A whole new BALL GAME
NFL stakes claim in Canada with pricey spectacle in Toronto while Cats battle Bombers out West
Steve Milton
The Hamilton Spectator
TORONTO (Aug 15, 2008)
The veteran scalper, seeing a familiar face among all the non-buyers, started to moan.
"It's a disaster, man, a total disaster. The prices are waaay too high. I'm gettin' half face value."
Last night's first instalment in the five-year, eight-game Bills Toronto Series was certainly not a wise investment for ticket speculators.
But this pre-season National Football League game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and your -- according to the stadium announcer -- Buffalo Bills did indicate there is indeed a healthy appetite for the NFL in Toronto.
Appetite, yes. Starvation, however, no.
While the audience generally backed the Bills whenever they made a big play, the loudest cheers of the evening were for the beginning and end of O Canada.
Draw your own conclusion there. And there was a clear restlessness during the unending between-play breaks, which are about twice as long as in the Canadian Football League.
There were a couple of thousand empty seats, and the Spectator and other news outlets found in a straw poll half the respondents did not pay full price, nor any price at all, for their tickets.
Those who did fork out what was asked were left wondering why.
"Well there was pressure to buy our corporate box," said an executive with a major Canadian corporation, which also has a box at Bills games in Buffalo. "They were trying to create a false market. We were told early on that they only had boxes from the 20-yard line to the goal line and when we got here, our box was on the 50, and there were plenty of empty ones.
"We just wanted to make sure we didn't get left out. But if Ralph Wilson passes away, none of this will make any difference anyway."
In one sense, last night's game was really about what will happen when Bills owner Wilson, 89, dies.
The Rogers-Tannenbaum consortium that bought the Bills Series for Rogers Centre, is hoping they can buy the team, which will be sold at auction upon Wilson's death, and move it to Toronto.
Buffalo interests, including everyone who works for the team now, hope that by selling Toronto a game or two per year, and expanding their reach into the GTA market, they will not only be able to keep the team in their fading city, but also establish Toronto as their area, protecting it from another NFL team moving in.
That's why Bills season-ticket holders Greg and Tracy Tranter drove all the way up from their home in Shrewsbury, Mass.
"We think this is great," said Greg Tranter, originally from Corning N.Y. "Buffalo is not going to lose this team. This game is going to help keep them there. Playing maybe two games here and six a year in Buffalo is about right."
The Tranters pay $104 Cdn per game for their two well-placed seats in Buffalo. The same seats last night cost them $330.
For that kind of money, you could purchase one season ticket, with roughly the same sightlines, in the stadium where the Hamilton Tiger-Cats played last night.
While the Ticats performed in front of fewer than 30,000 in Winnipeg, the other team dressed in black and gold, the Steelers, drew about 20,000 more, at more than quadruple the prices.
And that speaks to perception. There are legions of Torontonians who feel Toronto must have the NFL to be a world-class city, and must pay the price.
L.A., without an NFL team, suffers from no such self-doubts and if the NFL has made Jacksonville, Green Bay, Indianapolis and, well, Buffalo "world class" perhaps the phrase needs redefining.
Still, you could sense that people in attendance last night want the NFL here, even if the longterm cost is the death of the CFL, which would certainly ensue.
Everyone was trying to pretend those were real tailgate parties, despite the absence of a truck anywhere in sight, and the presence of heavy business sponsorship for what, in Buffalo and most NFL cities, is really a groundswell phenomenon. Tailgating - especially without vehicles - is a non-Canadian concept, and despite the bands, the noise and the booze, the general mood was, "How are we supposed to do this?"
In the parking-lot-turned-party-room outside Rogers Centre, Bills season ticket-holder Craig Meraw, of Mississauga, said: "There's not a football being tossed around here. It's good, but down there it's fun. This is corporate here. Down there it's the diehard fan."
It was much more raucous and party-like once the game started because a) it was a very good one for an exhibiton game; b) 48,434 people in any setting make a lot of noise, c) the home team was winning and d) the beers were kicking in.
And that's the dirty little secret of American football. Under all that hype, all that money, and all those stupendous athletes, the NFL has derived a large amount of its success from accomodating betting and legitimizing binge drinking on Sundays.
***************************************************
They don't know why they were suckered into this? We all know the NFL game itself is terrible, and that the only reason the NFL is big is b/c (and ONLY b/c) of Hype! Hmmmm I wonder why you went to the game and left dissapointed?
Prev
Linear Mode
