Originally Posted by
Hitcho
I'm not sure this is dead forever. It won't be unless the Argos get their own stadium or start selling 50,000 tickets per game. Every time the Rogers lease comes up for renewal, there will be distractions about "oh well we might go here instead" to try and keep the rent down. Next time this comes up, there might be public money available to get the stadium expanded or private investor money from Braley or someone else. So it remains a longer term issue in my opinion.
That said, MLSE are not stupid (far from it) and I would fully expect them to start taking steps now to make it as expensive and difficult as possible for the Argos to ever modify the stadium for CFL. The north stand is a good start. Foe example, filling up dates on an annual basis for cash spinning friendlies on the new grass (Real, Barca, Liverpool, etc year after year will make the City a tonne of money) and working with the CSA to make BMO Field the unoffical home of Canadian soccer so that the city gets more money from that and the damage to the sport would be huge if the Argos took the CSA dates away. I also wouldn't be surprised to see a string of minor midifications over the years designed to keep the place soccer specific and make it harder to convert the facility for CFL.
The Argos under the current fuckwit owners are not really a threat now that the CFL has pissed on their reduced field size idea. The Argos under new owners or with public money backing would be. MLSE and the CSA need to start working now to stop that from ever happening.
Of course, when TFC's 15 year lease (?) is up at Exhibition, there might be an opportunity for MLSE to build us a red bull arena type place at another venue that they would own outright. If the TFC fan base keeps growing AND the league keeps growing in terms of tv ratings, franchise profitiability, etc, then that's not an unreal dream to hold onto. If MLSE could make money from a new stadium then they'd probably do it. Neither the team nor the sport as a whole are big enough to justify it for now, but in 15 years? With all the school kids playing soccer now out earnign money and wanting to spend it on TFC and MLS? Who knows. If MLS ever gets a real foothold in the US (and with current grass roots growth and immigration from soccer supporting countries still increasing, then it very well might in the next 10 to 15 years), then MLSE will be nicely placed to make a huge windfall from their $10m investment in the franchise. A new stadium in those circumstances, location permitting, might actually be a good move.