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Will a Canadian city ever get a team, expansion or otherwise in the NFL, NBA, or MLB? I left out the NHL because Quebec and Toronto are often mentioned as potential sites for the NHL, but I've never heard of a Canadian city mentioned as a serious possibility for any of the other leagues?

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12 minutes ago, smzimbabwe said:

Will a Canadian city ever get a team, expansion or otherwise in the NFL, NBA, or MLB? 

 

Just read an article today that said a group in Montreal says it has "met MLB conditions." That's still a long way from saying the Expos are coming back, but it's...well...something. To answer your question, yes, I think we'll see new team in Canada at some point. 

 

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NFL not likely soon; maybe if smaller markets can't sustain the NFL machine some 50 more years.  

NBA, maybe Vancouver yet there seems to be a number of US cities who should join prior.

MLB, Montreal is probably on the radar.  Word is MLB would prefer to add 2 teams at once, probably Mexico City or Monterrey.  

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@2001mark

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So the sad reality is that there are only three Canadian cities big enough to warrant consideration in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL. Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. 

Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton are all great sports cities, but they just can't compete with most American locales when it comes to those leagues. Canada loves hockey so much that they suddenly become very viable in the NHL's case, but outside of that? Nah. 

 

Baseball won't return to Montreal unless there's a plan for a stadium in place. 

Vancouver in MLB is interesting, but again. No stadium and no prospects for one. 

 

Vancouver had a NBA team, and they left town. Rogers Arena is still up to NBA standards, but I don't get the sense that the Grizzlies are missed all that much. 

Montreal in the NBA would be really interesting. Basketball in French? Why not, eh? Thing is I've yet to see anyone really asking for it. I mean the market is big enough to support a team. The media presence is there. They have an arena. It's just that no one wants it. 

 

With the NFL it gets even more narrow because Montreal drops off the list. So you're down to just Toronto and Vancouver. 

 

Toronto got the Bills on a temporary basis and didn't seem to care. The Bills were negotiating for a new stadium in upstate New York at the time, and no one knew what would happen to the team when the owner died. The Toronto series was obviously testing the waters for a Bills to Toronto move, and the response was lacklustre. 

Further compounding matters? The Argos just moved to BMO Field and the Jays are turning the Rogers Centre into a baseball-only stadium, complete with real grass. So using it even as a temporary venue for a NFL team is a non-starter. 

And speaking of BMO Field. That was the last stadium you'll see get built in Toronto on the public's dime in a while. There's no appetite for the city to kick in funds to help pay for a NFL calibre stadium. 

 

The NFL in Vancouver would be interesting, but again. No stadium. Also no fan interest. Toronto does have a vocal minority of fans who want the NFL there, and they couldn't even fill out the Rogers Centre for the Bills games we got. There's no such vocal minority in Vancouver. So I can't see the NFL going over any better over there. 

 

In short we'll take our NHL teams, the CFL, the Blue Jays, and the Raptors. Toss in the Quebec Nordiques? And we'll be quite content.

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2 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

 

In short we'll take our NHL teams, the CFL, the Blue Jays, and the Raptors. Toss in the Quebec Nordiques? And we'll be quite content.

I think most of us would just love to see the NHL return to Quebec City & maybe one day if it's more viable (or if the league itself becomes less valuable) locations such as Hamilton, KW, &/or if the league really buckled, places like Regina or Halifax.  I guess a second Toronto team will happen in my lifetime, yet not very soon.

It's not too much to ask when all's we're really talking about is maximizing the NHL's footprint in the country where most of its players & most diehard fans remain.  This isn't like we're complaining about the NFL, NBA, or MLB much for Montreal.  

 

To be fair, our own pro league, the CFL, still hasn't found a way to the likes of Quebec City &/or Halifax, & that has nothing at all to do with an American machine of a league.

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3 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

Toronto got the Bills on a temporary basis and didn't seem to care. The Bills were negotiating for a new stadium in upstate New York at the time, and no one knew what would happen to the team when the owner died. The Toronto series was obviously testing the waters for a Bills to Toronto move, and the response was lacklustre. 

 

Even though there are a lot of Bills fans in the GTA, I still believe that series failed because it was the Buffalo Bills. I am of the firm belief that Toronto would get behind a Toronto NFL team, it's a great sports town as long as you're either a. a winner or b. playing hockey. The CFL is such a non-starter in modern Toronto that it's not a great barometer for the potential success of the NFL (you didn't say that, but that's the argument some use).

 

This is all conjecture and hypothesis, and not to sound like I would support the idea of the NFL to Toronto, but the way some Torontonians think about the city of Buffalo... to me it is no surprise why those "home games" failed. Toronto does not care for sloppy seconds, and frankly it's the same reason why I think the Argos don't do well in Toronto anymore... it's not the big event.

 

 

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If--and it's a huge if--there's a viable stadium plan in Montreal (and probably Vancouver too), then there's a very real chance they'll get a Major League team. MLB expansion isn't imminent (especially with the Oakland and Tampa Bay stadium situations), but Manfred has said he sees expansion in the not too distant future, and he has been on the record supporting international expansion, specifically mentioning Montreal (and Mexico City). He recently mentioned Las Vegas as another viable expansion/relocation market so it wouldn't be a slam dunk. But Montreal and probably Vancouver would be seriously considered if they have their ducks in a row.

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On 4/1/2017 at 3:26 AM, lopernv said:

 

Even though there are a lot of Bills fans in the GTA, I still believe that series failed because it was the Buffalo Bills. I am of the firm belief that Toronto would get behind a Toronto NFL team, it's a great sports town as long as you're either a. a winner or b. playing hockey. The CFL is such a non-starter in modern Toronto that it's not a great barometer for the potential success of the NFL (you didn't say that, but that's the argument some use).

 

This is all conjecture and hypothesis, and not to sound like I would support the idea of the NFL to Toronto, but the way some Torontonians think about the city of Buffalo... to me it is no surprise why those "home games" failed. Toronto does not care for sloppy seconds, and frankly it's the same reason why I think the Argos don't do well in Toronto anymore... it's not the big event.

 

I honestly think that's only a small factor with the Bills series.

 

I'm a Bills fan, purchased the full Bills in Toronto series tickets. It's certainly was not the same but there were a number of factors (in no particular order)

 

1) I think the Bills thought that, due to proximity, Toronto is automatically a city full of Bills fans. It is not. I saw so many Steelers and Dolphins jerseys in the stadium at the games. I know a fair amount of Lions fans too. My point is that there are a lot of people who aren't Bills fans in the area. You can't assume that there are due to proximity. 

 

2) Tailgating. Let's be honest, you drive down to Buffalo and it's a whole day.You have a couple drinks, eat some burgers/dogs on the BBQ, you toss the ball. None of this is happening downtown Toronto, heck, it's illegal. Budweiser rented a parking lot and attempted a tailgate party. You still had to pay $10+ for a beer (as opposed to bringing your own) and you had to either win or buy tickets to that tailgate party too. 

 

3) Even with 70,000+ people in in area for the game, traffic is significantly better in Buffalo. It's less of a hassle that way. 

 

4) Price of tickets. I had first row in the 500s at about the 40 yard line. If I recall tickets were prices over $100 there. It was so bad that it got to the point that the tickets prices were dropped and they were refunding the difference to the people who bought the full package. To your point about "the big event" people in Toronto will pay for the big event. No doubt, you've heard about the crazy prices some people paid for Jays playoff tickets or the MLS Cup. But this was not a 1-off event this was an ongoing series of games. 

 

All those things combined is why I think it failed.

Throw in that Bon Jovi and MLSE don't really seem to be buddy-buddy anymore and I'm convinced that the NFL won't be coming to Toronto. At least, not in the foreseeable future. 

GTA United(USA) 2015 + 2016 USA Champions/Toronto Maroons (ULL)2014, 2015 + 2022 Gait Cup Champions/Toronto Northmen (TNFF)

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I'd expand to Vancouver before Montreal for baseball: I'll take my chances with being Western Canada's team versus Toronto in the east, making inroads with East Asian communities where there could be some passion for baseball, and not cannibalizing the greater French Canada market when they're already on the verge of a second NHL team. I'm not really enthusiastic about either. There's nowhere in Canada that appeals to me for the NBA, and the NFL needs more expansions and relocations like it needs a hole in the head.

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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I've been to Vancouver. It's awesome and modern and multicultural and everything you'd expect from a modern city. Plus it has nearly unparalleled natural beauty; there isn't much that can match it.

 

However. It's so far away from the rest of the country. Yeah it's just 3 hours by car from Seattle, but Seattle is so far away from the rest of the country. Plus, unlike Toronto, Vancouver hasn't really been normalized in the minds of American sports fans. People see the CN Tower, buildings and Skydome and can get a clear sense of what Toronto is all about.

 

Vancouver had two recent forays into American consciousness:

1.  The 2010 winter Olympics that made Vancouver look more or less like Lake Placid but more dramatic.

2. The Grizzlies, which played up a First Nations and rustic outdoors motif that doesn't really exist outside of Vancouver's distant past.

 

Remember how crestfallen Steve Francis was to be drafted to the Vancouver Grizzlies? That's my go-to reaction when thinking of expansion of Big Four sports into the Canadian northwest. I just think there's too much (mostly undeserved) baggage to get over.

 

 

Re: the Toronto Bills -- OKC realized the Hornets were an audition and now they have an NBA team. Toronto could have been a bit less myopic when they had a piece of the Bills if they really wanted an NFL team. My sense is they didn't or they would have showed up, ticket cost be damned.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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Do Americans have a sense of Toronto? I have a suspicion that too many see it as a distant land of Eskimos who say "aboot" and chop down trees and not just, you know, Chicago with greater self-satisfaction. But I agree on Vancouver's unfamiliarity; I maintain that a big part of why Blackhawks-Canucks never got all the way there as a rivalry is that dumbass Hawks fans didn't know where Vancouver was other than "someplace in Canada I guess."

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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For that matter, do Americans have a sense of much any place?

 

New York - Times Square plus Central Park muggings circa Death Wish plus Girls

 

LA - Grand Theft Auto plus Hollywood plus Compton plus big fake boobs

 

Vegas - Lights and more fake boobs and pressure to be as interesting as a random epsiode of Entourage

 

Miami - That cool street with the neon lights plus less fake boobs but still boobs. And butts.

 

Texas - Big hats and older women with fake boobs

 

Portland/Seattle - Mountains and coffee? Not very sexy so who cares.

 

Boston/Philly/DC - American history is so boring plus there are black people

 

Internationally:

 

Paris - Eiffel Tower and women who don't shave their pits

 

London - Funny talk and Big Ben and Buckingham Palace and nothing else?

 

Tokyo/Shanghai/Hong Kong/Beijing/Taipei/Seoul - Samesies, right?

 

Johannesburg/Cairo/Lagos - The Gods Must Be Crazy

 

Jerusalem - Baby Jesus so probably perfect

 

Anywhere else in the middle East - no way jose

 

 

I think that's the list.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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