Toronto Hasn’t Shown it Deserves an NFL Team
Malcolm | Dec 07, 2009 | Comments 6
We’re two years deep in the Bills in Toronto series, so let’s take a look at how Toronto stacks up as an NFL city after two regular-season games.
There are three types of sports cities: 1) cities that can sell tickets no matter what; 2) cities that can sell tickets if the team’s winning; 3) cities that can’t sell tickets regardless.
Buffalo fits into the second category. When the Bills are playing terribly, they have trouble selling tickets. But when there’s some hope around the team, the tickets sell just fine. Consider that Buffalo has surpassed 55,000 season tickets the past two years. Last year they had to push back the opening date for individual game ticket sales because season tickets were selling so well. The team hasn’t had a blackout in the past three seasons, and in one game a couple seasons ago a local business bought up unsold ticket to make sure the game was televised.
Here’s my point: If the Bills are winning to even the slightest degree (as that’s about as much as they’ve been winning for the past ten years), they have no problem whatsoever selling tickets. It’s only if the team is terrible that they have trouble selling out.
With that said, the primary reason to move the team to Toronto would be if Toronto as a football city fit into the first category above as one that can sell tickets no matter what; that is, if the city could sell tickets for a losing team.
Toronto definitely fits the bill for hockey. The Leafs sell out every game – at ridiculous prices – even though they’re a terrible team. But for other sports, the Raptors and Jays have proven Toronto fits into the second category; they can only sell if they’re winning.
The city supports the Raptors now in the Colangelo era because there’s hope around the team. Even if the team hasn’t played all that well the past season or so, the fans come out because they feel like there’s the basis of a contender, fuelled in particularly by the division championship in 2006 and by 2007’s playoff appearance. However, before Colangelo took over and turned the team into somewhat of a contender, the city didn’t fully support the team. While attendance is now consistently 10th to 12th in the league, it hovered in the16th to 18th range when the team was usually losing.
The Blue Jays are even worse this way. They had
a similar jump in attendance to the Raptors in 2006, when acquisitions like Glaus, Ryan and Overbay kept the team in contention well into the summer; attendance jumped from averaging in the low 20 thousands to being between 28 and 29 thousand since. The Jays’ attendance fluctuates based on performance particularly within individual seasons; once the team fell out of contention last summer, they drew a record-low 11,159 fans one game in early September.
At the end of the day, both the Raptors and Jays enjoy considerably support when they field a good team but fall flat at the ticket office when the team falls flat on the field. When it comes to sports other than hockey, Toronto is similar to Buffalo in that it can consistently draw crowds only for winning teams.
The other argument that Toronto would be a good fit for an NFL team is that even if they couldn’t sell more tickets, they could charge higher prices for them. On its face this makes sense – Buffalo admittedly has the lowest ticket prices in the NFL. Toronto’s corporate culture supposedly makes it such that the city could charge more for ticket.
However, this has been disproved by the Bills in Toronto series itself. Ticket sales for the two regular season games so far have shown that Torontonians aren’t willing to shell out for high-priced football tickets. I tried just for fun yesterday afternoon to book tickets to yesterday’s game, and found out I could still get a block of at least six tickets even a few hours before the game.
The tickets flat-out aren’t selling for one simple reason: they’re too expensive. People in Toronto aren’t willing to pay $150 for a ticket, and note that this is after a considerable drop from the price they thought they could sell tickets for last season. This considerably undermines Toronto’s claim that it can charge higher ticket prices than Buffalo can. On the contrary, the Bills in Toronto series so far has shown that Toronto can’t charge particularly high prices.
Torontonians try to counter this by arguing that it would be easier to sell tickets with Toronto’s own team rather than a once-a-year loaner. This is flat-out false, and anybody who claims it doesn’t know their sports. It’s always easier to sell out an exhibition or one-time game than to consistently sell tickets. Aside from successful ventures in non-viable markets such as the Expos in San Juan and NHL preseason games in London, the NFL’s overseas series in the past couple years has shown this to be true. England’s Wembley Stadium sold out its 86,000 capacity in 30 minutes for its 2008 NFL game. In 2009, Wembley sold the first 70,000 tickets in just seven minutes. In contrast, tickets had been on sale for yesterday’s game for months, and as of the afternoon of the game they hadn’t sold out.
So what’s the point of moving the Bills to Toronto? Torontonians claim they can draw better crowds, but the city has shown in the past that it can’t consistently sell tickets for losing teams outside of hockey. They claim Toronto can charge higher prices, but the sole fact coming out of the Bills in Toronto series is that football isn’t selling out in Toronto because the cost is too high.
Meanwhile, Buffalo has had its best sales in years. The team sold 55,000 season tickets this season, more than Rogers Centre’s NFL capacity of 54,000. Where the Bills have locked in those tickets for every game, Toronto couldn’t sell out even the one. When the Bills in Toronto series was announced, it was seen in Canada as the first step to showing Toronto is a viable NFL market. If anything, the series so far has shown the opposite.
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Toronto doesn’t deserve an NFL team. Should read, Torontonians don’t want an NFL team but MLSE/Roger’s want them to.
It would be great to have an NFL team in Canada, but don’t you think that the area should get what it wants? Another NHL team for starters.
Also, don’t you think an NFL team in Toronto spells doom for not just the Argos but the entire CFL? A league, I might add that was at one point more popular than the NFL.
I have to disagree with a large portion of this article. The Raptors may not fill the building with every game but every since the beginning the of VC era they have filled the majority of the seats each and every game despite only have a few winning seasons. The Leafs and Raptors have good attendance despite the ridiculously high ticket prices. The Jays don’t and as you said, they won’t until they make a serious challenge for the AL East title. We saw a glimpse of this whenever they have at hot start or are slightly in the playoff race near the end, ticket sales tend to increase.
With the Bills situation you say that Toronto should sell out these once-a-year loaner events if they can support a NFL franchise. You support that argument s by saying it sold out instantly in other places. First off, the prices for those overseas games were much cheaper. Secondly, at those locations it was a ONCE in a lifetime opportunity. Torontonians were already told that they are getting 5 regular season games and three preseason games. So the novelty of a “once in a lifetime” opportunity is lost and there is no urgency to purchase these tickets. The bottom line is nobody wants to pay for tickets that have been marked up 300% for a team that will be around each year and that they can see just down the QEW for a much less. Put a Toronto team in the league and fans will be come loyal and the hype alone of an NFL franchise will fill the building.
And on another note not related to the fans, the fact that Toronto by-laws don’t allow for tailgating really diminish the NFL Experience that is offered in all the American cities.
Agreed, you can drive down to Buffalo to watch a game for cheaper than you can see it in Toronto.
Moreover, the argument about the Jays is flawed because of the nature of Toronto’s market.
Single events like the Honda Indy and the Rogers Cup do quite well regularly as a result of their one off single week/weekend yearly appeal. While the Jays have a seriously devalued product because they can’t hold the attention of the crowd or a winning season for very long. Also, as a summer sport, the Jays now compete with TFC which is somehow WAY more exciting than baseball…the atmosphere not necessarily the sport itself. Not to mention the summer concert series at the Amphitheatre. And the Jays compete with the cottage. This shouldn’t be understated, have you ever been in Toronto on a long weekend? The city is practically empty even if the Yankees are in town.
And yes, your dismissal of fan loyalty is an oversight. By claiming that you classify Toronto as a city that sells only when the team is winning. That is utter crap, look at the Leafs. They could put paper mache figures on the ice and still sell out, why? Corporations hold 80% of the tickets at LEAST and the others are essentially in people’s wills. So hometown loyalty to a franchise is not to be understated. I’m sure those die hard Jim Kelly fans out there would move just to follow their impotent Bills.
Torontonian I think that the anti-tailgating attitude impedes the experience for ALL sports in Canada. There are thousands of people that attend sporting events in the states without the intention of actually entering the stadium. They go for the party, the atmosphere, and the beer.
Several good points mentioned above, I thought I’d add to them…
With 500-level tickets costing upwards of $100 on Ticket Master and 100-level tickets going for $550+, no serious football fan can afford to enjoy a game with that in the budget.
If you want to attract a crowd to Rogers Center to watch an NFL game DO NOT:
-Schedule the game on the same night that the Maple Leafs are playing, even if it is against the Blue Jackets in Columbus.
-Schedule the Bills playing any division rival except the Patriots. Ya ya, I know the Dolphins were half-decent last year, but they weren’t on the radar last December and the Jets are simply not fun to watch unless Mark Sanchez forgets to eat before the game.
-Schedule the game at a venue that removes home field advantage from the Bills. Orchard Park is frigid this time of year and when the dome has to remain closed at the Rogers Center, teams like Miami feel right at home, hence a 16-3 Dolphins victory last December
If you have had the opportunity to fork over the king’s ransom they were asking for one of these tickets (I luckily snagged one for free), you’d have noticed how little Canadians actually know about NFL football. While sitting in the 1st deck, surrounded by middle-aged men in suits drinking 10-Dollar bottles of Coors Light, you could faintly hear the cries of the real fans in the 500′s making feeble attempts to throw off Mark Sanchez on his 3rd Down attempts.
Now, if this was Ralph Wilson Stadium, and Sanchez is approaching the Red Zone and it’s 3rd and 5, YOU CANNOT HEAR THE PERSON BESIDE YOU. It is 45,000 people going absolutely batshit crazy in Buffalo, compared to what feels like a meaningless XFL game without the cheerleaders at concrete jungle Rogers Center.
If Toronto wants an NFL team, the fans need to act like it, but NFL Marketing Canada needs to let the fans have some more lenience in terms of access to an authentic NFL experience. (Tailgating – See Torontonian)
As for the Blue Jays attendance, the team’s success will continue to be based on the size of their payroll while playing in the AL East. Check MLB Top payrolls from 1990-Present and look for trends among biggest spenders and World Series contenders. Jays topped the majors in 1993…and 1995…
The Raptors have remained fairly consistent in terms of attendance, largely in part to their vast multi-cultural appeal. Bargniani? Turkuglu? Calderone? Nesterovich? Bellinelli? Toss Triano in for some Can-Con, Bosh and DeRozan to nail the African-American demographic and I think Bryan Colangelo has done his job pleasing Toronto’s diverse basketball fanbase.
Do we even need to discuss why TFC has sold out every match since the teams inception and hosted the All-Star game in only their 2nd season in MLS? I think not.
-Cam