Argo Sale

[QBall]

5. anticipated that Argos will be at BMO for 2015

Wow that soon? Will we have to wear hard hats to the games?

[Invader]

After reading the report, this seems like a good deal for the Argos. They'll get virtually a new stadium, with covered seating and a natural grass field...with no capital outlay by the team. The Argos only obligation is to sign a longterm lease at BMO. As long as the lease terms are reasonable...where do we sign?

The only stickler is the $10 million contribution from the federal government but with an election coming soon, that shouldn't be a stumbling block.

The Argos lease at BMO is full assignable and transferable to the new owner, without prejudice by MLSE. This agreement will give the Argos some stability and increases their franchise value. I'll predict the Argos will sellout every game at BMO, especially with all 25,000 seats being on the sidelines.

I'd be surprised if MLSE didn't already have an agreement in principle to purchase the Argos before this report was released?

[Argocister]

....2015......

Wow that soon? Will we have to wear hard hats to the games?

Naw, on away games we come for pre game construction then tailgate watching the game on the video board .... video board goes up first.

[paulwoods13]

Latest from Leiweke here:

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/16...rade-bmo-field

This seems to lend credence to the idea that Braley and MLSE will be in some kind of partnership on the Argos, not an outright sale of the team to MLSE.

[Invader]

Latest from Leiweke here:

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/03/16...rade-bmo-field

This seems to lend credence to the idea that Braley and MLSE will be in some kind of partnership on the Argos, not an outright sale of the team to MLSE.

I guess it couldn't be any clearer right from the horses' mouth:

Leiweke: "As to us buying them, on a stand-alone basis, we have no interest in the Argos."

I hope Leiweke isn't doing the scheduling:

“We think we know how to work the schedule out,” Leiweke said. “We have eight Argos games a year. We’ll figure this out.”

[rdavies]

I guess it couldn't be any clearer right from the horses' mouth:

Leiweke:"As to us buying them, on a stand-alone basis, we have no interest in the Argos."

He has said that all along to appease the soccer people, just after that he said "But because of the uniqueness of what we have to go through to get the stadium, we are certainly intertwined. The definition of intertwined is forthcoming" So we can read into that what we will.

Now, Larsson is a soccer guy and some of the comments from him and Lieweke make the Argos look like the homeless, red headed stepchild. It's time to pay a few visits to some sites to correct some of the negativity. Hope others here do the same.

[Treblecharger1]

I agree with Tim, He is basically saying if the Argos move to BMO we are tempted to buy them as it changes the dynamics of us owning them. He is basically admitting that if the Argos move to BMO they are interested in owning them. If the Argos do not move to BMO they are not going to own them.

[ArgoRavi]

I agree with Tim, He is basically saying if the Argos move to BMO we are tempted to buy them as it changes the dynamics of us owning them. He is basically admitting that if the Argos move to BMO they are interested in owning them. If the Argos do not move to BMO they are not going to own them.

That is the way I take his quote as well. At a minimum, it sounds like MLSE will have a stake of some kind in the Argos if they don't own the entire thing.

[Neely2005]

I guess it couldn't be any clearer right from the horses' mouth:

Leiweke: "As to us buying them, on a stand-alone basis, we have no interest in the Argos."

I hope Leiweke isn't doing the scheduling:

“We think we know how to work the schedule out,” Leiweke said. “We have eight Argos games a year. We’ll figure this out.”

Yeah but then he kind of contradicts himself later in the article:

The soon-to-be-homeless Argos are also without a training facility, meaning TFC’s Kia Training Ground at Downsview might soon have a neighbour.
“In a perfect world there’s a football field next to the Kia Training Ground,” Leiweke said. “We’ll work with Downsview to see if we can build a new facility as part of the campus.”

Which means there’s a chance, big or small, MLSE adds the Argos to their collection of teams.
“There’s always a chance,” he said. “Our first focus is TFC. Then BMO Field. We’ll see where this goes with the Argos.”

This part talks a little more about the turf and scheduling:

Plans are for the new BMO field to seat 30,000 for soccer and 25,000 for football, with the ability to expand by an additional 10,000 seats for big events.
“When you walk into the building for a TFC game, you won’t know the Argos play there,” Leiweke said. “We’re not painting logos, so there won’t be a centre logo. The CFL logos in the end zones will be underneath the stands so you won’t see them. We’re going to work at making sure the lines go away.”
He said it was an additional $30-million commitment to make moveable stands a reality.
“We live in a different age and world now where the creativity and technology we can use to move stands in and out, to use paint that goes away, to ultimately use a turf system that gives both sides a green grass. We’re going to do all we can to protect the purity of the sport.”
Leiweke’s always speaking in soccer terms. He also quashed fears of BMO Field going back to artificial turf here Saturday, saying they’ll use an expensive hybrid surface utilized by big clubs around the world.
“We think we know how to work the schedule out,” Leiweke said. “We have eight Argos games a year. We’ll figure this out.”
He added that an MLS game will never be played the day after a CFL game, but the reverse is possible.

[Ron]

Think of it this way. The Argos will be going to BMO for the 2016 season at the earliest. There's no reason for MLSE to own the team for it's last 2 seasons at Rogers. Once the team goes to BMO and all the synergies come into play ... then they'll want to own them.

[rdavies]

Think of it this way. The Argos will be going to BMO for the 2016 season at the earliest.

FINAL DRAFT FOR COUNCIL CONSIDERATION:
March 10, 2014
Proposal for Expansion of Stadium at Exhibition Place

Page 9

"The parties acknowledge their mutual intention that the Toronto Argonauts will commence the holding of their CFL games in the 2015 season".

...

The first phase of construction, which will include seat expansion, concourse work and the creation of suites and club seats, will end next May (2015). The second phase (roof) will run from Sept. 1, 2015 to May of 2016 (will not affect TFC nor should it Argos)

[paulwoods13]

I believe 2015 is possible, for at least a portion of the schedule.

I am expecting someone to invent and market virtual lines (similar to what TV uses now for first-down markers) that can be projected on the field rather than painted. I think this will happen in the next few years, and what better place to try it first than in our new home?

[rdavies]

I had posted to another site that there really was no reason to have unsightly ads on the field and that they could be keyed in like the ten yard marker. Someone who is normally reliable said that was the plan, whether true or not I don't know but there is no reason to have ads on the field (aside from local sponsors) who could be accommodated by sideline signage.

Lieweke states “We’re not painting logos, so there won’t be a centre logo. The CFL logos in the end zones will be underneath the stands so you won’t see them. We’re going to work at making sure the lines go away.”

There is LED signage on the sideline and if they can key the ads in on the field it's all covered and sponsors should be happy. I'm actually surprised why TSN is behind with this kind of thing. Not sure why there aren't cameras on the goalposts or more on field special effects like Fox does. Sometimes I think all the effects get a little cartoony but TSN definitely could do more with their broadcasts.

In the meantime, there's this;

Field of Screens
Monte Burke Forbes.com November 27, 2006

In a few years NFL gridirons will become their own Jumbotrons. "Turf TV" might put the plasma in the den to shame.

Imagine this: you pull in your driveway after a long day at the office, step out of your car, and suddenly your lawn, yes, your lawn, lights up with a "Welcome Home, Honey!" Or how about this: The military has a runway deep in enemy territory that it wants to keep from getting blown up, so it changes the color of the landing turf to brown to blend in with the surrounding desert. When a plane comes in for a landing, two strips of lights appear. After the plane has landed, with a push of a button the strip reverts to camouflage mode.

Sounds cool, right? This technology will be available soon, making its grand entrance as a National Football League field. Mark Nicholls, the founder and chief executive of Sportexe, the number two maker of artificial turf in the NFL, has patented the process of "tufting" fiber optics with blades of plastic grass. "We will be able to turn the football field into a giant Jumbotron," says Nicholls.

A field can display a huge American flag during the national anthem. At halftime a sponsor such as Budweiser could cover the field with its logo. During the game, that virtual first-down marker you see on your TV could now be on the field itself before the ball is snapped. And because sensors beneath the fibers can sense when any given blade's light is obscured, referees can track the footsteps of a player to determine if he was in-bounds or not. Stadium owners would welcome the technology as well, as it would help them get more use out of the field: A few mouse clicks is all it takes to change the field from a gridiron to a soccer pitch. Compare that to the 2.5-hour, $650 process of cleaning and repainting lines on today's artificial fields.

Sportexe's interactive field is merely the latest salvo in the escalating artificial turf wars. AstroTurf, that pale green, postmodern creation of the 1960s, loathed by players and TV-viewers alike, is gone from NFL stadiums. It's been replaced by what's known as "in-fill" turf systems, which cover a football field with 50 million to 70 million 2.5-inch-tall blades of "grass" made from polyethylene, cushioned by a mixture of rubber pellets and silica that acts as the dirt. The in-fill fields look and feel more like natural grass; one company even supplies a spray that smells like freshly mowed grass.

The new fields claim to be softer and more forgiving than AstroTurf, which was a nylon rug laid over a shock-absorbing pad and concrete. The players like them better, too. But James Bradley, the Pittsburgh Steelers' chief physician, says not enough research has been done on the new fields to validate a safety advantage. "I'd still prefer to see every game played on grass," he says.

The in-fill system was patented in 1981 by a former professional golfer named Frederick Haas to make truer hitting surfaces in tee boxes. Its potential for sports fields was realized early on, but AstroTurf so dominated the artificial turf market that it wasn't until 2002 that the first in-fill field was installed in the NFL, at Seattle's Seahawks Stadium (now called Qwest Field). All 12 of the 31 NFL stadiums with artificial turf now use in-fill systems. In-fill systems are also found at baseball stadiums and town parks, and were recently approved by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association for World Cup soccer qualifying matches.

FieldTurf in Montreal (revenue: $235 million), run by a former Canadian Football League quarterback, is the market leader with eight stadiums, including Ford Field in Detroit, host of last year's Super Bowl, the first ever played on an in-fill surface. FieldTurf says it has built 1,900 sports fields and 150 fields in town parks. The town of Redding, Calif. recently built four in-fill fields. Sportexe, in Fonthill, Ont. (revenue: $50 million), is the distant number two, with 300 fields, 2 of them for the NFL.

But Sportexe, 40% owned by former Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell, believes the future of turf is interactive. Here's how its "turf TV" works: A computer sends an image to the field, where it is distributed among 1,750 interconnected square trays, 7.5 feet on a side, that host their own light processing circuitry. Thousands of blades of polyethylene grass, blended with optical fibers, reflect light upward from the trays. It's like a computer monitor that you can walk on. A football field would have 128 million pixels, which works out to 1,280 per square foot. In pixels per square foot it can't hold a candle to your television set; in total pixels it's well ahead.

Unlike your flat screen at home, this display is equipped to withstand the impact of a 380-pound lineman. The blades are conducting light, not electricity, so athletes can't be electrocuted on rainy days, even if they're losing badly.

At $1.5 million, the purchase price of an interactive field will be three times that of an unilluminated in-fill field and eight times that of a natural grass field. But Sportexe's Nicholls points out that the ten-year maintenance bill on grass can approach $1 million, 20 times the cost of maintaining an in-fill field. A stadium owner may be able to pay the mortgage on the interactive grass with ad revenue or host more events if the field lines can be changed so easily and rapidly.

Nicholls says the lit-up fields are still two years away from commercialization. The technology, though, is already being employed, most notably on artificial Christmas trees.

"The technology isn't really that amazing," he says. "It's just that no one's done it on a field yet."

[LLB997]

I don't believe TL, Ithink MLSE are interested, just not at Braleys asking price.

[Ron]

TY. Corrected on the 2016 part. That still leaves 2014 that MLSE will not want a part of. 2014 would be the "stand alone" part he mentions.

[jerrym]

I glad to hear that the Argos wandering of what seems like 40 years in the desert of Roger's Centre may soon be over. I was beginning to think I would end up like Moses, who died before his people made it to the Promised Land.

[rdavies]

Hang in there Mo, should be better times ahead. Even the worst case scenario can't be worse than what they were facing.

[doubleblue]

Tim either can't count or he knows something we don't. He says the Argos have 8 home games. Could be a possible 12 games counting 1 exhibition, 9 scheduled and maybe 2 playoff games. Does 8 games mean, an exhibition game at Varsity and 1 Touchdown Atlantic every year?

[paulwoods13]

Tim either can't count or he knows something we don't. He says the Argos have 8 home games. Could be a possible 12 games counting 1 exhibition, 9 scheduled and maybe 2 playoff games. Does 8 games mean, an exhibition game at Varsity and 1 Touchdown Atlantic every year?

He's a bit off, yes, but for the record there can never be two home playoff games in a year under the current playoff format. One playoff game and one Grey Cup, yes, but not two PO games.

[argonaut11xx]

So..the Argo's are leaving Rogers-Dome, which was built in part so the mighty Argonauts could escape the mistake by the lake....so to get everything in my head straight......

The Argo's left the CNE site, to escape to a brand new stadium ..to escape the elements that were obvious compatriots in the stadium built on the exhibition grounds along side lake ontario...

The fact a Paul Godfrey lead rogers corp bid bought the TAXPAYER OWNED property for a mere 25 million which us poor tax paying folks paid 580-600 million to build in 1989 makes be sick .

If not for the 1982 Grey Cup, and a few other terrible weather home games (which i attended most)..this concrete convertible would never have been built. HOLD ON...ask around today??..and most folks would look at you as if you were unbalanced if you advised them of the fact i just presented..YEP

And now...people are looking to the move to the City of Toronto Stadium (which some call BMO) as a charity ,olive branch, or saving grace for the Argonauts.

So what, The Toronto Argonauts are moving back to the "EX", yup...thats all...(going home to the CNE)

There is so much more to add...but being St Patty's day...my brain is already sore and tired....

So, Happy St Patrick's day to all.....

May God give you...

For every storm, a rainbow,
For every tear, a smile,
For every care, a promise,
And a blessing in each trial.
For every problem life sends,
A faithful friend to share,
For every sigh, a sweet song,
And an answer for each prayer.