TORONTO AND THE NFL (AGAIN)

Howard Bloom of Sports Business News (subscriber content) has an article posted that predicts Toronto will land the 34th National Football League franchise through the league's next round of expansion. (The 33rd team would be Los Angeles, most likely.)

Bloom notes that during Paul Tagliabue's term as commissioner, he ushered in four new franchises who dropped a total of $1.54 billion US in expansion fees into the other teams' coffers. Some estimates peg the fee for future expansion teams at as high as $1 billion US. Imagine how good new commish Roger Goodell is going to look to his bosses if he can get that kind of money from two or more new ownership groups.

In a word, ka-ching! So it looks like the all-important opportunity to join the league may present itself soon.

As noted yesterday, there's the right people driving the bid (Ted Rogers, Larry Tanenbaum and Paul Godfrey), enough capital, and most importantly, more than enough local interest in seeing the NFL come to Canada. The NFL is also well-aware of Rogers Communications' reach.

Rogers' M.O. is that content is everything. The NFL practically invented the notion that content is everything.

It's going to happen, even though the average T.O.-type can't justify it beyond, "Toronto should have a NFL team." This is conspicuous consumption writ large -- a NFL team would just be another affirmation that Toronto is, in its own words, a "world-class city," gee whiz, just like Jacksonville or Glendale, Arizona. That's neither here nor there, though.

This is not a "con" argument. What yesterday's exercise was about was identifying the key points in Toronto's pursuit of a NFL team, including:

• It's bad form to bogart another city's team. The Buffalo Bills and New Orleans Saints might be on the move, but let some other city risk the bad karma. How about it, Albuquerque?
• How would the Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats handle the challenge? Just asking, that's all. There's no "misty-eyed nostalgia" here about the CFL (my friend Greg Hughes' phrase), let alone any doomsday predictions.
  
  If anything, with smart marketing and good business tactics, both CFL teams could probably survive. That said, the Argos should start scouting Mississauga real estate.
• How much is this going to cost taxpayers, especially considering Paul Godfrey's chummy relationship with the Conservative Party, who could soon be in power federally and provincially?
• If the Rogers/MLSE partnership foreshadows a future merger, doesn't having that much media content and that many sports properties under one banner raise concerns that should temper any giddiness over, Hey, we're gettin' an NFL team!

Related:
Weekly NFL Picks (Thurs., Sept. 7)
Toronto Wants The NFL (Again) (Thurs., Sept. 7)
NFL Preview In 30 Minutes... Or It's Free (Wed., Sept. 6)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.