NFL's Market Strategy and Tensions with Canada Explored

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Transcript

00:00is really about the NFL. The NFL wants to be there with fans. They don't want to play there.

00:07They want to have the fans. They want the Canadian entire nation, their markets,

00:14to be fans of the NFL and to make money off of Canada. They don't want to play games there.

00:19They want that Toronto. Toronto's an enormous city. Graham writes about the

00:29size of it and how many fans they have there of the NFL. They have seven NHL teams. They have an NBA

00:36team. And now, I mean, in not so many words, Canada hates the United States. They're, you know,

00:46newfound enemies. Like, let's face facts. We're going to make you the 51st state. We're going to

00:53tariff you to death. We're going to crucify you with fees. And what it's done in turn is they're

01:01like saying, screw you. We're not playing this game with you. We don't care what you think and

01:06we're done with you. And then all these people now are saying, we're not traveling there. We're not

01:10going there. We're not going to your games. We're not going to give you our money to watch your games.

01:16And we don't care what you think. And it has become an issue. Like, and if it's not, then why is

01:23Tim Graham writing about it? Why is it is true? It is a problem. And then what Gabe said is even

01:32truer, is that all these towns on the border that rely on border traffic to make money and make a

01:40living, restaurants, diners, things like this, stores, shops, hotels, they're all going broke.

01:48They're all going under. This has become an international crisis. The relationship that this

01:54guy, the Trump administration has basically said to Canada, F off. And Canada is saying, no, actually,

02:03you F off. And now it's basically kind of its own new Cold War. They don't like each other. And they

02:10don't want to deal with each other at all. And you heard him just say to me that their dollars on

02:15the up and the U.S. dollars on the down. And they don't care what we think.

02:21They don't care what they what we think at all. And look, Buffalo is a team that, you know,

02:27they're one of the few teams in the United States where it probably does impact them.

02:32Let's remember something. Buffalo is the, I believe, the 73rd largest city in America.

02:40You know, the 73rd largest city in America. And they have an NFL team.

02:45You know, you know, Buffalo and Green Bay are small cities compared to other, you know,

02:51the Chicago's and New York's L.A.'s and even Charlotte and other mid range. You know,

02:56Buffalo is small and they need as much revenue as they can get. And it is true. Even though it

03:02wasn't a success when they played games over there. And, you know, I watched all those games.

03:08There was nobody there. And you probably tell me, well, if there was today's bills and Josh Allen,

03:14the place would have been full house. Yeah, you're probably right. The bills sucked when they did the

03:18Toronto experiment and they went and they played one game there every single year. But there are fans

03:23of the bills in Toronto, in Southern Ontario. A lot of them cross the border to go to games.

03:31A lot of them are season ticket holders because Buffalo needs them. I mean, they're the 73rd largest

03:38city. As much as that whole entire city eats, breathes and sleeps bill football, you need more

03:44than that to be able to continue to pump money into the team. So could it eventually become a problem

03:51for them? Sure. Is it going to hurt the long-term standing of them in Buffalo? No, because they're

03:59building a brand new, almost done, by the way, $2 billion Shangri-La there right on the site. So

04:06they're going to have a new stadium starting next year. They're not going anywhere, but they need that

04:10money from those Southern Ontario fans.