WATCH ABOVE: NFL commissioner comments on possibility of NFL franchise in Toronto.
TORONTO – There’s still hope for an NFL team, other than the Buffalo Bills, playing in Toronto.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters there “hasn’t been much focus” on bringing a team to Toronto but did say the NFL sees Toronto as an “important market.”
“We continue our international development, we spend a great deal of time talking about our global opportunities here at this meeting; Toronto is an important market, but all of Canada is, and Mexico and the globe,” he said. “So we’re aggressively marketing ourselves on a global basis.”
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Terry Pegula, the new owner of the Buffalo Bills, recently told the reporter who asked Goodell about a team in Canada that when in negotiations to buy the team he was asked if he was opposed to a team moving to Toronto – he said no.
“Terry is exactly right, it was asked during the process when he met with the finance committee and he had the exact answer he told you,” Goodell told the reporter.
“He doesn’t see that as an issue for him. His focus is on Buffalo, creating a solution and a franchise there long-term that represents that region. And he is incredibly focused on that and not concerned about Toronto.”
There are a lot of NFL football fans in Toronto. According to Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com, there’s more potential fans in Toronto than in London, England.
But Toronto’s history of hosting an NFL team hasn’t been overly successful. The Buffalo Bills played one game at the Rogers Centre each season from 2008 to 2013, each time to a less than sell-out crowd, with attendance dropping to just 38,969 in 2013.
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