Buffalo Bills players: start renewing your passports.
The Bills will continue their road trip for a home game, renewing the Bills-Toronto series for another 5 years.
The Rogers Centre will only host 1 exhibition game (2015) in the new series, compared to the 3 scheduled pre-season games in the previous deal (only 2 got played).
The ticket prices are expected to remain at the reduced level of the 2012 game, so that should help attendance.
We are thrilled about the renewal, even if the relationship isn't perfect. Toronto fans want to see better teams. Buffalo fans want to tailgate. Maybe we can see some of those changes in the next 5 years.
Down the road, the Blue Jays want to put grass in Rogers Centre. This would make football of any kind difficult since the football seats would kill some of the grass. Then again, with the way the Bills and Argos draw, the baseball seats might be enough.
Until then, the Blue Jays, Argonauts, and Bills will share time in the Toronto domed stadium.
---Even if Canadians have a difficult time seeing the Super Bowl ads, at least one Super Bowl ad will have a Canadian presence.
Research in Motion (RIM), now to be known as BlackBerry, will run a Super Bowl ad Sunday to promote the Blackberry 10, which makes its debut yesterday. The ad will also run on CTV in Canada during the game.
The company had a big media splash on its opening day yesterday. A Super Bowl ad is a risky strategy, made even riskier since the product won't be available for awhile.
BlackBerry announced the new phones — Z10 (touchscreen) and Q10 (Qwerty keyboard) yesterday; while the Canada date for the Z10 is February 5, the U.S. release is sometime in March. Unless the company is prepared to run a long campaign and hope people will wait just a bit longer, the latter not being likely, the Super Bowl ad only works if people can buy your product.
Heck, the Q10 won't hit Canada until April, and this is earlier than anywhere else. This is not a good sign.
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Canada will have its own Super Bowl ads that will air on CTV. Lay's is featuring Martin Short in a new ad that will run exclusively in Canada.
Hyundai Canada has already leaked its 2013 Super Bowl ad called "Gaspocalypse." (Full disclosure: my day job covers the car industry.)
Budweiser is still running its Super Bowl ad from last year on NHL telecasts (we know this thanks to the NHL Center Ice free preview). Quite frankly, the ad is still better than any U.S. Budweiser ad in recent memory.
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Super Bowl XLVII will be on CBS this year, so keep that in mind if you are on the Canadian side and want to use your antenna to pick up the game. Those in Windsor can tune in WWJ-TV 62; in Toronto, the game is on WIVB/4. In Montréal, you might have a faint chance at WCAX-TV, Channel 3 in Burlington, Vermont.
Those in Vancouver and Victoria likely can't pick up KIRO/7 out of Seattle. If you're in Canada and live near a viable CBS affiliate via OTA antenna, let us know in the comments section.
That would be great and I'm looking forward to see more of their games. Good luck Buffalo Bills!
Posted by: jack | March 03, 2013 at 10:28 AM