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In a development that will serve only to increase speculation that the Buffalo Bills eventually will move to Toronto, 100,000 folks have signed up for an opportunity to purchase tickets for the eight games that the Bills will be playing north of the border over the next five years.
The series includes one regular-season game from 2008 through 2012, and a preseason game in 2008, 2010, and 2012.
The regular-season games will be played in December, in order to avoid conflicts with the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts, who are now officially the red-headed stepchildren in their own house.
And to all those Bills fans who are fretting about the possibility that one lost regular-season game per year in Toronto eventually will become eight, Toronto is a lot closer to Buffalo than, say, Los Angeles.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I don’t think it is a coincidence that the Bills have committed to playing a regular season game a year in Toronto until 2012. That is the year the teams’ lease with Eerie County runs out for Ralph Wilson Stadium. Sounds like the Bills are trying to build a fans base for their future home - Toronto.
The league wants to go international and will likely give the Bills a lot of incentives to move to Canada.
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April 11th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
As someone who has been a die hard Bills fan and currently works for the team, why do people continue to see this as negative?
The Packers used to play their games in Milwaukee, the Bills have played Pre-Season games in Toronto in the past, and it could save the Bills from having to play in…oh say England or Japan or Mexico. Because technically this is an “international contest” just like the one the Dolphins and Giants had last year.
And by playing just one home game in Toronto the Bills will reap 3x what they would for a home game in Orchard Park. So this only makes sense to use all of your available resources, and incase you didn’t know most Toronto fans would rather come see the Bills in Buffalo because of the atmosphere. You can’t even tailgate in Toronto.
So for Bills fans just like me, exceot the ones who are worried about the Bills moving to Toronto, just remember, everyone else in the league will have to play at least one game internationally in the next dozen years, playing a home game in another area HAS been done before, and if the Bills can make some additional $$$ by playing one game in December (which most “fairweather” Bills Fans sell their tickets for anyways) then why should we be upset, they’re doing everything they can to remain profitable and keep their ticket prices among the most affordable in the league
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April 11th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Is the Rodgers Center or whatever Skydome is called now, big enough to be an NFL stadium?
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April 11th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
KEEP THIS GAME IN THE U.S. QUIT SHIPPING THE TEAMS AROUND IT WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS!!!
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April 11th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I agree with mike. I can go see the Bills at least once a year in Toronto. I don’t want to see them go but I would be devastated if they went to L.A. I could be a TO bills fan not a L.A. bills fan. Ralph should sell a piece of the team to Jim Kelly’s group and the rest to them on his death. He could save the team if he wanted to.
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April 11th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
The Baltimore Stallions got kicked to the curb after Art Modell announced the Browns were coming to Baltimore, shouldn’t the NFL respect the CFL and leave Canada alone? Let the Bills play in Los Angeles.
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April 11th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I would think (hope) that a lot of those 100,000 are Buffalo season ticket holders willing to make the roadie.
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April 11th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
The Bills won’t go to LA. Its too much divisional shuffling. Unfortunately Toronto is a real possibility. As a diehard Bills fan, I shudder at the thought of the team losing its identity by going to Toronto. Comments like “Toronto is a lot closer to Buffalo than, say, Los Angeles.” really don’t hold water because the team isn’t going to be the same if they move. The entire makeup goes. History goes. Heck, its more likely the name “Bills” goes and changes into something like Canucks. The real wild card and underdog in this is Jim Kelly. Can he come through, or is simply a ploy to make sure he goes down fighting and still holds his notoriety among fans? Hopefully it its the real deal, but only time will tell.
To put it simply, leave the NFL in America. Its an American sport, not world wide. No one in the US gives a crap about Soccer and many overseas and abroad don’t care about the NFL.
Don’t fix it, if it isn’t broken.
I fear only a Super Bowl birth will save this team from relocation.
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April 12th, 2008 at 12:04 am
The Bills will move to Toronto before they’re moved to Los Angeles. It’s a given.
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April 12th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Actually “go screw” if good ol’ Ralphie boy wants to save the team he needs to do so before he dies. The inheritance tax is what is making his family have the desire to sell the team.
They’re are ways to solve this, but I fear Ralph wants to go to Toronto in one last ditch effort to get into the Hall of Fame. However, he’s going about it the wrong way, save the Bills, don’t eliminate them. His entire backing on going into the Hall was what he did for the AFL and the Bills. By moving he just sweeps all of that under a rug of bitterness and anger of the public, especially Buffalonians.
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April 12th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Facts are facts, the money isn’t in Buffalo, It’s here in Toronto. We don’t even care how much ticket prices are, It’s irrelevant. No matter what they charge, every game will be a sellout.
The Rogers Centre needs to be renovated to add some seats to meet the NFL standard, no big deal though.
It is what it is, Buffalo is a depressed city financially and Toronto is bursting at the seams with money.
The only question to me is, what are we going to call the team WHEN it moves here, not if.
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April 12th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Sadly enough, I will remain a fan. JUST DO NOT SEND THEM TO Los Angeles. Then I will not be a fan.
LA is the death of NFL franchises.
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April 12th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Anyone who expects the Bills to move to Toronto full time does not know what they are talking about. First, when you have a capacity of about 49,000 and only 5 regular season and 3 preseason games over five years, then demand will far exceed supply. If Toronto had all ten home games each year, there would not be any rush for tickets. In Buffalo the capacity is more or less 75,000 and with a weak team nearly all games sell out. Do not even mention LA, because both the Rams and the Raiders fled LA, because the supposed “fans” there refused to support winning teams. Buffalo will continue to have at least the majority, if not all, Bills games long after Ralph Wilson passes.
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April 12th, 2008 at 9:16 am
As a die hard Bills fan it won’t matter if they move to Toronto or L.A. Most of us would never watch a Bills game again. To be stabbed in the back like that would turn Bills fans very nasty. And anyone who thinks Toronto or L.A. is a sports town must be smoking crack. Ralph would lose his legacy and undermine everything he stood for being the owner of a small market team. Do the right thing and sell the team locally . We made him who he is not Toronto or L.A.
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April 12th, 2008 at 11:07 am
bobinpr,
You may be the one not knowing what you are talking about. Toronto itself has over 2.8 million people (with over 5 million in the Toronto metro area). Buffalo has just under 300,000 people and 1.2 million in the Buffalo/Niagra metro area. Toronto is a major city and the Buffalo is a minor one.
Also, Buffalo has the lowest or near lowest ticket prices in the league because they have trouble filling the stadium. Moving Toronto, they can charge one of the highest ticket prices in the league especially if the trend of the Canadian dollar becoming stronger than the US dollar continues to go. It is conceivable that the Bills can make more money in a 49k seat stadium in Toronto than a 73k seat stadium in Buffalo.
Besides, a permanent move to Toronto would most assuridly come with a new stadium. This stadium could break ground before the Bills even move and could be ready before they even make the move or at least one year after they made the move.
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April 12th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Robo769 - Please re-educate yourself. Buffalo has not problems selling tickets. The prices are low for the fans and due to the economic stress they endure. You might want to look deeper into the issue rather than making assumptions based on outlying statistics.
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April 12th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Sledge,
They had no problem selling tickets? They were the second worst team in terms of home game attendence percentage-wise in the league at 88.8% capacity (only Jacksonville was worse). They had to reduce the number of seats in the stadium by 6,000 in the nineties to stop from every game being blacked out.
Yes, the economics of people in the region has some to do with it (and makes a strong case to move the team to Toronto even at less capacity). But the fact of the matter is that Buffalo is a very small market where other small market teamsare struggling with attendance like Jacksonville, San Deigo, and even Indianapolis.
Before you accuse me of not knowing what I am talking about, you might want to educate yourself too.
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April 12th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
You take your statistics only from this past season. The only reason I say to educate yourself is because of your “holier than thou” ways in your comments. The Bills have some of the best fans out of any team in the league and its a well known fact. We had trouble selling tickets this season, but for years we have had no problem.
Your argument is that there isn’t support in Buffalo for the Bills to fill the stadium - which is not the case.
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April 12th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Buffalo’s home had 84.5% capacity in 2006, 89.9% capacity in 2005, 89.7% capacity in 2004, 91.2% capacity in 2003, 85.2% capacity in 2002, 78.8% capacity in 2001, and 87.6% capacity in 2000. It isn’t just one year, it has been for the life of Ralph Wilson. Your assertions are not supported by facts.
I am not being holier than than thou, I am being logical. I never ever spoke to the type of fans the Bills are. I am speaking to the sheer fact that there aren’t enough of them because Buffalo is so small. There just aren’t enough passionate fans to fill the seats. That is why they need to keep the prices low to attract casual fans.
The simple fact of the matter is that large markets can raise prices because there are enough passionate fans to pay for the tickets. Teams like New England, both NY teams, Philly, Dallas, and Washington can basically charge through the nose for tickets because they are drawing on populations that the numbers of passionate fans far outweigh the number of seats available in the stadium. That is why these teams sell out over capacity and still have long waiting lists for season ticket holders.
I’m sorry if you cannot accept the realities of the situation in Buffalo. But the realities is that Buffalo probably cannot substain an NFL team with their small fanbase and Toronto probably can. It just doesn’t have the fan base to sell out Ralph Wilson and needs to keep prices low to get close to capacity and stop from blackouts.
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April 13th, 2008 at 7:25 am
By the way, the capacity at the rogers centre for Canadian football is 53,506 and that’s with the much larger field. They can add a fair bit more because of the smaller NFL field.
I know It’s hard to understand ticket prices here and the amount of available entertainment dollars here for someone from Buffalo but if you don’t know, don’t speak. The Leafs have the highest ticket prices in the whole NHL and have missed the playoffs 3 straight years.
You want to hear the best part though?
There are 10’s of thousands of fans that have wanted tickets for many years, decades in fact, and can’t get them. If the NHL would allow it, the Leafs could fill the Rogers centre in a heat beat for all regular season games.
That’s the kind of difference there is between Buffalo and Toronto, simply no comparison at all.
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April 16th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
While Toronto is a beautiful metropolitan city with a lot to offer a future NFL team (and, I would even argue, a better place to have an NFL team than Buffalo right **now**), I still think the future of the Bills lies in Buffalo. NFL owners clearly must salivate when they see sheep like JoeToronto and his ilk willing to shell out gobs of money for losing teams like the Leafs (and bragging about it!). What a pleasure it must be to be shielded from the effects of competition! It worked for the Leafs, so it will work for the Bills. Maybe a pension fund can buy the Bills and increase profits every year while missing the playoffs for 3 straight years (Oh, I am sure Ted Rogers is more accountable than the Teacher’s Pension Fund, right? Right?). Hey! At least the Leafs made the cover of a major US periodical this year. Oh yeah - it was Forbes - and it was for HOW MUCH *&^%ing MONEY they are making - despite the fact the team missed the playoffs for the third straight year.
Three years would be a vacation for Bills fans. The Bills have been putrid since the year 2000 (excepting 2004). 7 seaonsof ineptitude, including the bumbling of the 2002 #4 overall pick for an OT who is now out of the league. The team is on an upward trajectory, of course, but for the last 7 years, there has not been a playoff team (and only one year where we truly we close).
And since that time, in an area of 1.5M people (though maybe a bit more give the regionalization efforts that have taken place since the mid 90s by the Bills to expand the market eastward) fans have managed to pack a 72K seat stadium over 90% since the halcyon days of the Flutie/Johnson Bills in 1999. That’s kind of impressive, not sad as Robo would have you believe. The following franchise QBs have passed through our hallowed gates: An over the hill Drew Bledsoe, JP “All Athlete, no Brains” Losman, Rob Johnson, Kelly Holcomb(!), and Alex Van Pelt (Van who?). Please Trent Edwards - please be good.
Further breakdown from Robo’s numbers is needed. What %age of games were not sellouts after the team had been eliminated from playoff contention (my guess: all). Bills fans are a dedicated, hearty lot - but not sheep. If the team is out of the hunt by Thanksgiving (as it was in every year except 2004 and last year), there is little motivation to attend a game at home where it can be, shall we say, cool. Is that the fans fault that management (Tom Donahoe, white courtesy phone please) put a crappy product out on the field for so many years? In the logic of many of the above Toronto fans, it is. Bills fans are like that - to an extent. They get the fact they are lucky to have a team in their town. But it’s difficult to get back up on the mat to attend a December game at 6-8 after continually getting knocked down and out of the playoff chase - year after year - mediocre team after mediocre team.
Of course, in the world of the local monopoly, you’d better pony up the dough or else you lose your team. Bills fans have shown, over the last 40 years, they will support their team. Whether that matters in the long run remains to be seen but Robo’s analysis needs some context. Ask Detroit fans - meaningless home games from Thanksgiving to December are no fun - and with a small sample size of only 8 games to choose from, one or two meaningless games can have a material effect on season wide attendance percentages.
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April 16th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Oh here we go with the crying.
Listen Buffalo66, I never said I would go to the games myself, I wouldn’t, I said they would sellout no matter the price of tickets.
And that’s the truth.
Face it, it’s over for your Bills and it’s over for your city, too bad so sad.
Cry me a friggin river.
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April 16th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Hey Buffalo66, you forgot to mention how many fans from southern Ontario go to Bills games and how you wouldn’t even APPROACH a sellout without them.
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June 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Sorry to burst the bubble on this story, but looks like those Bills tickets in TRanna ain’t sellin’ too well.
IN fact Ted Rogers, the guy who got suckered into paying 78 million for the rights to bring the games to Tranna, has gone from boasting how there were 300 gazillion people registered for tickets, to now offering cheaper three game packages. Soon you see single game packages for peanuts
Meanwhile the ARgos of the CFL are going to sellout their home opener at the Skydome. This despite the media’s cheerleading for the NFL.
You Americans have to realize that outside of your country, American football is more a curiousity then an actual sport.
NFL Europe died because Europeans hate American football.
Toronto has a few NFL fans, but outside of that, football ain’t that big up here.
Baseball used to be big up here for awhile as well, now they have to give tickets away to paper the house. The Raptors and the NBA are who cares. The NFL will become the same way. All these teams fighting for whatever scraps the Leafs give them.
And bottom line here? The Spice Girls sold out their shows at the Skydome last year in five minutes. This NFL game has plenty of good seats available. Still. Whats that tell you??
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June 24th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Well that’s news to me, berezin99.
I tried to buy tickets, on behalf of my company of course, to give away to clients but I couldn’t buy them because I didn’t have a code.
These tickets that are still available are put aside for Argo season ticket holders, hence the code.
Your comment “Toronto has a few NFL fans, but outside of that, football ain’t that big up here.” isn’t just inaccurate, It’s childish gibberish concocted by an Argo fan with small dick syndrome.
Feeling that way is one thing, berezin99, but knowingly outright lying about it on a public forum, well that something else.
Go get some Kleenex, ugh.
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