Have the Buffalo Bills Become Canada’s NFL Team?

Canada has produced championship teams in the NBA, MLB and, of course, the NHL, yet it has never had a Canadian-based NFL franchise.

As perhaps the biggest open goal in North American sports, with a whole nation in need of a team to get behind, have the Buffalo Bills just gone and seized the initiative?

With the much-loved border city of Buffalo kicking off the new NFL season with a rendition of ‘O Canada’, have they just adopted the entire Canadian contingent as their own… or does Seattle have a deeper affinity with its North American cousins?

Geography Gives the Bills a Notable Edge

Okay, so Buffalo has a legitimate geographical claim to this sizable northern fan base, a fact that no amount of slick NFL-like marketing bumf can diminish. That’s because, as the crow flies, Toronto is just 109 miles from Buffalo’s Highmark Stadium, whereas Seattle’s Lumen Field is roughly 144 miles from the center of Vancouver, which boasts barely a third of Toronto’s population.

Arguably, Detroit should also be in with a shout given the city practically encompasses the Canadian city of Windsor, but Motor City’s geographical advantage comes with a catch: Windsor is no Toronto either. 

Likewise, several other NFL teams accustomed to the same harsh winters as much of Canada would undoubtedly relish a slice of this highly engaged northern fan base, but Minnesota, Green Bay, and Chicago too lose out in the battle for Buffalo’s territorial supremacy.

So, first points go to Buffalo. 

No Border Will Stop Canadian Bills Mafia Attending Games

While Buffalo’s proximity to Canada is integral to their assertion of being Canada’s team, here’s where that argument gets even stronger as Canadian fans show up en masse for every Bills’ NFL home game.

Now, for fans of a certain age, the Bills’ legendary 1993 playoff comeback against the Houston Oilers will live long in the memory, but today’s Bills fans have the pleasure of watching NFL MVP Josh Allen week in and week out. The Bills now have roughly 8,000 Canadian season-ticket holders, while Southern Ontario accounts for 18% of fans who paid a deposit to join the team’s waiting list.

Yeah, But The Buffalo Bills Have Been Wooing Canada for Years

Indeed, the playing of the Canadian national anthem at Highmark Stadium for the home opener isn’t overtly surprising given that the Bills have been actively courting the nation’s fans for nearly two decades. 

So dedicated to the cause of energizing their neighboring nation’s fan base, the Bills committed to play six regular season games inside Toronto’s Rogers Centre between 2008 and 2013 as part of the Bills Toronto Series. Nonetheless, despite the series being massively popular across the border, the venture eventually tailed off, partly due to the backlash from its own native Bills Mafia, who refused to travel to ‘home games,’ but more likely because the Toronto experiment yielded just one win in six.

Despite the disappointing results on the field, the Bills Toronto Series was ultimately heralded as a success if only because it catalyzed a surge in Canadian attendance at US-based Buffalo home games. As a result, Canadian attendance has more than doubled since then, in spite of their new $2.1 billion Highmark Stadium having one of the lowest NFL stadium ratings on Google (although that’s more likely a critique of the old building).

The Big Counterargument: Seattle Has Western Canada Locked Down

Just when you thought this might be a foregone conclusion, one unavoidable fact still remains - the Seattle Seahawks too have a prominent foothold in the Canadian market, albeit somewhat confined to the less populous West Coast. 

With Vancouver on its doorstep - and the closest NFL team to cities like Calgary and Edmonton, albeit hundreds of miles away - Seattle is in a prominent position to counter any proclamation that Buffalo is Canada’s team of choice. But that’s just it: Canada is huge, and the NFL’s reach across all 10 of the nation’s provinces makes this far from a one-team affair, especially as the Seahawks have 4,000 Canadian season-ticket holders of their own.

What About the Rest of Canada Then?

The curious thing about the NFL is that geographical proximity doesn’t appear to necessarily translate into an automatic allegiance - a point illustrated by a recent study of the 2.7 million monthly Canadian NFL-related online searches.

Here, Buffalo do indeed hold the bragging rights as Canadian fans' top-searched teams, but more surprisingly, despite winning the last Super Bowl, Seattle sits below Detroit and Pittsburgh and is tied fourth with Green Bay on just 2.9%. Meanwhile, recent serial Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, have racked up 9.6%, and even the Miami Dolphins picked up 4.4% despite being the team furthest from the Canadian border.

So Are The Buffalo Bills Canada’s De Facto NFL Team? 

On the face of it, Buffalo certainly has the strongest case to call themselves ‘Canada’s team’ given they have the largest season ticket fan base, most online searches, and have played more games on Canadian soil than any other team - however, ask any Vancouverite if they’re part of the Canadian Bills Mafia and might get laughed out of the room.

Yet as any true Canadian NFL fan will testify, all they really want is a team that they can call their own. And why not, after all, they’re a passionate bunch with a history of winning multiple Stanley Cups, World Series, and an NBA championship, so it seems only logical.

So for now, as one of the current Super Bowl favorites, Buffalo may have earned the right to call itself the NFL’s honorary Canadian franchise, but you can guarantee that will all change should the league expand into Canada.