Moving out of Rogers Centre

[paulwoods13]

This is the strongest statement I've read/heard to date that the Argos do not expect to be in RC much longer. It comes from Chris Rudge about three-quarters of the way through the podcast. Let the spec begin about where they will move, who will pay for whatever building (or renos) will be needed to house them, and so on. I have said many times that I'd be surprised if govt is willing to chip in money towards another stadium in Toronto, given the recent and upcoming public investment in BMO and Ivor Wynne, but perhaps I'm wrong. If not, is a private investor willing to bankroll a purpose-built football stadium? Can a deal be done with MLSE to redo BMO? Is some type of retrofit of Lamport (my personal choice, at least as far as location and ambience goes) possible? Is York or Downsview inevitable, and if so, what becomes of fans in the outer reaches of the GTA who would lose the option of one-stop public transit? Lots of questions to keep us all speculating for months/years to come.


http://iphone.tsn.ca/tsnpodcasts/Ins...20Nov%2029.mp3

[ArgoGabe22]

First reported on Riderfans lol. Already on 4 pages!

http://www.riderfans.com/forum/showt...-Rogers-Centre

[Deerkeeper]

That link does not work for me, so I don't know what he said but I do know that last year, Mark Cohon said that the Argo stadium situation would be addressed after the 2012 Grey Cup. He didn't elaborate any further, but I kind of got the impression from that statement that something might be in the works. During the fan townhall at the Royal York on Saturday he stated that the trend across North America is to go to smaller, more intimate stadiums. He wasn't talking about Toronto in particular rather the CFL as a whole, but I just wonder if he knows more than he is letting on.

[paulwoods13]

That link does not work for me

Sorry, I can't make it work, either. It seems to work if you click on the link in the first post in the Riderfans thread that argogabe22 linked to.

[Mulder]

Sorry, I can't make it work, either. It seems to work if you click on the link in the first post in the Riderfans thread that argogabe22 linked to.

Fixed the link for you!

[Mulder]

When the stadium issue came up on mike hogan's show. Both of them laughed, seemed to me as if it was the kind of laugh that they both know whats going on behind the scenes

THe stadium talk starts at 27:30

[Will]

[Mulder]

Don't let T-Bone see my conspiracy about the TFC ticket price drop.

[matthew]

If grass is the issue or the raison d'etre for this. That means no more Grey Cups in toronto either. Where do you play it?

[stuntdog]

I expect they would still be able to host occasional football games like Grey Cups & Bills in TO

[paulwoods13]

If the RC really does go to grass, I imagine they will take it out after the baseball season ends. Trying to grow grass in the winter indoors would be nuts. The bigger question would be whether by going to grass, they would lock the baseball seat configuration into place year-round. I doubt they would -- they will probably (for reasons known only to Rogers) still want to play host to a Bills game every November or December so I imagine when baseball is done they will move the seats back to the football config and bring back the artificial turf.

To me a more interesting short-term question is, what if (while we are still tenants at the RC) the Blue Jays get into the postseason and have home games that would conflict with an Argo home game? We have been led to believe it takes 48 hours to convert from baseball to football, and vice versa (altho that seems ridiculous and presumably involves no one working overtime). The Argos had about four home games in October this season to make up for all the road games during the baseball season. Imagine the catastrophe if they are scheduled at home next October and the Jays somehow end up in the playoffs at the same time.

[Argoscflguy]

Why not consider birchmount stadium at birchmount/ Kingston rd, it would almost be the same type of atmosphere as ivorywynn, residential real close, 10 mins from downtown, just build around it I realy think that would be a great location!!

[Will]

i) It's Ivor, not Ivory. You've called it Ivory Wynn thousands of times before.
ii) There's a high school literally adjacent to the field.
iii) Nothing around there
iv) Public transit? The TTC has taken it's turn to the NE towards Kennedy well before this location.

[ArgoRavi]

Oh, the irony. The Argos were the ones responsible for SkyDome being built in the first place - Dave Perkins in the Star had a great column about that last week - and yet will soon be evicted from that stadium. Oh well, while Rogers has no love for the Argos, they are probably doing them a huge favour by giving them the kick in the butt that they need to find a more suitable stadium soon.

[Invader]

Bob McCown said last week the MLS could veto the Argos playing at BMO as they want to keep it soccer only. Brunt said the Bills could play one game there but not 9 Argo games. Presumably the Grey Cups could still be played at RC? Normally in indoor stadiums the grass is on large palletes which can transported in and out.

I'd like to see the Argos play at a new stadium, but with 34,000 seats (like Wpg's new stadium) which is a perfect size for the CFL. Teams will never make money with only 25,000 seats.

Not sure where to build the new stadium but getting public funding wasn't made easier with the Star's "CFL financing scandal" article or McCown's incoherant ramblings on the subject yesterday, which intimated government funding of GC events resulted in huge profits for Mr. Braley. The facts are the GC made as much money or more last year with no federal investment. The media is never happy, now the CFL is making too much money!

[Will]

Oh, the irony. The Argos were the ones responsible for SkyDome being built in the first place - Dave Perkins in the Star had a great column about that last week - and yet will soon be evicted from that stadium. Oh well, while Rogers has no love for the Argos, they are probably doing them a huge favour by giving them the kick in the butt that they need to find a more suitable stadium soon.

A domed stadium was always in the cards--Exhibition Stadium was only seen as a temporary solution for the Blue Jays, but yes the rainstorm in 1982 was the major impetus for the construction of SkyDome, but as many have pointed out Mr. Ornest made a decision in 1989 and that decision in the long-term will come back to haunt the Toronto Argonaut Football Club.

[294life]

First reported on Riderfans lol. Already on 4 pages!

http://www.riderfans.com/forum/showt...-Rogers-Centre

that's a slow day for them. wonder how far the rider stadium thread has reached? i think it was 85 pages last i checked.

[Will]

that's a slow day for them. wonder how far the rider stadium thread has reached? i think it was 85 pages last i checked.

They are too busy looking for hotel rooms

[Invader]

that's a slow day for them. wonder how far the rider stadium thread has reached? i think it was 85 pages last i checked.

Actually, one stadium thread on Riders forum has:

Riders stadium: 871 pages, 7,400 replies and 908,000 views.

Not to be out-done, on the Ticats forum, their stadium thread is:

Ticats stadium: 798 pages, 11,968 replies and 674,000 views.

I think it perhaps helps not having an NHL team in your city...

[OldTimeRiders]

Well, the Ticats thing has been a hot issue for a few years now, right, with tons of fits and starts, different locations, threats of team movement and so forth. Personally, living here now, the West Harbour area looks like it could use a nice stadium, but they decided to tear down and rebuild (6 blocks from my house!!). I will miss the old Ivor Wynne in a way. It was a great place to watch a game, intimate (if a tad dangerous).

Meanwhile, I would love to see the Argos out of the Rogers Centre. It's just a wrong venue and always has been. I was there at the 1989 Grey Cup, and that was fine, and so was the 2012 Grey Cup, but outside that, it's a terrible place to watch a football game. It's too sterile and in the past the security staff has been hostile to overly enthusiastic fans.

I like Lamport's location, but I am not sure they have quite enough space on that block to actually build a 30K seat stadium. York is currently too far out, but once they get the subway out there, it's a reasonable location, with enough space to build a much better stadium than they are using now. The suggestion of Birchmount is nice, but it's not that easily accessible by transit (we had no car and had to bus out there for OVFL games). I don't really see that changing.

The more I think about it, the more York seems to be a good location - they need a new field and have space, you folks need an alternate stadium, and something could be built there that could be good for both parties without upsetting Toronto FC and MLSE. There is also actually room for parking for the suburban commuters who come to games. They do exist - I saw a whole whack of them on the GO train last Sunday. Certainly we would come to games more often from Hamilton if we could get there without going downtown, had a place to dump the car and had a stadium that made the most of the Argos fanbase.