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Partnership with NFL team seems like an unlikely one, but can benefit Toronto's struggling CFL team.
Published Sep 12, 2025 • Last updated 9 minutes ago • 6 minute read
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) celebrates the team's win over Baltimore Ravens.
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) celebrates the team's win over Baltimore Ravens. AP Photo
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Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills are partnering up to “engage Canadian fans and grow the game of football.”
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If that sounds a little confusing at first, you are not alone.
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The immediate question that pops to mind is why would MLSE, owners of the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, a team with a fervent but limited fanbase within the GTA, want to spend money and effort promoting another team in its own market to the potential detriment of its own product?
It’s obvious what the Bills get out of the partnership. They have a brand new 71,608-seat stadium opening next season right beside its predecessor.
That stadium comes with a $2.1-billion price tag, $690 million of which the Bills themselves are on the hook for after some generous support from the state and county.
The Bills hope to address most of that $690-mil bill through the sales of personal seat licences at the New Highmark Stadium — or The Pit as they have taken to calling it in western New York.
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Those seat licences will reportedly range from $500 to $16,500 and, as rabid as the Bills Mafia is about its team, a good chunk of those higher-end seats is simply going to be out of range financially for much of the local fanbase.
So, the Bills will look north, specifically to the more deep-pocketed GTA to fill that void and MLSE and the Argos appear more than willing to help.
The question is, why?
Again, if this all sounds a little one-sided for a true partnership, you’re not the only one thinking that. But after select conversations with some of those involved and media scrums with various principals in the deal, this is our attempt to explain how this will work, supposedly for both sides.
FIRST, THE PARTNERSHIP ITSELF, WHY NOW?
Well, for starters, there’s that new stadium the Bills have to finance and fill, the former the more immediate concern.
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This past May, the Bills officially joined the NFL Global Markets program which allows the team to engage fans across all of Canada in addition to focusing on their home market in Southern Ontario. In the past, the Bills’ efforts to market north of the border have been met with complaints from other NFL owners who weren’t willing to concede a market in another country to the Bills based purely on proximity. That will no longer be the case with the NFL Global Markets program.
WASN’T THERE A PREVIOUS EFFORT BY THE BILLS TO PLANT A STAKE IN TORONTO THAT ENDED POORLY?
Yes, there certainly was. It was called the Bills Toronto Series and it began in 2008 and ran through 2012. It was the brainchild of Bills founder Ralph Wilson along with Ted Rogers of Rogers Communications, who has since passed, and Larry Tanenbaum of MLSE.
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Ted Rogers was the father of current MLSE head Edward Rogers, the executive chair of Rogers Communications which owns a controlling 75% stake in MLSE.
Initially, the plan was to play eight home games in Toronto over five seasons that would include a regular-season game in each of the five years of the deal and three exhibitions, one in each of the first third and fifth years.
Eventually that pre-season game in Year 5 was dropped.
At one point, the deal was renewed for an additional five years with again five regular-season games over the five-year contract and a single pre-season game, but after the 2013 game, the decision was made to postpone the series for a year.
In December of 2014, it was announced that a deal had been agreed to that would terminate the contract entirely.
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HOW IS THIS NEW PARTNERSHIP DIFFERENT?
For starters, as it stands now, no games have been announced that would see the Bills return to Toronto for pre-season or regular-season games, though that could change.
At Tuesday’s announcement of the partnership at BMO Field — that included the likes of Bills limited partners Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Jozy Altidore, in addition to former Argos and Bills quarterback Doug Flutie — Bills and Buffalo Sabres chief operating officer Pete Guelli mentioned that a game in Toronto could become part of the partnership down the road though Keith Pelley, president and CEO of MLSE seemed far less certain of that when it was brought to his attention.
Mr. Argo himself, Michael (Pinball) Clemons, was genuinely enthused with the new partnership, primarily because it further promotes the game for Toronto’s youth.
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Asked how this one differed from the previous one, he pointed to the principals involved.
“Then, we had an NFL/CFL collaboration sort of thing, right? Here, you have sister cities who have been loyal to each other, so it’s more doable, more reachable,” Clemons said. “This is going to work because of the commitment of the two cities to this program.”
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WHAT DOES THIS PARTNERSHIP ACTUALLY ENTAIL?
Here is what we know it includes, though the scope of the partnership could — and is expected to — grow over time. The general goal of the partnership is to “celebrate the shared passion for sport north of the border and help grow the game of football with Canadian youth.”
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Well, that and to promote the Bills within in the city of Toronto, of course, though that wasn’t particularly highlighted in any of Tuesday’s proceedings.
On the first part, though, the actual delivery of that is through use of MLSE’s existing portfolio of sports team including the Argos, Raptors and Toronto FC.
The partnership will include youth camps with the Argonauts, exclusive apparel collaborations from Toronto-founded lifestyle brand Peace Collective, and official Bills watch parties at the newly renovated Real Sports Bar & Grill.
Both sides were pushing the narrative of growing the game for the kids, so the Bills and the Argonauts have collaborated on the Future of Football program. With that, the Argos will host a dedicated Future of Football-themed game when they take on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Oct. 4 at BMO, something MLSE also expects to do with the Raptors and Toronto FC.
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The Argos-Ticats game will include giveaways, scheduled appearances by Flutie and NFL Hall of Famer Jim Kelly of the Bills, and even discounted tickets for the East Grandstand for the game.
The Future of Football program officially launched on Tuesday with a flag football camp, giving more than 200 youngsters from across the GTA the chance to improve their skills under the tutelage of Argonauts and Bills development coaches.
That clinic was the first of several, according to the news release, issued by MLSE that the Bills and Argos will be co-hosting throughout the year.
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WHAT’S IN IT FOR TORONTO AND THE ARGONAUTS?
It’s no secret the Argos fanbase is heavily slanted towards the over-50 crowd. The hope is that a partnership with the Bills, which still has plenty of cache with a younger demographic on both sides of the border, can bring some of that back into the Argos fold.
Beyond that there’s the concept of popularity by association. The Bills draw eyeballs and Tuesday’s press conference was proof of that. It doesn’t hurt to be associated with a brand so universally popular as the Bills.
Both of these were given as explanations for why the Argos, and by extension, MLSE were so willing to jump into a partnership that seems so decidedly one-sided in terms of benefit.
Left unsaid or even whispered about but asked more than once was what could this budding relationship provide MLSE down the road?
If that were to include something such as a leg up in future expansion talks with the NFL, that could be the real ‘get’ for all of this from an MLSE perspective, though a likely death knell for the Argos themselves.
Obviously, no one wanted to mention that on Tuesday.
mganter@postmedia.com
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