Rogers, Tanenbaum After NFL Team
Both Canadian Businessmen Are Trying to Bring the Bills to Toronto
With two games being played in Toronto in 2008, the NFL seems to be testing the market for relocating the Buffalo Bills to Toronto. Will the attempt be successful?
The eyes of Toronto's NFL fans were glazed with euphoria upon hearing of the ambition of two wealthy Canadian businessmen, both of whom wish to purchase an NFL team for relocation to the great white north. The decision to bring Buffalo Bills preseason and regular season games to Toronto is being viewed as just the first step by Toronto's avid NFL fans.
Brad Kurmey, a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan and second-year student at Guelph University sums up the feelings of Toronto's NFL fans, "It's was unbelievable! A dream come true. We'll have a team soon."
For a long while, the National Football League has danced around the idea of basing a team in Toronto. Larry Tanenbaum, chair of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, along with Ted Rogers, president and CEO of Rogers Communications Inc., have both expressed exclusive interest in purchasing and relocating an NFL franchise to Toronto.
Tanenbaum and Rogers have coveted a team for years, following in the footsteps of Toronto Blue Jays president and CEO, Paul Godfrey, who had the initial idea to bring an NFL team to Toronto nearly two decades ago.
Recently, the Globe and Mail reported that David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski, owners of the Toronto Argonauts, were interested in buying an NFL team and moving it to Toronto in partnership with other CFL owners. Globe and Mail reported that both men are aware that the NFL will eventually come to Toronto, and decided to announce their intentions that they would try to overpower any bid from Tanenbaum and Rogers, in hopes to save the Argonauts.
The problem for Cynamon and Sokolowski, according to the Toronto Star, is that they simply do not have the money; the estimated average worth of an NFL franchise is set at $957 million. Rogers said he does not want to spend near a billion dollars on the franchise however, the team being considered by he and Tanenbaum, the Buffalo Bills, is estimated by Forbes to be worth closer to $821 million.
The Bills are worth quite close to a billion however, according to TSN's Sportscentre host Rod Smith, "Paul Godfrey told me at the Super Bowl two years ago that he could find sufficient local investment even if his boss Ted Rogers wasn't interested."
It is obvious that Rogers is interested, however it is uncertain how much cash he is willing to put up, especially if Cynamon and Sokolowski try to outbid him and Tanenbaum.
The Buffalo Bills is the obvious victor in the battle of failing NFL franchises desperate for relocation. A team placed in the second smallest media market in all of the United States, if moved two hours north, could be placed in the largest media market in all of Canada and the fourth largest media centre in North America. So what's stopping them?
