Toronto could get NCAA bowl game

[G W North]

Toronto already hosts Canada's annual university football championship (and is frequent host to the hockey and basketball championships). Now it could be getting an NCAA football bowl game as well.

'Dome home to bowl game?

By ROB GRANATSTEIN -- Toronto Sun

An NCAA football bowl game could be headed to the SkyDome in 2005.

An American group will be going to the NCAA meeting in April pitching the tentatively named International Bowl between schools from the Big East and the Mid-America Conferences.

"We think we can draw huge crowds," said Don Loding, president of SportsWorld Interactive and the organizer of the Motor City Bowl.

INTERNATIONAL CITY

"Toronto is an international city that college football fans would enjoy visiting.

"We think our chances of having the game approved are excellent," Loding said.

Geographically, Toronto is well positioned for the two conferences that include Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Toledo and Ohio University.

Loding said the bowl game only has to draw 10,000 fans from Toronto to be a success. He expects at least 20,000 people from the competing schools, including students, marching bands and alumni, to fill the stands and the city's hotels.

SportsWorld is not asking for any money from Toronto.

The Motor City Bowl pumps $15 million US into Detroit, and city of Toronto commissioner Joe Halstead believes the International Bowl could be worth that much to Hogtown.

The game would be played between Christmas and New Year's Eve.

[Fruit Cove]

canada shouldnt host american football.

[G W North]

canada shouldnt host american football.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure we should. Toronto has hosted lots of international sporting events. We just hosted several World Cup Hockey games (including the gold medal game), we host the third oldest national PGA Open in the world roughly every other year (give or take), have hosted the world basketball championships, world wresling championships, european soccer games, international cricket and rugby games, etc.

Plus American football is very popular in Canada. Thousands of people at any given Buffalo Bills game are from Southern Ontario. Simon Fraser University's sports teams used to play against American teams in an American sports conference (though they no longer do).

[Fruit Cove]

does canada compete in ncaa football?

[Brickell]

does canada compete in ncaa football?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

does jacksonville?

[paulblackgsx]

I think it would be kinda cool to have a bowl game in Toronto. Although I think the whole bowl structure is getting a little played out... pretty soon Western GA Tech is gonna get a bowl bid....

How bout college play offs!!

Sorry, back to topic... I'm all for Toronto getting a bowl game.

[Fruit Cove]

UNF PAL

[Brickell]

UNF PAL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Try again.

Actually don't, we could be here all night.

Jacksonville Univ, does have a football team, but at Div I-AA they have as much of a chance at making a major bowl game as does the Univ of Toronto.

The real point being that hosting a bowl game has relatively little to do with having a home team. If that was the case the Gator Bowl would be in Gainesville and not Jacksonville.

Toronto is a major city and tourist mecca that probably needs a winter tourism boost. I don't blame them for trying. I think having all these northern bowl games kind of defeats the purpose though.

[PghUSA]

Try again.

Actually don't, we could be here all night.

Jacksonville Univ, does have a football team, but at Div I-AA they have as much of a chance at making a major bowl game as does the Univ of Toronto.

The real point being that hosting a bowl game has relatively little to do with having a home team.

[G W North]

>>I think it is a cool idea to have Toronto included but I wonder why Canadiens who continually look at the US as commiting genocide against their "culture" with armies of McDonalds and ActionHero DVDs would want the CFL competing against well financed and well entrenched in the media complex NCAA football.<<

I've lived in Canada 29 years and have never heard anyone complain about Americans committing genocide against Canadians. You know that genocide means the mass murder of a race of people, right?

"Canadians" would not be organizing this game, a particular group would be organizing this game. If people don't want to attend, they don't have to. Never mind the fact that the game would be played more than a month after the end of the CFL season.

>>This is a nation after all that "censors" american television even worldwide cable networks because they are just too "american".<<

When has Canada ever censored American television? I've never heard of such an instance. We get shows like Sex and the City and The Sopranos uncensored on network television, whereas you guys have Sex and the City censored even on cable t.v. (WTBS). Whoever told you that Canada censors American television was lying, as your television shows see less censorship here than they do in your own country.

[PghUSA]

I know "cutural genocide" is a strong term, maybe too strong, but I've heard it used before by some of your countrymen--and women, my statement and there statement to me was "cultural genocide" and never having been to Canada I must admit some agreement with the folks I know from there, too often the US has just steamrolled truly Canadien things and the influence from the south is sometimes suffocating. Look at the NHL I appreciated the unique aspect of hockey, watching teams from Winnipeg and Quebec City come south and play in my city. Those days are gone in some ways, in the last decade the NHL has been "Americanized". There is another term being thrown around too the "NAFTAtization" of the continent. There was a time when Americans would "get away from it all" and Canadiens too by crossing the border, but time marches on.

By censors, I know Canada has given problems to the spectrum of American broadcasting from Howard Stern being made illegal in Toronto and Montreal to its refusal to allow FoxNews into its country. From those perspectives it was always that Canada was trying to protect its "culture" which is totally legit for the reasons I stated above, others have pointed out that it was pure politics and the culture thing was a smokescreen. Who knows?

Back to the NCAA thing, if Toronto gets it more power to them, I know it will be a nice payout for them as well, but I think it opens the pandoras box to having the NCAA expand up there and start sanctioning events. I know when the "Canadien" NHL started coming south (more then just the Rangers, Blackhawks and Redwings or even the 67 teams, but truly expanding in the states in the 1990s), the Americans took over, moving Winnipeg and Quebec out of canada and attempting to take Edmonton too. That with the fact that some Canadien fans are sore its been over a decade since they won their own cup and over 15 years since a team outside French Canada won it. I'm part of the old school that liked something exotic and wonderful to our north, something not an extension of Seattle, Cleveland or Minneapolis. But the trend is towards that especially in the bigger cities so why not embrace it, just get ready to have the McGills play the USCs and Ohio States in a few years, expansion doesnt stop expanding.

[paulblackgsx]

Sex and the City censored even on cable t.v. (WTBS)

Just so everyone knows, TBS is a local aerial broadcast in Atlanta. Therefore, their cable broadcast (duplicate of the local broadcast) meets aerial standards for content, not cable.

[G W North]

>>Just so everyone knows, TBS is a local aerial broadcast in Atlanta. Therefore, their cable broadcast (duplicate of the local broadcast) meets aerial standards for content, not cable.<<

But again, we have full nudity and even pornography and sex shows on network television. Even the government-run CBC doesn't edit nudity out of movies it shows. In fact, much of our raunchiest/most contraversial comedy is government funded.

[NWLB]

If this were next year, my alma mater would be one of the most likely choices to attend the Toronto Bowl. I'm a Bowling Green State University fan, out of the Mid-American Conference (MAC.) Frankly I am excited about the idea of going to Toronto, even between holidays, both to see my own team play, and to visit what is a great city. My wife and I went on our honeymoon to Toronto. But I think there are a lot of things not being noted.

This bowl game has been in the works since 1998. It didn't happen at first, due to an NCAA moratorium on new bowls. The group organizing it now has done an outstanding job in Detroit. The conferences involved are not the major conferences that tend to bring tens of thousands of fans with them. They are more modest conferences, with more civil and well heeled fans. Toronto is being selected because it is a world class city with a suitable venue, that happens to be nearby. That it is a Canadian city has no real bearing on it at all. The NCAA had no input or interest involved in the games formation.

There is no cultural imperialism involved in this. I live in Bowling Green, and just south of another MAC town, Toledo. BG is more of a hockey town than anything else. Half of our NCAA Division 1 team are Canadian kids. Not to stereotypically dwell on hockey, but BGSU produced former UT head coach Paul Titanic, Rob Blake, two members of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, and has deep personal ties to many families all through Canada. There are or have been nearly a dozen Canadian national on our NCAA football team, including our current place kicker. We recruit actively at times in Ontario. The University hosts one of the only Canadian Studies programs in the U.S. The city hosted a annual series of exchange games with a sister city in Ontario. There are hundreds of Canadians studying at BGSU, and dozens living in town working.

These are not small considerations in why the MAC was the first conference considered for the game. Western Michigan and Miami (Oh) both have lesser, but similar ties to Canada. Plus we are all within driving range of Toronto.

The reality of the matter is that our fans will sweep into town a day or so before the game, and be gone the day after. There is a hope people in Toronto will come to see the game, but no interest in trying to start a take-over of Canadian college sports.

To imply otherwise is the worst type of cultural paranoia. Relax, its just football.

[M. Brown]

But again, we have full nudity and even pornography and sex shows on network television. Even the government-run CBC doesn't edit nudity out of movies it shows. In fact, much of our raunchiest/most contraversial comedy is government funded.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thats ridiculous. There shouldnt be any pornography at all. Little kids shouldnt be watching that stuff. How do you protect your kids from nudity and pornography when its on regular TV? That turns me away from Canada. Anyway it would be kinda cool to have a NCAA bowl game in TO...If there were no pornography on the regular TV

[John D. Conley]

Wow, very nice. Our courts ruled woman can roam the streets topless and we can see sex on TV. We do censor extreme violence.

Americans love the violence. If find it obscene. We have what hare called, different cultures. At 6:30 p.m. a fashion show may have a topless model stroll down a runway. In almost every country but the US.

As to American Footall, Canadian Football, well I love our version. But in the dead of winter our dome in Toronto is ready for football, might has well bring it on.

After all, Canada will never need a "Don't bring your gun to work day", but we might have a topless tuesday.

American women have the right to bear arms, Canadian women can bare thier .... never mind...