TORONTO (AP) -Corey MacDonald was on the phone searching for tickets and making plans to travel to Toronto the minute the NFL schedule was announced last spring.
As a lifelong Dolphins fan growing up in Nova Scotia, there was no way MacDonald was going to pass up an opportunity to be there on Sunday when Miami faces the Buffalo Bills in the first NFL regular-season game to be played in Canada.
“This is my team and my country. You can’t beat it, yes sir,” MacDonald, 32, said Saturday, as he took a walk around Toronto’s downtown Rogers Centre, where the game will be played. “It’s amazing.”
Bills fan Michael Dooley had a far different perspective. Traveling from Rochester, N.Y., Dooley understood that Buffalo playing a “home” game in Toronto was another reminder of the small-market franchise’s still vulnerable future in western New York.
“To me, it’s kind of a matter of life, an opportunity for the Bills organization to make more money,” Dooley said. “I’m not unhappy about it, but I’m not happy about it either.”
ere’s plenty more at stake than wins and losses this weekend, even for a meeting between two longtime AFC East rivals who still have hopes of making a late-season playoff run. The resurgent Dolphins (7-5) have won five of their past six games, while the slumping Bills (6-6) remain on the fringes of the hunt after losing five of six.
Adding to the curiosity is how a city known for its hockey-first mentality is being transformed into an NFL town with a unique collection of football fans converging from far and near as Buffalo prepares to play the first of five annual regular-season games in Canada’s largest city and financial capital.
The roof of the Rogers Centre and the neighboring CN Tower have been lit up at night in Bills’ red and blue. And numerous curious fans – including Bills chief operating officer Russ Brandon – have sneaked peaks inside the stadium through the windows of a hotel restaurant overlooking the stadium field.
“This is going to be exciting,” Brandon said shortly after he checked into the hotel and saw the outlines of the Bills logo sketched in at the 50-yard line.
For the Bills, who become the NFL’s first team to play annual regular-season games outside the United States, they will receive $78 million to effectively lease the eight games, including three preseason, to Toronto organizers.
xposure and marketing deals that come with planting a foothold in North America’s fifth-largest market that’s a two-hour drive from Buffalo.
There’s plenty on the line, too, from Toronto’s perspective. Led by the communications giant, Rogers Communications, this series is an opportunity to showcase the city and prove it belongs on the NFL map.
“Toronto is an NFL town. It qualifies on every level,” said Rogers vice chairman Phil Lind, who played a key role in negotiating the deal with the Bills. “It’s just the most exciting thing that’s happened in Toronto in years and years and years, and it’s a dream come true.”
That doesn’t mean everything has gone to plan.
Rogers overestimated how much fans were willing to pay with an average ticket price of just under $200. Aside from giving away thousands of tickets for Buffalo’s preseason game against Pittsburgh in August, the game against Miami didn’t sell out until this week.
Bills fans are unhappy with the NFL for taking away a home game at Orchard Park against a popular rival and also providing the warm-weather Dolphins a slight advantage by having them play indoors in December.
The biggest blow was the one no one could foresee after Ted Rogers died this week. Rogers, who will be honored during a pre-game tribute, was Rogers Communications’ founder and the financial driving force behind the series.
on all our minds during the whole game,” Lind said. “He loved Toronto. He loved Canada. He always wanted Canada to feel like it never played second fiddle to anyone. … The NFL is a first-class league. And that’s what he wanted for Toronto.”
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