Bills' take from Toronto games: $78M

Rogers Communications Inc. will pay the Buffalo Bills $78 million for shifting a series of games to Toronto over the next five seasons.

The company, for the first time, confirmed the cost of the deal Tuesday. The specific breakdown of payments, to be made from 2008 until 2012, was not detailed in Rogers' first-quarter report.

Bills' officials have said moving games to Toronto -- with a population of more than 5 million, or five times the size of the Buffalo metropolitan area -- is being done to expand the team's marketing footprint. The Bills, playing in one of the National Football League's smallest markets, sold out all general seating in 2007 but a portion of premium seating inventory (club seats and suites) was vacant.

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The Toronto package calls for a combination of five regular season and three preseason games to be played at the Rogers Centre starting this summer. On Thursday, Aug. 14, the Bills will play the Pittsburgh Steelers in a preseason game. The first regular season game is set for Sunday, Dec. 7 versus the Miami Dolphins.

Rogers Centre, operated by the multi-media giant, will seat some 54,000 for Bills' games, the smallest facility in the 32-team National Football League and approximately 20,000 less than Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park. Ticket pricing has not yet been established but demand has been strong with organizers saying more than 180,000 requests for seats have been recorded via the Internet.

Earlier reports have speculated the average cost for a Bills' game in Toronto could reach $200. For the Bills' eight games in Buffalo -- seven regular season and one preseason -- the average season ticket price will increase 10 percent to $51.24 in 2008, up from $46.45 -- the lowest in the NFL -- in 2007.