Sat, Nov 06, 2010 page18

• FEATURE: Little fanfare for the lowly Buffalo Bills in Toronto

  • Reuters, TORONTO,
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  High ticket prices, a weak economy and a struggling Buffalo Bills team have hampered a four-year initiative to showcase the Canadian city of Toronto as a viable home for a full-time NFL franchise.

  Unlike the passionate Bills supporters who fill Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson Stadium regardless of the team’s record, Toronto has not fallen in love with the idea of paying exorbitant prices to watch a team that has not made the playoffs in a decade.

  There was plenty of buzz when the Toronto-based games were announced in 2007, but the initial excitement quickly fizzled out and the Bills have yet to attract a sellout crowd in a stadium that seats about 7,500 fewer than the NFL’s smallest venue.

  “Building a fan base in a new and international market does not come without its share of unforeseen challenges,” Bills chief executive officer Russ Brandon said.

  “With that being said, there is always more work to do and we are constantly re-evaluating areas in which we can improve,” Brandon added.

  NFL owners approved the initiative by the Bills in 2007 to play five regular-season games and three pre-season games across the US-Canadian border in Toronto’s Rogers Centre from 2008 to 2012.

  The Toronto-based group that secured the games — dubbed Bills Toronto Series — has not exactly made a convincing case that the city is ready to support an NFL team.

  Despite efforts to promote the games, the mood inside the Rogers Centre for the four games to date has been far from the raucous atmosphere typical at most NFL stadiums and the talk has mostly revolved around poor attendance, which has averaged about 48,000 per game.

  The long-suffering Bills play the Chicago Bears tomorrow, in their fifth game in Toronto, and several thousand tickets, including premium seats priced at nearly C$300 (US$294), are available.

  “One of the real challenges we continue to face is that the inception of the [Bills Toronto] Series occurred as the global economy faced a deep economic downturn,” Brandon said.

  “We are not alone in this regard as NFL and professional sports, in general, have not been insulated from its effects,” he added.

  While the Bills, who receive a reported US$9.75 million per game in Toronto, would like to see capacity crowds at each game, their main objective behind the initiative is to help keep the -franchise strong and viable in western New York.

  In that regard it appears to be working as 12 percent of Bills -season ticket holders are from the Toronto and Southern Ontario area, up from 10 percent in 2007.

  The Bills said they had not had any official talks about extending their Toronto initiative as they were focused on the current agreement.

  Unlike the Toronto games, the NFL has enjoyed huge success in Britain where games at London’s Wembley Stadium in each of the past four years have drawn crowds of more than 81,000.

  One hurdle the Bills franchise faces in trying to promote the game in Toronto is that the team is not enjoying anywhere near the success it did in the glory days of the 1990s when it played in four straight Super Bowls.

  “There’s no question that winning promotes fan excitement,” Brandon said. “However, there is no way to quantify how much more fan interest we would have been able to create had we been in playoff contention during the past few years.”

  Still, it is hard to imagine that the Bills teams from the 1990s, which were stacked with Hall of Famers including quarterback Jim Kelly, running back Thurman Thomas, defensive end Bruce Smith and coach Marv Levy, would not have attracted bigger crowds.

  One expert suggests the actual home team on the field is only one element of what makes people want to spend money on going to a game.

  Ken Wong, a marketing professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, said regardless of the team, a good portion of the attendance was made up of people who just wanted to be part of an NFL event.

  Another component of the attendance was “homers,” who went to cheer for the home team, which the Bills essentially are for Torontonians, given the proximity of the two cities.

  The last element is the opposing team, according to Wong, who stressed the importance of bringing in teams with a high profile in the community and marquee players, and who were playing well.

  “A lot of people go to the Super Bowl even though they may not have an attachment to either team, but Super Bowls provide you with all three elements,” Wong said.

  “The event is an out-of-mind experience, you’re pulling for one of the two teams a little bit more than the other and you have marquee players on both sides of the field and that’s why Super Bowls sell out each year,” he added.
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