I don’t think that will be a problem. It’s rarely a problem with an expansion team in the US, although some markets (Jacksonville) are not a real success story. And many fans today are supports of players, rather than teams. I’m sure the same would hold true up north.
I don’t think Canadian fans would have any problem supporting more than one team if it came to that. They already are fans of the product; fan bases would quickly develop for any new teams.
As was stated above, this argument is made whenever an expansion team is proposed—they’re already rooting for somebody! and they’ll never root for someone in X rival city! But it’s almost always proven wrong. Relatively few expansion teams fail, and if they fail, it’s not for these reasons. They usually fail because the owner is a dumbass jerkwad.
They cheer for the Leafs, Raptors, and Blue Jays. In those sports, Toronto teams are far and away the team of choice for people in Hamilton. The “We hate Toronto” thing doesn’t hurt those teams at all, especially for the Blue Jays and Raptors, the Canadian standard-bearers in those leagues. It doesn’t do much damage to the Leafs, either.
An NFL team in Toronto would attract many, many fans. As with the Raptors and Blue Jays, just the fact they’d be the one NFL team in Canada would be a huge part of the appeal. I know a lot of people who are devoted, devoted fans of NFL teams and they’d all support a Toronto team. Expansion works.
That said, the NFL is more interested in UK expansion. Toronto would be a very successful market but it would wound Buffalo a little and, anyway, the NFL already has a sweet Canadian broadcasting deal.
The rise of the European soccer teams as global phenomena is quite a recent thing, is it not? Certainly, in the U.S. even ten years ago almost no one paid attention to the EPL, and even fewer to other leagues. So, maybe valuations haven’t caught up to the new fanbases.
I read this week that the Glazer family is willing to listen to offers for Manchester United, which is believed to be valued at £5bn. Considering that they only paid £790million back in 2005, that will be a huge profit for them. Figures as high as £10bn are being bandied around.
The question arises, though, that with an estimated total revenue in the range of 590 million to 610 million pounds in 2023, it will be impossible to show a profit on the investment.
It’s an ego thing to own a team like that.
At least in the short term. But the buyers presumably expect revenue and profits to rise, making the investment successful. Ot maybe it’s just an ego thing, as noted above.
There were a flurry of articles a few months ago about the NFL expanding and making an entire Europe division. Goodell hinted at it. The once a year games are certainly successful. Whether there is a base for four teams playing a full schedule is another thing.
The main problem with NFL expansion at this point is that they can’t really increase the number of games. Football is a brutal sport and the players have pretty much reached their limit—with regular season and expanding playoffs—with respect to the number of games they can play.
America is not the globe, the main European teams have been a massive global thing for a long time but perhaps just not in the USA.
They’ll probably go up to 18 games, but I don’t think expansion really has that big of an impact. NFL teams don’t play all the other teams in the first place.
That’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is economic/currency based. A Canadian-based NFL team will naturally do business in Canadian dollars, but no player will sign a contract for those same Canadian dollars, they will demand their money in American dollars. So, based on the average exchange rate over the last 50 years or so, a Canadian team will make 10% less and pay out 10% more in player salaries right from the start. It’s the same problem Canadian teams have in the NHL, and why so many of them fled for the US. The only ones left are Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton, and it’s a big reason why none of them have won the Stanley Cup (a Canadian trophy) in the NHL (the original “Nation” in NHL was Canada) since 1993.
Then you have the legal issues. I’m not saying that football players are more criminal than in any other sport, but indictments and convictions for certain crimes cause border clearance issues. There have been times where players were unable to cross the border to play a game. In a long season missing a game isn’t the end of the world, but in a 16-game season a player left at home for legal issues can be season-altering.
Last, as you mentioned, Canadian football is its own unique version of the game, and letting the NFL into Canada threatens that.
Realistically, the economic problem is the hardest to solve. The other leagues have never really figured it out, they just deal with it and the Canadian teams always come out on the short end.
Isn’t the NFL largely revenue-shared? In that circumstance will the value of the Canadian dollar matter as much?
MLB has a Canadian team and they seem to manage well enough. Same with the NHL teams in Canada.
Yes, largely so:
There used to be two MLB teams in Canada.
There have been American Football leagues in Europe, with limited success.
Of course I’m aware. But the NFL has been pushing regular season games in the UK and this year in Germany. It’s been quite successful and the games have been sellouts. Games with the best players instead of an obviously inferior product may work out better. Maybe it won’t. Goodell is certainly looking into it.
And both of them were doing well enough until the dumbass jerkwad management of one team trashed it.
The Montreal Expos didn’t fail because of either of the reasons posited above (Here they are as a reminder: (1) Canadians already had their own favorite baseball teams, or (2) People who didn’t live in Montreal couldn’t stand supporting a Montreal-based team).
Yes, that John Grisham.