Buffalo Bills NFL 2015 News: Owner Wouldn't Mind Toronto NFL Franchise
Ted Pegula recently bought the NFL's Buffalo Bills. He also owns the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL. He is committed to keeping the Bills in Buffalo but has recently said he does not mind if the NFL places a franchise in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto and Buffalo are pretty close geographically and Pegula says that this question came up when he was meeting with the NFL to be approved to purchase the Bills.
Even though Pegula wouldn't mind the NFL putting a team in Toronto actually getting to a reality where that is happen is a uphill battle. The league is now fully committed to getting at least one team moved to the Los Angeles market. Depending on what team or teams that ends up being the NFL would likely want to replace a franchise in St. Louis, and the London, England experiment continues with odds pretty good that the league will one day place a franchise there. That is three markets ahead of Toronto in line for franchises.
While the Toronto market is certainly big enough to support a NFL team the city had a very lukewarm reaction to the Bills playing one preseason and one regular season game there the past few years. A NFL franchise would face serious competition from the Toronto Maple leafs in the NHL and the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL. Many Americans don't view the CFL as serious competition for the NFL but in Canada the CFL is immensely popular and has been for nearly a century.
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With some 8.5 million people in the greater Toronto area, it is a market that is very attractive to the NFL. However. Given the popularity of the CFL and the almost religious like following for professional hockey it has to be asked if Toronto is a place where the NFL can thrive.
