My uncle is a diehard football fan. Every week he religiously watches the Buffalo Bills. When I was younger, I once asked him why he cheered for an American team. After all, he lived in Toronto and the city had a football team, the Argonauts. “That’s not football,” he replied. “It’s a bunch of amateurs.”
That sentiment sums up the feelings of many Canadians. The Bills have estimated that as many as 10,000 Canadians drive across the border to see a Bills home game.
But despite strong support for the NFL in Canada, nothing has threatened the CFL’s monopoly of professional football in Canada. Until now.
The Buffalo Bills, already hugely popular with people in southern Ontario, will play eight games in Toronto over the next five seasons.
The decision has sparked speculation about whether the NFL would consider expanding into Canada. There are no immediate plans for the NFL to move a team to Canada but many CFL owners are nervous because if the NFL comes to Toronto, the CFL is dead.
Many CFL fans would disagree with my assessment. They would argue that the two leagues are not the same. Fans would not abandon their hometown Argos to cheer for a new NFL team.
They’re wrong. The NFL is simply a better brand of football. It is more exciting and the players are more talented.
Of the many differences between the NFL and the CFL, most were designed by the CFL to make the Canadian brand of football more exciting and higher scoring.
For a while, these changes worked because having only three downs to gain ten yards forced teams to pass the ball and take more chances.
But, defensive co-ordinators have caught on and adapted. Scoring is down in the CFL and that spells bad news for the league, especially considering the NFL is now dominated by high-octane offences, like the New England Patriots, the Indianapolis Colts and the Green Bay Packers.
A fantastic Super Bowl coupled with an exceptionally exciting playoff season has created the perfect moment for the NFL to come to Canada.
Over five million Canadians tuned in to watch the New York Giants’ stunning victory over the New England Patriots. By comparison, only 3.5 million watched the Saskatchewan Roughriders win last year's Grey Cup.
Why? Winnipeg represented Eastern Canada in the last Grey Cup. I may be no geographer, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that Winnipeg is not in the East.
The fact that the CFL had to move Winnipeg to the Eastern Conference after the Ottawa Renegades folded shows that the league is becoming an increasingly western phenomenon.
Toronto can’t support two football teams. If an NFL team came north of the border, the Toronto Argonauts would fold. And, if Argos folded, there would be no Eastern Conference.
The CFL would cease being a Canadian league and become a Canadian eccentricity, enjoyed mainly by Western Canadians.
Canadian football might survive these changes. After all, there is very little grassroots support for the sport in Canada. Most kids grow up dreaming about being NHL, not NFL, stars.
But maybe, if the NFL does get a strong enough foothold in Canada, that might change and more young Canadian athletes will try their luck on a field under Friday night lights instead of on a frozen pond.