AM I imagining things or has everybody started to panic a little since the announcement by Ralph Wilson at the Rogers Centre last week that his beloved Buffalo Bills will be playing exactly one regular season game a year in the house of the Toronto Argonauts at the end of the CFL football season?
In fact, rumour has it most folks have started hoarding Wilson CFL footballs and Milt Stegall jerseys while running for the proverbial hills exalting "The Russians are ... I mean, the NFL is coming, the NFL is coming!"
All kidding aside, in the last week I have read no less than 23 stories centred around this eight-game deal in the CFL news digests and I would dare say 20 of them are less than optimistic about the ramifications of sharing space with a behemoth like the National Football League. Once upon a time, or in June 2007 -- the last time I wrote about Toronto being on the "map of expansion" for new commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL -- I was surprised to read that I shared these views and was probably even more pessimistic about how the Canadian game would be impacted by such an intrusion.
Well, seven months later, I'm not sure why my stance has changed. Whether it's the fact that they are only playing one regular-season game a year for the next five years, or my instinct that when it comes to fostering über-support for any singular sporting event, Toronto can never, ever, be completely counted upon, but I am no longer worried about this eventuality and I suppose this is why:
History. I've written this before and I will write it again. The last time Toronto had an NFL game inside its walls at the SkyDome/Rogers Centre, way back in 1997 when the Bills played the Green Bay Packers in the American Bowl, they did not come close to selling it out. Of course, that was 11 years ago and today everyone is talking about the kind of record-breaking numbers the Super Bowl had in Canada this year, but last time I checked, one regular season game a year is not the same as the Super Bowl.
To assume that because umpteen million Canadians watched the NFL title game we are now certifiable NFL groupies, is an erroneous conclusion indeed. I know of more people who watch that game for the halftime show and commercials than those that spectate for any pure football entertainment value.
Then there's government. As any Canadian who has ever lived in the States for a spell will tell you, our government is more hands-on in every facet of our lives in this great land than a teenage boy with his first Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. And if the federal government can be persuaded to protect the interests of some of its favourite institutions -- like banks -- then the institution of sport should really be no different when it comes to our sovereign interests.
As anyone who has ever bought a home in Canada knows, if you don't have a big enough down payment you get to pay a surcharge so that the feds will guarantee the mortgage. Well, if they can guarantee mortgages for lenders, then they should be able to guarantee the CFL some sort of non-competition clause in our own country for its eight -- and sometimes nine -- football franchises and pool of corporate sponsors. They are both pivotal to the fabric of our society if you are asking me.
You may think the previous import of the Blue Jays and Raptors are dangerous precedents already set for this kind of meddling franchise relocation, but it's not like there was ever a Canadian Basketball Association or Canadian League Baseball organization in full swing that got steamrolled by sports Wal-Marts.
But even if the near-90-year-old Ralph Wilson does expire sooner rather than later, who is to say this ownership group will be successful in their bid? Last time I checked there were a number of infinitely larger U.S. markets that would not mind having their own NFL team and their approval would not require invading a foreign nation and the subsequent public relations fallout.
But if the sky does fall and Toronto sells out all eight of those NFL games over the next five years and Ralph Wilson dies and the Paul Godfrey-led group has the largest bid and our government decides not to meddle like they do in everything else, it still doesn't necessarily mean goodbye to the game of Canadian football.
The games and customers and ticket prices are so different and the CFL so resilient I believe it is feasible for some sort of co-operative marketplace, but that is the task of CFL commissioner Mark Cohon's tenure and thankfully not mine.
Besides, if all else fails we can revisit the other point I covered way back in that initial article of June of 2007 -- where Paul Godfrey revealed to Mike Koreen and the Toronto Sun that, "I have a plan if an NFL team comes to Toronto that would help the Argonauts." It's only my opinion, but now may be a pretty good time for Paul to unveil that plan.
Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.
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