By Perry Lefko, Sportsnet.ca
A Toronto consortium looking to play host to a National Football League game and with hopes of possibly landing a full-time NFL franchise may have inched ever so slightly toward its goal line.
Toronto Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey, who is heading the group that includes Ted Rogers, chairman of Rogers Communications, and Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of the board of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., said his consortium will issue a statement today concerning the news of a possible Buffalo Bills pre-season game in Toronto next year followed by a regular-season game in 2009.
"I really can't say any more," Godfrey told Sportsnet.ca.
The news of a possible game came as a surprise to the Canadian Football League.
"It is the intent of the Bills. We're working to see what the NFL has to say about this," CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon told Sportsnet.ca. "Both of us heard about this yesterday and we were both surprised by it. It was a statement from the Bills, not the NFL."
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy confirmed to Sportsnet.ca the pre-season game is a Bills' proposal to "help further regionalize the team's fan support in its home territory. Expanding the team's northern base will further enable the team to successfully operate in the future."
McCarthy said the matter will require a vote by NFL owners and will be discussed next Tuesday at a previosly scheduled league meeting in Philadelphia.
"It's not anticipated that a vote would take place at that time," McCarthy added.
The NFL has received four expressions of interest from Canadian groups seeking to play host to a regular-season game. The groups are from Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton and B.C. Godfrey has been pushing for an NFL franchise for Toronto for almost 30 years.
The Bills, according to a story in the National Post today, are attempting to expand its market base beyond western New York.
The Bills require county and state approval to play "home games" outside of Ralph Wilson Stadium as a condition of their lease, which runs through 2012. The lease requires the team to play half its pre-season and all regular-season home games at the Orchard Park facility.
The team began the process by sending a letter of request to Erie County on Wednesday.
The NFL has begun a plan to market its product internationally beginning with a game between Miami and the New York Giants at Wembley Stadium in London in two weeks. The NFL purposely avoided introducing the plan in Canada this year because of the potential impact it would have on the Toronto Argonauts, who are playing host to the Grey Cup for the first time in 15 years.
The Argos ownership recently talked to the other CFL teams about banding together to buy an NFL team if there is a threat of one coming to Toronto on a full-time basis. It was a brief discussion, but had tremendous traction, both positively and negatively, when it became public.
The NFL has played pre-season "American Bowl" games in Canada in the past, the last time in 1998 in Vancouver and featuring the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks. Toronto has played host to two games, in 1995 and 1997.
Bills owner Ralph Wilson, 89, has publicly stated that upon his passing the team will be put up for public sale. Whether there are conditions to that -- such as relocating the franchise -- is not totally known. It would require NFL approval anyway.
