Via NBC: The Bills and Rogers Media have issued a joint statement announcing that the annual Toronto series has been postponed for a year. “The Buffalo Bills and Rogers are committed to delivering a first-class NFL experience to Canadians,” Bills CEO Russ Brandon and Rogers Media president Keith Pelley said, perhaps simultaneously. “As such, we have postponed for one year the scheduled 2014 regular season game at Rogers Centre in Toronto, and that game will return to Ralph Wilson Stadium.
From the “It’s About Damn Time” Department, comes this note from the Bills and the Rogers Media Group in Toronto. This is just a one year postponement but hopefully it will lead to the end of this dreadful partnership all together. This, in theory, wasn’t a bad idea. In actuality it’s been a yearly event where the Bills travel to Toronto to get their ass kicked by someone in front of about 600 fans. It just never caught on and now, hopefully, it is dead.
I wrote about this a while back. The series never made sense for the Bills, especially if they were/ are trying to stay in Buffalo. It seemed like a straight money grab by all parties and never really materialized into something that made sense for the Bills. Again, here are the results and attendance for the games in Toronto. Per ESPN, the Bills averaged 66,267 fans per home game. At no point did the Bills even get 80% of that in the six years they played in Toronto. Just sad.
2008 vs. Miami Dolphins: Loss 16-3, attendance 52,134
2009 vs. New York Jets: Loss 19-13, attendance 51,567
2010 vs. Chicago Bears: Loss 22-19, attendance 50,746
2011 vs. Washington Redskins: Won 23-0, attendance 51,579
2012 vs. Seattle Seahawks: Loss 50-17, attendance 40,770
2013 vs. Atlanta Falcons: Loss 34-31 (OT), attendance 38,969 (This was after the Falcons had fallen apart and were terrible.)
The Bills finished the Toronto series 1-5 and attendance had decreased each of the last two years. So glad to see this game come to an end (hopefully, for ever.)
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