Buffalo, Don't Play Football in Toronto

It's time to discuss this whole Buffalo Bills playing football games in the SkyDome (Rogers Centre) in Toronto and what do do with the roof. If you aren't fully aware of the situation, here's a quick update. Last offseason the Bills decided to strike a deal with the city of Toronto and the Rogers Centre to play a certain number of games in Toronto over the next couple of years. The idea behind this is that Buffalo is attempting to lure people from Canada's largest city to extend their fan base and gain some extra revenue as well. I always thought the Bills had a great and passionate following already in Buffalo, but whatever...they want more. They played a preseason game against the Steelers in the summer and last week was their first regular season game in the SkyDome, and it was against Miami.

The problem arose when the Bills thought that the retractable roof would be open in an obvious cold, snowy weather game against a team from sunny Florida. Not too mention a Dolphins team that has struggled heavily over the years in Orchard Park. The roof ended up staying closed and the Dolphins rolled to a 16-3 win in the climate-controlled atmosphere. While the Rogers Centre people agreed that it would be great to open it, they said they just couldn't and listed two main reasons. One being that the SkyDome does not have the proper drainage system on the field because when it rains for baseball games, they close the roof. Makes sense. The second reason was that the roof is "locked" into place once the Blue Jays season ends. Now, you can say both parties are to blame for not discussing this roof scenario from day one when this contract was agreed to, but I think the blame falls on the Bills. Blame Canada? Nope, not this time. If you have a problem with the roof, don't play the games in another venue, period.

They took a marquee home game against a division rival in Miami and took it out of Orchard Park and into a dome in a foreign city and did not think to even mention if they could have the roof open for these games. Memo to Buffalo, don't play games in another city two hours away. Yeah you want extra revenue, but at the same time, you risk alienating your own fans for taking home games away from them.

Guess what Toronto is getting out of this deal? They want to showcase their city as a future NFL team home. The Bills front office are playing a very dangerous game with this Toronto deal because Toronto obviously wants a team in the future. There are two ways I see this playing out. One is that Toronto does get an NFL franchise in the future and being only two hours away from Buffalo, the Bills are going to lose fans, lose revenue, lose sponsorships, lose merchandise sales and have to compete right in their own market for coverage. The second thing that could happen is that Bills owner Ralph Wilson, who is 90, dies in a couple years, the team goes up for sale on an open market and some executive in Toronto buys them, moves them to Canada and just like that Buffalo is out of a NFL franchise.

The Bills need to rethink this deal for next year. Stick to playing games in your own city and country...not two hours away so a different city can show off how into football they are. If I were a Bills fan up in Buffalo, I would be very uneasy about this current arrangement. Instead of spending time moving games to Toronto, they need to start figuring out how they can hold onto the team and keep them where they belong in Buffalo once Wilson passes on.