Opportunists, johnny-come-latelys, free loaders. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Then it’s a duck.
I’ve always loved the CFL, lived and died with the Argos growing up, and I’ve covered a fair share of Grey Cups, but this story is driving me crazy.
In October of 2004, Argos co-owner Howard Sokolowski unveiled grand plans for a new 25,000 seat stadium for his team at York University. “Our feeling is very strong that this is the best place to have a football stadium”, he said. It was supposed to cost $70 million with the Argos responsible for about $20 million of that. And oh yes, soccer could be played there as well. This all fell apart of course, similar to University of Toronto’s plan a few weeks earlier, and a Lamport Stadium plan a few years earlier. Eventually, as we all know, the Argos bolted from every proposal ever made, either by them, or someone else and signed what they thought was the best deal for them at the Rogers Centre.
Since then, the Argos have endured the rousing success of BMO Field’s heart thumping atmosphere and jealousy has apparently set in. Now they want back in the stadium game. They say their interest is only exploratory but their actions speak louder than words. If they weren’t serious, they wouldn’t bother polling their fans on what stadium they would choose, (as if the choice were theirs). They wouldn’t bother sending out curious feelers through the media, and they wouldn’t bother trying to declare that BMO Field is not really soccer specific when we all know that’s exactly what it is.
Here’s a breakdown of what Canada’s National SOCCER Stadium cost to build: The city came up with $9.8 million and $10 million in donated land for a soccer stadium. The province of Ontario chipped in $8 million for a soccer stadium. MLSE’s share was $8 million with $10 million coming from naming rights for a soccer stadium. The other $27 million, by far the largest contribution, came from the federal government. That money was contingent on Canada’s National Soccer Stadium being a year round use facility for soccer.
The Argos can say whatever they want about what exactly BMO Field is, but we know what it is, what it isn’t, and what it cannot be. Without someone (the Argos) spending nearly as much as it cost to build the place, BMO Field can’t possibly handle the monstrously long CFL Field.
There seems to be a general feeling, I suppose based on the historical significance of the CFL, combined with the acute anti-soccer bias that still exists across this country that the Argos matter and Toronto FC, the Canadian men’s National Team, and BMO Field as a soccer stadium don’t. Think again. The tide has turned in this city. There exists 16,000 TFC season ticket holders and a waiting list of thousands more tell us this is so. The Argos have just over 13,000 and they’re not looking over their shoulder to see if soccer is chasing them. In many ways it’s already ahead. How else do you explain that it’s a CFL team trying to ride the coattails of a soccer success story and not the other way around?