Posted Feb 2, 2017, 4:44 PM
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I ask because I Gatineau
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Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Aylmer (by way of GTA)
Posts: 1,213
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Quote:
NFL took cross-Canada scouting trip in 2016, could play future games in Toronto, Edmonton or elsewhere
John Kryk, Postmedia Network | February 1, 2017 7:49 PM ET
HOUSTON — The NFL scouted four Canadian stadiums in 2016 as candidate sites for possible future regular-season games, Postmedia has learned.
Mark Waller, the NFL’s executive vice-president of international, said in an interview on Wednesday that league reps last year visited Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, Toronto’s Rogers Centre, Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium and Vancouver’s B.C. Place Stadium. The latter two play host to CFL games.
In the interview, Waller talked up Canada as a future host of a regular-season “international” game, or games.
He added, however, that a “dark cloud” hangs over Canada regarding the CRTC’s decision to allow U.S. commercials to be shown during Sunday’s Super Bowl LI. More on that in a moment.
Following commissioner Roger Goodell’s annual pre-Super Bowl news conference, Waller told Postmedia that he and his team visited the four Canadian stadiums in person for two main reasons: first, to see if team locker rooms were sufficient, and secondly, to see if those venues meet NFL technological standards.
The NFL has not yet reached a conclusion on a Canadian venue, Waller said, nor does it disclose findings of such information missions.
The NFL is contracted to play at least three games annually in the United Kingdom through 2020. Four games will be played in England in 2017.
Goodell announced Wednesday a game this fall will be played in Mexico City for the second straight year.
In October 2015, Waller had said Canada is among the top candidate countries the league wants to expand to, after the U.K. and Mexico and probably Germany.
“We also visited a number of German cities (in 2016), just so you have that as context,” Waller said on Wednesday. “And we do that all the time. We’ve looked at stadiums in Brazil, I’ve looked at stadiums in Australia and China. That’s our job.”
But Waller is now stopping short of suggesting Germany remains ahead of Canada in the queue.
“I wouldn’t like to think of it as a pecking order, to be honest,” he said. “It’s very much looking at what teams we have available to play, and how many games we are already committed to.
“We have a great fan base up there in Canada. It’s a great market for us. I would love to be back there, and obviously from a logistical standpoint, a scheduling standpoint, a broadcast standpoint, that’s much easier for us than a game in Germany, and certainly a game in China. So I would have Canada high on the list.”
While it’s not easy for the league to free up enough willing teams to play in international games, Toronto and Montreal are only a short plane ride from many NFL teams situated in the U.S. Northeast.
In fact, for some NFL teams, Toronto and Montreal are a shorter flight away than one or more division rivals, just as Vancouver is much closer to Seattle than any of the Seahawks’ three NFC West foes.
“We’re pleased with the development of taking regular-games internationally,” Waller said. “But we want to go to more countries, and we want to go back to Canada. We’re very proud of the fact we have such a great fan base there.”
The NFL head office has one big issue with North America’s largest country by land mass, however.
“I think the only dark cloud for us at the moment is the CRTC ruling on the Super Bowl broadcast,” Waller said. “That impacts us very negatively.”
Bell Media owns English-language NFL telecast rights in Canada, and airs all playoff games — plus Sunday and Monday regular-season games — on its CTV or TSN family of channels.
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http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/nfl/...e-games-in-toronto-edmonton-or-elsewhere
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