With many football fans in Buffalo worrying that the Bills’ plans to play a game a year in Toronto are the first step toward permanent relocation north of the border, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell visited the Western New York town of Chautauqua today to try to allay those fears.

The Buffalo News reports that Goodell said he sees the Bills “being in Western New York for a long time,” adding that “the efforts going on to regionalize the team I think are strengthening the team and making the team more successful in Buffalo.”

Still, it’s easy to see why fans in Buffalo are concerned: The NFL is putting a game a year in Toronto because it thinks that game will be profitable. If one game a year in Toronto is profitable, won’t two games a year, three games a year or eight games a year be even more profitable?

Goodell said he doesn’t necessarily see it that way.

“It’s too early to speculate on that,” he said. “I think if it goes well and it does what we hope it’s going to achieve, then there would be no reason to expand it necessarily.”

There might not be a reason to expand the number of games in Toronto right now. But Ralph Wilson, the Bills’ 89-year-old owner, won’t run the team forever. And the next owner will likely be someone who feels more loyalty to his own bottom line than to the fans of Buffalo.

Still, Goodell said, “Mr. Wilson has made it clear he would like to see the team stay in Buffalo, and I will work very hard to make sure that it does.”