MLSE & Bon Jovi to Pursue NFL/Buffalo Bills

[JMSRead]

Aside from the unseemly nature of it....it also ignores the fact that, on top of all the other costs, if the team moved before the 7th year of the new lease (I think that is around 2018/2019) there is a termination penalty of $400 million. I am not sure the Bills are any closer to coming here.

Well, they're closer in the sense that the process will now begin of putting together a bid for the team. You've gotten the sense up to now that things were being put in place, essentially waiting for Wilson to pass away before being enacted.

But yeah, unlikely they'd be here before 2020, with that lease.

 

[Johnny Au]

Well, they're closer in the sense that the process will now begin of putting together a bid for the team. You've gotten the sense up to now that things were being put in place, essentially waiting for Wilson to pass away before being enacted.

But yeah, unlikely they'd be here before 2020, with that lease.

...which is more than enough time to build a Super Bowl-capable stadium in Toronto before the Bills can move in.

 

[TOareaFan]

Well, they're closer in the sense that the process will now begin of putting together a bid for the team. You've gotten the sense up to now that things were being put in place, essentially waiting for Wilson to pass away before being enacted.

But yeah, unlikely they'd be here before 2020, with that lease.

...which is more than enough time to build a Super Bowl-capable stadium in Toronto before the Bills can move in.

Except that sometime between now and 2020 the club will be sold......likely a lot closer to now than 2020....unless these prospective owners for Toronto are willing to own and operate the team in Buffalo in the meantime, the availability of the club will be different....ie, they won't have a dead owner.

 

[GenerationW]

...which is more than enough time to build a Super Bowl-capable stadium in Toronto before the Bills can move in.

Who is paying up to a billion dollars for a stadium for a team that might never come?

 

[TOareaFan]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/football/nfl/bills-locked-into-buffalo-for-another-6-years/

 

[junior43]

Who is paying up to a billion dollars for a stadium for a team that might never come?

That will all be factored into the purchaser's decision I would guess. Anyone who wants to buy and move the team will be cognizant of the fact the price of the team is only the beginning of the costs. Even if they kept the team in Buffalo, they would factor in additional costs to improve the stadium IMO. Ralph Wilson stadium is one of the worst in the league IMO.

Who knows if TO will get the team, but the next few years should either kill this theory or support it. Obviously I hope they come to Toronto, but who knows. Lots of variables, but it seems there's some big money in TO interested in moving the team here.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

That will all be factored into the purchaser's decision I would guess. Anyone who wants to buy and move the team will be cognizant of the fact the price of the team is only the beginning of the costs. Even if they kept the team in Buffalo, they would factor in additional costs to improve the stadium IMO. Ralph Wilson stadium is one of the worst in the league IMO.

Who knows if TO will get the team, but the next few years should either kill this theory or support it. Obviously I hope they come to Toronto, but who knows. Lots of variables, but it seems there's some big money in TO interested in moving the team here.

And let's not forget the league in all this. I get the sense they're OK with a team here as long as the Argos are safe (which is getting closer to reality) but LA is their priority. I don't know how their TV contract impacts on a Canadian team, as one example of a potential wrinkle. It's all based on American networks and American ratings which would be a moot point for Toronto; it's a very different contract than the NHL, NBA and MLB where regional and local contracts predominate.

The team will be put up for sale and it remains to be seen if there is any kind of local ownership group possible or if someone will buy them with the goal of moving them. I don't doubt there are people in Toronto who are working on that and it's NOT a crazy idea that in 2020 there could be an NFL team playing here at Downsview or whatever....but the Bills are not moving immediately and I found some of the Toronto-might-get-a-team coverage coming hours after Wilson's passing to be inappropriate as a result.

(And, FWIW, the cancellation of this year's Bill's game isn't exactly a plus in Toronto's column.)

 

[JasonParis]

I don't know how their TV contract impacts on a Canadian team, as one example of a potential wrinkle. It's all based on American networks and American ratings which would be a moot point for Toronto; it's a very different contract than the NHL, NBA and MLB where regional and local contracts predominate.

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I am in the TV business and this is huge. There could even be a good deal of blow back on the part of US networks televising national games (of which the NFL's all are) by having to deal with reduced Canadian-induced ratings. Even selling simulcasting rights to a Canadian broadcaster won't make up for this either, especially if on a broadcast network as most of their stations aren't owned by the network itself.

 

[TOareaFan]

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I am in the TV business and this is huge. There could even be a good deal of blow back on the part of US networks televising national games (of which the NFL's all are) by having to deal with reduced Canadian-induced ratings. Even selling simulcasting rights to a Canadian broadcaster won't make up for this either, especially if on a broadcast network as most of their stations aren't owned by the network itself.

Of the 3 cities often talked about for potential expansion/re-location the one that has the clear advantage in creating value for the league and its broadcast partners is London.

The value of live TV broadcast rights continues to skyrocket......aside from bringing in some incremental Euro broadcast revenue (who knows what that is worth, really) London opens up a totally new live broadcast slot in the North American TV market. Sunday morning live football in North America (kicking off at 3 pm London time) would mean that every other week there would be a 10 a.m. game on the East Coast of N.A......ask yourself, what would the networks bid against themselves for that spot to be the one team showing a live game while all the other networks had their talking head pre-game shows on? $500mil - $1B a year I bet....no North American city delivers that sort of immediate value creation to the NFL.

 

[junior43]

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I am in the TV business and this is huge. There could even be a good deal of blow back on the part of US networks televising national games (of which the NFL's all are) by having to deal with reduced Canadian-induced ratings. Even selling simulcasting rights to a Canadian broadcaster won't make up for this either, especially if on a broadcast network as most of their stations aren't owned by the network itself.

I don't know near enough about the TV contracts etc. But how different is the revenue potential of Toronto TV contracts versus the Jacksonville Jaguars? That's a small market team in trouble and I would assume their TV revenues aren't anything special - same could be said for Buffalo I guess.

 

[TOareaFan]

I don't know near enough about the TV contracts etc. But how different is the revenue potential of Toronto TV contracts versus the Jacksonville Jaguars? That's a small market team in trouble and I would assume their TV revenues aren't anything special - same could be said for Buffalo I guess.

No team in the NFL has local TV deals.....sure they have local talk shows and interest shows...but all the broadcast is handled by the national TV rights sold by the league to the networks.

Both of those US cities are, obviously, smaller than Toronto but when the national broadcast rights are sold to American networks they turn around and sell ad space to American companies....all that they are measuring is how many American eyes are seeing those ads.

The value of a Toronto team is that it might increase the value of the sub-rights that Canadian networks pay to carry the games from the US networks......my knowledge doesn't go deep enough to know whether or not the expectation is that substantially more Canadian eyes will be on those broadcasts just because there is a Toronto team in the mix....ie. outside of Toronto does any NFL viewer/sports fan care if they are watching the Toronto Bills play Cleveland as opposed to the Buffalo Bills playing Cleveland?

 

[Johnny Au]

Oh, and if the Bills move in Toronto, the name of the team should change as well, as the Buffalo Bills are named after Buffalo Bill Cody and Toronto Bills don't have the same ring (but again, there are the Utah Jazz, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the St. Louis Rams).

 

[Uncle Teddy]

I'd love to see the Bills come to Toronto.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

No team in the NFL has local TV deals.....sure they have local talk shows and interest shows...but all the broadcast is handled by the national TV rights sold by the league to the networks.

Both of those US cities are, obviously, smaller than Toronto but when the national broadcast rights are sold to American networks they turn around and sell ad space to American companies....all that they are measuring is how many American eyes are seeing those ads.

The value of a Toronto team is that it might increase the value of the sub-rights that Canadian networks pay to carry the games from the US networks......my knowledge doesn't go deep enough to know whether or not the expectation is that substantially more Canadian eyes will be on those broadcasts just because there is a Toronto team in the mix....ie. outside of Toronto does any NFL viewer/sports fan care if they are watching the Toronto Bills play Cleveland as opposed to the Buffalo Bills playing Cleveland?

Right, thanks for explaining my point in more detail

As to your Q...I think the short answer is yes. I don't know precisely how but the main point is that the NFL deal is national, not local or regional. I presume that Global and CTV are making either their own deal for Canadian rights with the NFL, as opposed to some sort of sub-deal with CBS/FOX but I don't really know. So, would Global or whoever pay more if there was an actual Canadian team? I have to think they would, even if it's not a massive difference from what's in place now. I don't think that's even a function of the NFL asking more (though they might) as much as that through simple bidding, the various networks would offer more.

Anyway, that's for the big money folks to figure out. I still figure that the NFL would want to go into LA first. London is an interesting consideration but I think they still go for Toronto over London. That morning slot is interesting to consider, but so is the idea of having, say, Seattle fly it's team to another continent. Toronto would be in the mix but there are a lot of things that have to fall into place first is the main thing here, I think. Wilson's death was just one of many little stones on that path. I'll start considering it a remote possibility when someone with a connection to this city buys the team, the Orchard Park lease is getting close to the end, a stadium is in the works here and chatter from the NFL is that they are OK with a move from Buffalo to Toronto. Until then....I'll watch the Bills on TV and hope Jim Kelly is doing OK.

 

[nfitz]

Oh, and if the Bills move in Toronto, the name of the team should change as well, as the Buffalo Bills are named after Buffalo Bill Cody and Toronto Bills don't have the same ring.

And yet there are no links between the city of Buffalo, or upstate New York, and Buffalo Bill Cody. However William's father comes from Toronto (or at least Toronto Township, now called Mississauga), and Buffalo Bill spent some time there as a child, even being baptized there.