I recall times in the past when there was sports commentary speculating that a merger of the CFL and NFL would be a good thing, but there was zero interest expressed from Canada and Canadians. If you’ve watched CFL games, it is a very different game.
I am not saying you didn’t hear what you heard, but I never heard that myself. I never heard anybody talk about a total merger, as some of the markets in the CFL would be way too small for the NFL. Specifically, I am thinking of Regina, Hamilton and Ottawa as the three prime examples of small markets with very small stadiums. Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton also would fall under this category, though not to the same extent. I don’t see the NFL looking at those as attractive markets.
That leaves Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. And, I wonder how much interest there would be in Montreal. Plus, there is the stadium issue.
I grew up across Lake Erie from Canada and watched the CFL in the early 1980s. It is a very different game but it was fun to watch once you understood the differences. I still never got the reasoning for the one-point “rouge” point, but that is a totally different subject.
As I recall, it was not that long after the NFL-AFL merger. I think the CFL used have a 4 point play also.
Living in Detroit, we could easily pick up the CBC on CKLW-TV. That also gave us Hockey Night in Canada which, for a while, was the only way to see an NHL game on TV. It also gave us SCTV.
Thanks for the additional information. It sounds like those were the comments of talking heads who really didn’t think much about what they were saying. At the time of the merger there were twenty-six NFL franchises which were sharing television revenue. Adding the nine CFL franchises would have increased the total number by 34%. I doubt the NFL television revenue would have increased that much, meaning that it would have been divided that much more.
Also, the NFL is notorious for charging admission to its club, and I wonder how many of the CFL franchises could have afforded that. And there still would have been the stadium issue.
Oh, and one other point that hasn’t been mentioned yet. There is a reason the CFL starts it season earlier and ends earlier. Playing outdoors in Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg in December or January can get pretty cold. How would the merged league handle these weather differences?
And, the New York Post is taking the lead in criticizing the deal, not that it is not open for criticism. However, the Post is showing its bias. This article discusses a state-wide poll on the subject.
Voters were asked: “Governor Hochul announced a deal to invest $850 million of taxpayer funds in a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills, where the team agrees to stay in Buffalo for 30 years. Do you approve or disapprove of spending $850 million on this deal?”
It is actually $600 million of New York State taxes, with the remaining $250 million coming from Erie County. They made it sound like the full $850 million is coming from the State. They should have just said $600 million, since I doubt that would have made any difference in most responses, but the ambiguous wording probably sounded better.
And, this article which faults the Bills’ owners for living in Florida.
They were living in Florida long before they bought the Buffalo Sabres in 2011 and Buffalo Bills in 2014. And, while I admittedly am not an expert on New York State taxes, I recall growing up when my father spent on average one night a week in New York State as part of his job and had to file New York State taxes for that. I doubt very much the Pegulas are not paying any New York State taxes. And, I am pretty sure the Buffalo Bills are paying New York State taxes.
Rest assured that every pro athlete visiting NY to play is paying NY taxes (and NYC if appropriate) on the amount earned in state.
And, here is another misleading article.
That article says how the NFL’s settlement with St. Louis over the NFL’s relocation guidelines should have given Buffalo leverage. It says that the NFL no doubt wants to avoid another scenario like that. What it doesn’t say is that St. Louis lucked-out when it got a homer judge and that that any verdict would have stood a very good chance of being overturned on appeal but that the NFL didn’t want its dirty laundry aired and therefore settled. It also didn’t mention that Oakland tried filing a similar lawsuit in Federal Court and had it dismissed. Oh, and at the end of the day St. Louis is still without an NFL team and unlikely to get one.
Similarly, if Buffalo and New York State had held out trying to get a better deal it is very possible that the Bills may have left Buffalo once their lease expired after 2023. I am sure the NFL would have very happy to have allowed the Bills to go elsewhere and charge a nice relocation fee. Then, they could dare Buffalo to sue the NFL and see what happened. In the worst case for the NFL, just like with St. Louis, the NFL writes a check and Buffalo is without an NFL team, and the part about the NFL writing a check is hardly a given.
Bottom line: Given the size of the Buffalo market the Buffalo area was in a very weak negotiating position and a good chunk of public money was always going to be needed to ensure the team did not leave. If the ultimate goal was to keep the team in Buffalo, using the New York Post’s strategy was flat out dumb. The State and County made the decision that keeping the team was their objective, and they acted as such. Whether that is good public policy or not is open for debate.
Let me ask you this.
Do you think this deal is an economic positive for the city if Buffalo?
No, I don’t. The stadium will not even be in downtown Buffalo itself but in Orchard Park next to the current one. Nobody seriously believes it will generate any more economic activity in that area.
I gave an earlier link in this thread from the sports writer who covered the Bills and said how he thought it was a win-win deal. Even he did not argue economic benefit but rather all of of the non-economic ways the community benefits from the team. You can read it to see all of his points, and I hear many others say the same thing.
If having the Buffalo Bills as an NFL franchise is important to that community, that community had better be prepared to pony up for a stadium to keep it. If they do not want to pony up, they had better be prepared to lose the franchise. The State of New York and Erie County have made their decision on this.
Like I said, whether that is a wise decision or bad one is open for debate. However, it was not practical to say that no public funds should be spent and that Pegula should pay for the stadium himself. For the reasons I said earlier that was not going to happen.
Side note: Did you see this from the one New York Post article:
Kim and Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn) have proposed legislation to give New Yorkers majority shares in a professional team when taxpayers are picking up a lion’s share of its stadium costs.
Good luck on this going anywhere. I would love to see New York pass this and demand a majority ownership in the Bills or any other franchise there where public money is used to fund its stadium or arena.