NFL’s Mexican foray more peddling than expansion
NFL’s Mexican foray more peddling than expansion
So what does Mexico City have that Toronto does not?
Well, it has a population of 18.1 million, for one thing. At last count, it was home to 161 museums and 344 hospitals. There are World Cups and Olympics in its sporting resume.
Plus, tonight it has the first regular season NFL game played outside the United States. Eat your heart out T.O. (and, no we’re not talking Terrell Owens here).
Paul Godfrey, the former Metro chairman and current president of the Blue Jays is heading up a “fact finding” delegation at tonight’s game, expected to attract up to 100,000 spectators at Azteca Stadium. He, along with Larry Tanenbaum of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, among others, are flying south this morning to fly the maple leaf in hopes we might some day play host to such a game. Maybe even land our own franchise.
NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue last winter alluded to future foreign expansion when he said: “I think it could be very likely that the next franchises in the NFL beyond 32 are outside the United States.” Mexico? Canada? Japan? London, England?
“I really hate to miss the final game of the (Jays) season,” Godfrey said yesterday, “but going to the game in Mexico is a matter with some really important long-term implications.”
You can’t win, if you don’t play, right? And, when it comes to promoting Toronto as an NFL city, Godfrey is a long-time player.
Azteca has been the site of NFL exhibition games in the past and boasts the largest-ever turnout for a game of gridiron ? 112,376 in 1994 (but the grand old stadium notably has few luxury boxes of the sort the NFL covets). Torontonians have shelled out big-time for pre-season games, too, but the numbers have been restricted by the Rogers Centre’s seating capacity, which would have to be jacked up if the NFL were even to consider housing a team there.
The NFL has said it estimates there are 20 million NFL fans in Mexico (roughly one in five citizens) and that 250,00 play football, but those numbers are more a reflection of the league’s pervasiveness via television and merchandise sales than the roots of the sport in a soccer-first culture. Playing the game, or attending games, is prohibitively expensive in a nation where the minimum wage is $4 (U.S.) a day.
What the NFL is really up to with this game is an effort to market itself to the huge financially-empowered Hispanic population in the U.S. itself, including 25 million who have connections back to Mexico. The league bought 1 million newspaper inserts in Spanish-language U.S. newspapers, for example, and this weekend is running public service announcements with English subtitles, featuring tight end Tony Gonzalez of the Chiefs and hall of famer Anthony Munoz.
Certainly, Mexico is animated today. Niners safety Tony Parrish, who has helped promote the game, told reporters: “They don’t just want a game. They want a team.'’
Yet, Geraldine Gonzalez of the NFL’s own Mexican office said that won’t be happening any time soon.
“A franchise in Mexico, it’s not a priority for the short or medium term,” she told Associated Press. “It’s not so viable.”
What Toronto has that Mexico City does not is a football tradition, existing NHL, NBA and MLB franchises, an under-control, expandable stadium, a well-heeled population and the acquisitive interests of MLSE, Rogers Communications and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, which might be willing and able to pony up the required billion or so U.S. dollars.
All of which amounts to nothing without an NFL motivated to expand its elephant’s footprint north of the border, rather than south, or across the Atlantic or Pacific.
Talk is cheap.
Tonight, Mexico has the bullfight. We’ve got the bull.
Source: thestar.com
