Caution: LA is coming to steal your NFL team in 2011

[Wacca Pilatka]

Anyone who thinks that Jacksonville and New Orleans are the two relocation candidates, while giving no thought to the Raiders, Chargers, Vikings, and Bills, is not to be taken seriously.  I hope this Ford fellow understands that the NFL isn't putting a team in a 50,000-seat tin can.

[duvaldude08]

Anyone who thinks that Jacksonville and New Orleans are the two relocation candidates, while giving no thought to the Raiders, Chargers, Vikings, and Bills, is not to be taken seriously.  I hope this Ford fellow understands that the NFL isn't putting a team in a 50,000-seat tin can.

Then also, owners have to be willing to sell or have other issues ( such as stadium issues, etc etc.) and wouldnt Toronto be considered a small market like buffalo is?

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I read this earlier this morning and kept on going.  No reason to give it another thought.  The slant that I get from it is that Toronto and the NFL are applying a little pressure to Buffalo - no more, no less.  They're having the same ticket sale issues that the rest of the teams are having.  If you don't want to read about it anymore, you and 10 of your friends should all go get season tickets - the speculation will stop.

New Orleans?!?  Is he high?

Toronto eyeballs two teams for possible relocation
Posted by Mike Florio on May 5, 2011, 7:20 AM EDT

Toronto has gotten a taste of the NFL over the past few years, hosting at least one Bills game annually.  And it has made the powers-that-be hungry for more.

Councillor Doug Ford, the brother of Toronto mayor Rob Ford (wait, I thought their last name was McKenzie), tells Brad Gagnon of TheScore.com that Canada’s mega-city intends to try to lure an NFL team after the league puts a team back in Los Angeles.

“They have to take care of the problem in Los Angeles first,” Ford said.  “Two teams are kind of in play here:  Jacksonville’s number one; New Orleans is the other.  So there’s two teams.  Once they take care of Los Angeles, we’re going to fly over to New York, set up a meeting with [NFL commissioner Roger] Goodell and give him our pitch.”

As Gagnon points out, Goodell has said that Toronto would need a better venue than Rogers Centre.  “Their current stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, has a relatively small capacity by NFL standards,” Goodell said at his pre-Super Bowl press conference in February.  “And so I think there’s some issues that have to be addressed up there, but it’s a great market.”  But Doug McKenzie Ford has explained that a new waterfront stadium could be built.

Apart from the borderline ridiculous notion that the Saints would be in play to relocate (then again, things were tenuous at best for the franchise’s future in New Orleans before Katrina), the fact that the Bills aren’t on the short list is surprising.

“If we had our own team,” Ford said, “we’d treat it like it’s our own and build up a fan base.”

Of course, this implies that a full and complete move by the Bills, instead of a shared arrangement with Buffalo, would be welcomed.  It’s safe to say, however, that the folks in Toronto don’t want to be perceived as politicking to pilfer the Bills from Buffalo.  That said, the ultimate unspoken goal could be to pressure the Bills to protect their regionalized turf by moving to Toronto in order to keep another NFL team from moving in next door.


http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/05/05/toronto-eyeballs-two-teams-for-possible-relocation/

[Shwaz]

Anyone who thinks that Jacksonville and New Orleans are the two relocation candidates, while giving no thought to the Raiders, Chargers, Vikings, and Bills, is not to be taken seriously.  I hope this Ford fellow understands that the NFL isn't putting a team in a 50,000-seat tin can.

Then also, owners have to be willing to sell or have other issues ( such as stadium issues, etc etc.) and wouldnt Toronto be considered a small market like buffalo is?

Toronto is actually a pretty decent market, size wise. They've had trouble though selling tickets to the 2 Bills games a year they've been hosting.

[Coolyfett]

People keep mentioning Jacksonville as a team to steal?? lol wishful thinking

[duvaldude08]

One thing about it, we may talk smack our about team, but at the end of the day we love them and just want them to do well. No one is "stealing" nothing away from Duval.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

People keep mentioning Jacksonville as a team to steal?? lol wishful thinking

Yep.  And before Mike Smith (ex-Jags coord) got Matt Ryan and transformed him into 'Matty Ice' the Falcons were embroiled in a Mike Vick Dogfighting Scandal, Bobby Petrino Quitting (also an ex-jags coord. - I guess you get our good with our bad) the team in Atlanta wasn't looking too fantastic either.

[Reeves Army]

Well nobody's stealing anything if the lockout occurs.

As long as people continue to show after the recovery Jacksonville experienced last year, they should be safe. Despite the hard-on Tony Kornheiser seems to have for the Jags, I think the Chargers, Raiders and Rams are FAR more vulnerable than the Jags. And if anybody goes to Toronto, it will be the Bills.

[copperfiend]

The Rams seem to be in good footing with their new owners. The team I would add would be Minnesota.

[Reeves Army]

I totally forgot about them. Take that for what it's worth.

[duvaldude08]

I wonder hows Tampa's ticket sales look after their year of the "Great Blackout". We probably wont hear mcuh about it because they are not Jacksonville.

[David]

The zombie thread continues...

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d820472c7/article/aeg-has-talked-with-more-than-five-teams-about-relocation?module=HP_headlines

AEG officials met with the Vikings last month in Minneapolis, while in town for business on the Timberwolves' Target Center, which the group also manages. The Vikings are working on a project to build a stadium in suburban Minneapolis, and the AEG source indicated the meeting centered on the club planning an L.A. Live-like complex around the new facility.

But with the Vikings' lease set to expire at the end of the 2011 season, and the caved-in roof currently under repair at the Metrodome, eyebrows were raised when the two sides were spotted together at a downtown Minneapolis hotel. That said, the NFL would badly like to keep the Vikings in the Twin Cities, a market with a disproportionate number of wealth and corporate headquarters for its middling size.

The Jaguars have long been viewed as a favorite to flee, since Jacksonville hasn't grown in the way the NFL once envisioned, but their lease -- which runs through 2030 -- will be difficult to get out of. The Rams' lease has an out in 2015, if the Edward Jones Dome isn't replaced or brought up to a state-of-the-art level. The idea of the Chargers and Raiders moving has validity, but the state of California might not be as cooperative if it's simply moving a business rather than adding one. The Raiders came out in response to being mentioned among the teams that have talked with AEG, with CEO Amy Trask saying the "team is not for sale."

[duvaldude08]

Yes and as we can see, LA is not having the best of luck luring a team. There's no "slam dunk" yet. I wonder when they are just going to give up? The only teams that will possiably move are the ones with stadium issues. Nobody else is selling their team. All the teams they approached made it clear, " we are not for sale", including WW.

[Jason]

IMO, nothing will happen until the NFL can expand evenly across all of the divisions and adding another 8 teams will not likely happen in the next ten years.

[blizz01]

Don't know what else tha man can do or say....I wish that they'd just remove the comment sections for the readers @ the TU website, however - how have we been so much more fortunate here?

Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver repeats that he has no interest in moving team to L.A.

Los Angeles officials can apparently cross Jacksonville off the list of teams that might consider moving there as long as Wayne Weaver owns the Jaguars.
“I have no interest [in Los Angeles],” Weaver said Tuesday as he repeated a statement he made in the past.
A Los Angeles official listed Jacksonville last week as one of five teams it has talked to, but Weaver noted that Sports Business Daily didn’t even mention Jacksonville when it reported on teams interested in Los Angeles on Monday.
“That’s the real story,” Weaver said.
Weaver added, “I have been consistent in saying I am committed to Jacksonville and have no interest [in moving],” he said.
The Jaguars have often been mentioned in the past as a relocation candidate because of their problems selling tickets.
They avoided TV blackouts last season with the help of the Team Teal initiative, but sales have slowed this year, apparently because of the lockout.
“We have to work hard and be more creative because we’re in a small market in a difficult economy with high unemployment rates and a housing crisis that is more difficult than in other cities,” Weaver said.
The Jaguars added many incentives, including a booklet with $3,000 in goods and services that expires June 30 and the Jaguars advantage reward program.
“Macky [Weaver, the senior vice president, sales and marketing] and his staff have done a great job,” Wayne Weaver said.
vito.stellino@jacksonville.com,

http://jacksonville.com/sports/football/jaguars/2011-06-14/story/jaguars-owner-wayne-weaver-repeats-he-has-no-interest