And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

[Nermal]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

Looks like some people are starting to dump their Bills-Dolphins tickets already. Scalpers are expecting big losses.

Bills' ticket sales lag in Toronto
Preseason giveaways are cause for concern
By Gene Warner NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 08/19/08 10:30 AM

Maybe the Buffalo Bills-Miami Dolphins regular-season game in Toronto on Dec. 7 will be a sellout that proves what a strong National Football League market Toronto is, even for exorbitantly priced tickets.
But for now, the Bills in Toronto experiment has a public relations nightmare on its hands, having to deal with widespread media reports that 15,000 — and maybe up to 17,000 — tickets had to be given away to create a “sellout” Thursday night.
And that, Toronto media claimed, could have translated into a loss of anywhere from $3 million to $5 million for Rogers Communications.
Rogers is paying the Bills $78 million to host eight games over five years, or an average of $9.75 million per game.
Thursday’s preseason game between the Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers drew an announced crowd of 48,434 in a stadium believed to seat slightly under 54,000 for the Bills games. That’s roughly 90 percent of capacity.
Last week, Bills in Toronto officials claimed that about 2,500 tickets had to be distributed Monday to “sell out” the game and lift the TV blackout in time.
But widespread anecdotal reports, circulated throughout the Toronto media, pegged the number of free tickets at four to six times that amount.
“We’re estimating something in the neighborhood of 15,000 [free tickets], and if we’re wrong, by all means, somebody from the Rogers empire can call and correct us,” popular Fan590 talk-show host Bob McCown said on the air Friday.
One source more familiar with the ticket-selling operation questioned the 15,000 figure, suggesting the more accurate range would be between 8,000 and 10,000 unsold tickets.
Whatever the figure, McCown outlined the challenge those unsold tickets create for the Bills in Toronto organizers in selling out the Dec. 7 Dolphins game.
“Who buys a ticket for the Buffalo Bills between now and Dec. 1?” McCown asked during the round-table discussion. “You’d have to be dumber than a post to buy a ticket, given the fact that they were giving ’em out like candy.”
Another member of the round table, who said he had bought four tickets for $550 each, then offered to sell his Bills-Dolphins tickets for half-price.
That’s better than the scalpers were doing Thursday. One ticket “broker” told The Buffalo News that he’d be lucky to get half-price. Other ticket vendors reported trying to sell tickets for 25 percent of the face value.…
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/418004.html

[Nermal]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

And from the Bills in Toronto site:



Almost 50,000 Fans!
"Success" is an understatement! Both the Samsung Bills Toronto Kickoff Party and Budweiser Bills Toronto Tailgate Party were runaway hits, entertaining, feeding, and serving tens of thousands of fans in a two-day span. Then almost 50,000 NFL fans watched the Bills defeat the Steelers 24-21 at Rogers Centre in Toronto. Next up? The Miami Dolphins come to town on Sunday, Dec. 7. Thanks Toronto for helping us make sports history! Go Bills!
http://www.billsintoronto.com/index2.html

[Opus]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

A blurb from a poster at CFLzone:

Here is an email that I sent to a newspaper explaining how Rogers Centre infringes on our freedom.

Dear Mr. *************

Our anti-NFL protest was a huge success, with about 40 people turning up and lots of media coverage.

However, it saddened me, as unsurprising as it was, that we were not allowed on to Blue Jays Way, Bremner Street, or anywhere near the Rogers Centre. As soon as we got close, the cops would tell us to get lost or risk arrest. This despite a complete lack of physical or verbal aggression towards anyone around us. We also had a permit which allowed us to protest on the grounds but when we showed the police they replied with a laugh and said, "Well, I'm guessing Ted Rogers' permit cost a little but more than yours did."

Another group of protesters, separate from us were protesting the low wages of concession workers at the dome ($9.25 an hour) were on the verge of arrest 3 times simply from handing out fliers to passers by. Each time, they fleed to avoid arrest.

The next day at the Argos game a friend of mine was wearing an Anti-Bills t-shirt. Within seconds of entering the Rogers Centre concourse, he was surrounded by security ordering him to remove the shirt or risk expulsion and/or arrest. The shirt had nothing offensive on it, simply a buffalo bills logo with a cross through it, similar to an anti-smoking sign.

Later I found out that before the game, one of the men leading the Anti-NFL in Toronto movement, Sterling Halliday, was also nearly arrested. He told me that before the game he was surrounded by cops telling him to remove his shirt and that he would certainly be arrested if he was seen distributing an anti-Bills shirt to anyone else. This is not the first time Sterling has encountered issues at Argos' home games, despite being a season ticket holder. Last game, he was not allowed on stadium property with his t-shirt.. Sterling has a permit from top Argos' executives that legally allow him to sell the shirts at Argos' home games. Mr. Halliday only escaped certain arrest by calling Pinball Clemons himself and having him speak to security.

It seems to be Rogers Centre policy to suppress any message that goes against them or suggests anything they are doing might be bad. In fact, the Anti-Bills shirt have gone from being a common sight in the first couple games (despite being new) to extremely rare, because anyone who wears them risks expulsion or arrest by Rogers Centre security and police.

I just wished to inform you of this very undemocratic practice that is going on at Rogers Centre, and I hope that you help encourage them to stop this habit of censorship by writing about it in an upcoming paper. As I, and many others see it, it goes against the fundamental principles of democracy and freedom of expression.

[Spectacle]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

I have to get into this now.


Either you don’t understand what you’re watching, or this is exactly what you are doing. I’ll choose to believe the former, and I and others here will help to bring you up to speed.


Yes, most of them wouldn’t do as well in the CFL. It varies a bit by position, but in general this would certainly be true, and has been shown to be true when such players have come up for various reasons. Let’s take RBs as an example. Have you ever wondered why, on average, NFL RBs are so much slower and less athletic than CFL RBs? And have you wondered why they are so much bigger and more powerful instead? Think through the rules and you’ll see. 4 downs and a narrow field favour the power running game, and power runners tend not to be as quick, fast and athletic. 3 downs mean that the power running game is much less effective, but the much wider field means that quicker, faster, more athletic RBs, who also tend to be smaller, have the room to use their skills. You can go through the whole lineup like this and think through the differences.


The NFL game is more of a dumbed down, power oriented game. The rules make it that way. They have big play books, but they mostly tightly scripted plays. The 4 downs also means that there is an extra down to waste, so rather than try to create something QBs more often just throw the ball away, or dump it off for a very short gain. With 3 downs there is more pressure to make something happen on very play, so smart players who can make something out of nothing are often ones who excel, and this is particularly true of the QBs. In the CFL if a QB is athletic enough to roll out and extend a play, and smart enough to know where the open man is going to be, or where the running lanes will be, he can be very successful. You see so many stupid plays out of NFL QBs that it really makes you wonder sometimes, but it’s not the nature of their game. They are often told not to think, just to execute the plays. And, given that the players are much more densely packed on an NFL field, there are fewer running lanes to begin with and more bodies per square yard to pick off an errant pass, so that’s probably the best decision in most cases. Players who have learned to be smart in the CFL can often translate that to the NFL, however. Flutie, Garcia, and Moon all excelled in the NFL in large part because of their football smarts that they learned in the CFL. Moon has said as much in an interview about the CFL teaching him to be a smart. I can probably find that article on line if your interested.


I think you see quite a few more dumb penalties in the NFL, probably because it’s less of a thinking game and I think the players have a lower football IQ on average, but there are likely more penalties in the CFL due to the nature of the game. Plays are extended in the CFL as QBs roll out and go through their options, and that means that more players are breaking their patterns off, and DBs are scrambling to recover and close on an open man. The clock stoppages in the last 3 minutes means that the games are not decided until very late, and there are more plays where players will be trying to make big plays, and maybe pushing a little too far and committing a penalty. There aren’t many penalties when you’re just kneeling out the last minute and a half of a game in the NFL, after all. There’s just a lot more happening in a CFL game, and a lot more opportunities for penalties to occur.

Great post.

[Spectacle]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

Plus, there have been a ton of guys who were LBs in the NFL and eventually try to land a job as a LB in the CFL, but they are simply too big (and ultimately not quick enough or able to be conditioned enough) to handle the wider field. Then they are expected to play DL up here, but aren't necessarily cut out for it either.

There are also guys that go the other way, from DL in the CFL to LB in the NFL.
aka Rashad Jeanty

[Steve Vale]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

A blurb from a poster at CFLzone:

Wow - Patrician Ted's got a platoon of NFL Pinkerton pricks patrolling around Skydome .

Just a thought - would someone get kicked out of the stadium for wearing either of these 2 examples:

1) With the crossed out Bills logo...what if they put the following below (or on the back) - "Go Browns" (or Steelers/Jets/Giants/Pats etc...).
2) Text on the front "World's Number 1 Buffalo Bills Fan"

The only way they could guarantee a sellout would be to rename the team the Maple Leafs

[Muley69]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

This kind of thing happens at Oiler games, too...

[Steve Vale]

Re: And the Bills in Toronto fiasco begins ...

This kind of thing happens at Oiler games, too...

See Christine Pronger as example