Ted Rogers denies trying to lure Bills to Toronto
Communications mogul Ted Rogers says efforts to bring the NFL to Toronto are currently focused on having the Buffalo Bills play two games a year in the city and not on permanently relocating the franchise.
The president and CEO of Rogers Communicationsand Larry Tanenbaum, chair of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, are heading a group interested in landing an NFL team for Toronto, and speculation has run wild since 89-year-old Bills owner Ralph Wilson announced the franchise would be sold to the highest bidder upon his death.
NFL fever turned up another notch last week when Wilson tabled a proposal at the NFL owners' meetings for the Bills to play one exhibition game and one regular-season contest at the Rogers Centre from 2008 until 2012, when the Bills' lease expires at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
There are suggestions the move is the first step in an eventual relocation by Buffalo to the southern Ontario market, talk Rogers seemed to cool Thursday.
"If there is any follow-through from that, and there's nothing at all now, but if there is ever any follow-through on an ownership basis, then Larry Tanenbaum and myself have agreed to work together to pursue that. That is not the active file," Rogers said during a conference call for his company's third-quarter earnings. "The active file is to try and have some shared games and to work together to make it more viable."
The comments were Rogers's first since the Bills' intentions to play in Toronto came to light. The NFL has said the plan is a "logical" and "necessary" step to further enhance the team's brand in southern Ontario and secure its long-term viability in western New York.
Rogers joined the chorus of voices questioning Buffalo's ability to support an NFL team long term.
"Buffalo is a declining market somewhat relatively economically across North America and it's questionable whether an NFL franchise just in Buffalo would survive," he said. "So the owner there has agreed to a program there where I believe we'd have two games a year up here in Toronto at the Rogers Centre.
"That's pretty well all we've agreed at this point."