NFL in Toronto a slight to more deserving Buffalo fans
By Ben Forrest Friday April 25, 2008
There is little reason to listen to sports talk radio in Buffalo, New York, except on weekdays from 12 to 3 p.m., when a local station yields boring chatter about local matters to the syndicated ramblings of Jim Rome.
My custom has been to listen to Rome as often as I can, if only for a segment or two – sometimes because 10 minutes of abrasive wit and audience-bashing is all I can handle, and other times because Rome's abrasive wit and audience-bashing can be better than Christmas.
Rome is not often pre-empted, but an exception was made last week, when the can't-miss event of the year occurred: the local football team, the Bills, made public its 2008-2009 schedule.
Perhaps this would be an all-important event elsewhere in football-mad America, but it was ever more relevant this year in Western New York. The area has suffered lately, and there is fear the Bills will soon move away to Toronto.
One regular season game will be surrendered to Hogtown already this year, which is in itself a kick in the teeth of the Buffalo faithful. The salient question on the tongue of most fans was, "Which one?"
When the answer was made public, Rome was shunted aside and an announcement was made: the Bills will play the Miami Dolphins, a long-time rival, in Toronto's Roger's Centre on Dec. 7. If history were not an issue, the announcement would represent a small victory for Bills fans. Miami was the worst team in the league last year, posting just one victory. There is little hope they will be better this year, and the Dec. 7 game will likely be a clunker.
When "real" football arrives north of the border, it will be a spectacle almost unworthy of viewership, and more than 100,000 would-be spectators are already clamouring for tickets. Score one, at long last, for Buffalo.
But history is indeed a factor, for the Bills-Dolphins rivalry is among the most bitter in the NFL. The two battled regularly for the division and conference titles during the early '90s, and more recent games, though irrelevant to casual fans, remain a significant event in some circles.
It is true that the Bills have struggled to fill seats for these games in recent years, requiring the assistance of the corporate world to step in and buy enough tickets to avoid a television blackout last season. Yet true fans – the type who will listen to local sports radio at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday – have not swayed.
One of the hosts pre-empting Rome was livid at the thought his team would play Miami north of the border. Another man, calling in, was calmer but still demoralized: Dolphins games at Buffalo's Ralph Wilson stadium were among the few he gets fired up about. Bills officials claim they had no say over where the lone Canadian game on the schedule would be played – that the league office made the decision – but there is an unfortunate symbolism inherent to this choice.
Moving certain Bills home games – and perhaps the entire team – to Toronto is a strategy that considers only the present and future, with an utter disregard for the past. Exporting what promises to be the worst game on the schedule next season could be seen as a gift to long-suffering Buffalo fans.
Yet as any prudent decision-maker knows, important choices made without regard for history are often exceedingly stupid. This was certainly one of those.
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