Raiders look at move to... San Antonio?

Froob said:

I doubt that man. Toronto goes ****ing nuts for the Toronto Raptors. Basketball IN Canada. They would be a great place for an NFL team. Toronto might have the most passionate fans in North America, they are a terribly annoying fan base as well. One of my least favorite.

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I'm sure lots of cities have tons of bandwagon jumpers, but the ACC is much different when the team isn't doing well. After last year's unexpected play-off trip, suddenly there are a ton of Raptors fans who weren't around the previous few years.

But even last season, the Raptors sold around 92% of their tickets. In volume, that's good for 10th place, but in terms of percentage, 18th. That's comparable to Utah's attendance. Salt Lake City has less than 10% of the population of Toronto; in fact the entire state of Utah is comparable (2.9M vs. 2.8M).

The Jays haven't been in the top 5 of the AL attendance in over 15 years. Again, they've been bad, I get it. But this season had some promise at the start and Toronto ended up 17th in average attendance, 22nd in percentage, comparable to San Diego (less than half the population) and Atlanta (about 1/7 the population).

The Bills averaged over 66K fans a game last season, while the game in Toronto brought it down because it drew only 39K. I'm sure the price of the tickets made it somewhat closer, but the Toronto game peaked at 52K fans at the start, and slowly dwindled.

It's a huge city, the 4th-largest in North America now. It's a great city to live in, and I'm glad we moved here. But it's not a great sports city, which is probably a good thing because so many of their teams suck.

I live in Dallas and visit San Antonio often. It is a great city and an up and coming city, getting bigger all the time. Great fans there thanks to the Spurs. They would very much welcome a team. Need a dome though cause it gets wicked hot.
Side note: in madden 15 you can relocate a team to San Antonio

convertedpatsfan said:

I'm sure lots of cities have tons of bandwagon jumpers, but the ACC is much different when the team isn't doing well. After last year's unexpected play-off trip, suddenly there are a ton of Raptors fans who weren't around the previous few years.

But even last season, the Raptors sold around 92% of their tickets. In volume, that's good for 10th place, but in terms of percentage, 18th. That's comparable to Utah's attendance. Salt Lake City has less than 10% of the population of Toronto; in fact the entire state of Utah is comparable (2.9M vs. 2.8M).

The Jays haven't been in the top 5 of the AL attendance in over 15 years. Again, they've been bad, I get it. But this season had some promise at the start and Toronto ended up 17th in average attendance, 22nd in percentage, comparable to San Diego (less than half the population) and Atlanta (about 1/7 the population).

The Bills averaged over 66K fans a game last season, while the game in Toronto brought it down because it drew only 39K. I'm sure the price of the tickets made it somewhat closer, but the Toronto game peaked at 52K fans at the start, and slowly dwindled.

It's a huge city, the 4th-largest in North America now. It's a great city to live in, and I'm glad we moved here. But it's not a great sports city, which is probably a good thing because so many of their teams suck.

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I guess we'll agree to disagree then. I post on realgm (basketball forum) and the raps fans there are very active even during the years they suck. ACC is one of the loudest arenas in the league. This was outside the arena during a road game with the fans watching the game on a big screen

AzPatsFan said:

The two most attractive cities from a metropolitan size for an aspiring franchise is San Antonio and Los Angeles. The Bay area is really too small to merit two franchises.
Even New York doesn't really need two teams anymore, with the universality of TV exposure.

Baseball's two city arrangements date back to the National and American league wars, at the turn of the 19th century. But over time most of those dual or even triple team areas have been reduced to only a few multiple team cities.

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SA over LA?? Whenever I've been in San Antonio it always seemed to have a bit of a 'cow poke' feel. It's metro ranking would suggest it's next in line (maybe) with the key being the growth rate percentage.

http://www.iweblists.com/us/population/MetropolitanStatisticalAreaPop.html

Froob said:

I guess we'll agree to disagree then. I post on realgm (basketball forum) and the raps fans there are very active even during the years they suck. ACC is one of the loudest arenas in the league. This was outside the arena during a road game with the fans watching the game on a big screen

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I'm not saying there aren't fans here, but it's not concentrated and it's a huge city. If 10% of people in Indianapolis are hardcore basketball fans, that would be around 90,000 people. If 4% of Torontonians are hardcore basketball fans, that would be more, but it wouldn't mean the city cares more about it.

Yes, the city got excited for the Raptors. Of course it was also the first play-off game in 5 years, and half those people in that crowd probably couldn't name all 5 starters. And it certainly looked nothing like that to start the season.

The season opener sold out, over 20,000 in attendance. The next home game was against the defending champion Heat and LeBron James, and that game only drew 18,500. The next home game against the Jazz saw attendance drop to 17,200. But then the improbable play-off run started after it looked like they were going to tank when they traded Rudy Gay.

There are cities where, even if you're not a fan, you know how the local teams are generally doing. Here, there are fans, and then some people hear bits and pieces, but unless it's a big thing going on, a lot of people have no clue nor care to.

So we'll agree to disagree. There are definitely hardcore fans, and there are lots of fans when the team is popular. There's enough to justify a franchise here, but that doesn't make it a great sports town.

convertedpatsfan said:

I'm not saying there aren't fans here, but it's not concentrated and it's a huge city. If 10% of people in Indianapolis are hardcore basketball fans, that would be around 90,000 people. If 4% of Torontonians are hardcore basketball fans, that would be more, but it wouldn't mean the city cares more about it.

Yes, the city got excited for the Raptors. Of course it was also the first play-off game in 5 years, and half those people in that crowd probably couldn't name all 5 starters. And it certainly looked nothing like that to start the season.

The season opener sold out, over 20,000 in attendance. The next home game was against the defending champion Heat and LeBron James, and that game only drew 18,500. The next home game against the Jazz saw attendance drop to 17,200. But then the improbable play-off run started after it looked like they were going to tank when they traded Rudy Gay.

There are cities where, even if you're not a fan, you know how the local teams are generally doing. Here, there are fans, and then some people hear bits and pieces, but unless it's a big thing going on, a lot of people have no clue nor care to.

So we'll agree to disagree. There are definitely hardcore fans, and there are lots of fans when the team is popular. There's enough to justify a franchise here, but that doesn't make it a great sports town.

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I wonder how it would even work with the Argos because I think they have a good fan base. Perhaps they could just be let into tbe league.

No reason the nfl could not just absorb the Canadian football league, relocate a couple of nfl franchises to beef up the talent level and away we go.

Joey007 said:

Hell that would work out great. With the Spurs in town fans would never have to change colors.

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Pittsburgh eventually had all it's teams in black and gold...I kind of like the idea of all the teams in a city adopting the same colors.

Froob said:

I wonder how it would even work with the Argos because I think they have a good fan base. Perhaps they could just be let into tbe league.

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I know a guy who is a hardcore fan but attendance has been dwindling. It used to be in the 40,000 range back before I was born, but this season, they're averaging around 17,000 fans, or not even half of what the Bills drew last time before the series got cancelled (39,000).

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/10/19/toronto-argos-are-a-franchise-struggling-to-stay-afloat/

In general, the CFL is dying out so the NFL might be seen as the last nail in the coffin, but it seems like it's going to happen with or without the NFL.

RecoveringCowboy said:

Pittsburgh eventually had all it's teams in black and gold...I kind of like the idea of all the teams in a city adopting the same colors.

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None of their teams wear gold. It's yellow. why does yellow become gold in the sports world lol?

^ point still remains - Pittsburgh teams share the same colors.

RecoveringCowboy said:

^ point still remains - Pittsburgh teams share the same colors.

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not really the penguins are black white and tan.

As long as Mark Davis owns the team, they should be looking to move to witness protection.