFL team but I honestly cannot see two teams coexisting regardless, especially when stadium workers would have so little time transitioning from a CFL to an NFL field, both with different dimensions to their respective playing surfaces.
Regardless of what team fans prefer, the National Football League simply cannot work north of the border.
The National Football League is a billion-dollar organization which thrives on the revenue from their television contracts. Toronto being outside the United States would have a considerably difficult time competing with markets like Kansas City and Cincinnati let alone New York and Chicago. Plus, the Bills (or whichever team would hypothetically relocate to Toronto) would have a hard time recruiting top players since most would prefer to play in an American market for the exposure, a more lucrative paycheque and even a better shot at landing endorsement deals. That may not seem fair but it is the unfortunate reality that comes with playing in such American-dominated leagues. In fact, despite what they’ve done this off-season, the Blue Jays have even struggled in the same sense.
Why spend the effort putting an NFL team in Toronto when fans of the four-down version of the game can easily drive the two hours to Buffalo to see the Bills or the four hours to see the Lions in Detroit? The logic seems simple enough although choosing between a road trip to Buffalo or Detroit is akin to asking whether someone prefers salt water or lemon juice enemas.
It’s been a nice ride and kudos to the NFL, the Buffalo Bills and the city of Toronto for trying out this experiment. Alas, it’s time to move on. Maybe Toronto can build a NASCAR track and dip their toes in the stock car circuit.
Then again, maybe not.
____
Ryan Cowley is a writer at Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter @RyanACowley.
For more, follow us on Twitter @TorontoStandard or subscribe to our newsletter.
