Argos Owners Unhappy With More Bills Games
20/04/2009 02:43
It appears the owners of the Toronto Argonauts were not aware of the possibility of more Bills games coming to Toronto and they're not happy about it.
According to the Globe and Mail, Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon are unhappy with Rogers Communications vice-chairman Phil Lind, who said he wants to bring more Bills game to the Rogers Centre. The current plan calls for eight games over five seasons at a cost of $78.5 million.
"Phil told us that a limit of eight Bills games would be played over five years," Sokolowski told the Globe and Mail. "So I'm more than surprised to learn that Phil is now saying that he - or the Bills with his co-operation - are contemplating more games without talking to us. I'm surprised to hear it because we had a gentlemen's agreement."
Sokolowski and Cynamon are concerned that should the Bills play more games in Toronto, they may have to be played during the CFL season, which runs until late November. This year's regular season game between the Bills and New York Jets will be played on December 3rd. The Grey Cup will be played November 29 at Calgary's McMahon Stadium.
"[Bringing more games to Toronto] is their business operation and that's their strategy," Cynamon told the newspaper. "We're hurt by it financially, and in all aspects, but that's another battle."
Lind told a Toronto radio station that surveys show more fans under the age of 50 in Southern Ontario follow the NFL than the CFL. But Cynamon doesn't understand why Lind continues to pit fans of the two leagues against each other.
"The CFL isn't taking shots at the NFL for coming here, so why is he taking shots at the Argos and the CFL?," Cynamon told the Globe and Mail. "That's what upsets me as a Canadian, not a CFL owner, a Canadian. I won't ask him to endorse it, but to take shots at it?"
SWIVEL HIPS SAYS:
If I were Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon, I’d be peeved off too that Rogers vice-chairman Phil Lind is trying to show how cosmopolitan he and the city of Toronto are by holding more NFL games in the centre of the universe. Toronto has spent the better part of its lifetime trying to show that it’s too good for the CFL.