2016 Grey Cup will be at BMO Field, not Rogers Centre, according to reports

We've known for a while that the 2016 Grey Cup was likely to be played in Toronto, with city mayor (and former CFL commissioner) John Tory talking about that in January, the May sale of the Argonauts including a reported condition that they host two Grey Cups over eight years (counting the 2016 one), and a report from Sportsnet's Arash Madani earlier this month that the 2016 and 2017 Grey Cups had been set for Toronto and Ottawa respectively. What we didn't know until now was where in Toronto the game would be played, as Madani's Sept. 4 report said they were still deciding between BMO Field (where the Argos will start playing regularly next season) and the bigger Rogers Centre. It appears that decision has now been made, with both Madani and The Toronto Sun citing league sources saying that the game will be played at BMO Field (with the Sun adding a date, Nov. 27, 2016), and that an official announcement will be made Thursday. The league has sent out a release confirming an official announcement in Toronto Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern, so these reports would seem to have plenty of substance to them. If they're correct, did the CFL and the Argos make the right call in choosing BMO Field over the Rogers Centre, and how will the new field work as a Grey Cup host?

On some levels, putting this game at BMO Field makes sense. It's going to be the Argonauts' primary home next season, and with the extensive renovations there, it should be a better fan environment for football than the Rogers Centre was. Moreover, the Rogers Centre isn't slated to host any football next season with the Argos moving out, so there would be no opportunities to work any facility kinks out before the CFL's biggest game. There also is some appeal to a game that reflects Grey Cup history; Toronto has hosted 46 of the 102 Grey Cups played so far, including 30 of the first 45, but only four of those have been held indoors at the Rogers Centre (or its previous name, the SkyDome). Twelve of those were held at Exhibition Stadium, where the Argos played from 1959 to 1989, and BMO Field is built on that same spot, so this is taking the Grey Cup back to its roots.

It's also going to be a new and historic Grey Cup, the first in this new stadium. That should help justify the money that the city and MLSE have spent on BMO Field renovations; attracting big events was a substantial part of the case for those. Moreover, there's talk that the NHL's Maple Leafs could host the Winter Classic at BMO Field six weeks later, which would allow the temporary seating (raising the capacity to 40,000 from soccer's 30,000 and football's 25,000) to remain and be used for that event as well, which would come in the Leafs' 100th anniversary season. Thus, there are some cross-team synergies that can be exploited here, bolstering the case for BMO Field.

There are substantial downsides to BMO Field too, though. For one, a late-November game there carries significant risks of weather problems, affecting both the play on the field and the fans in the stands. In fact, the 70th Grey Cup at Exhibition Stadium in 1982 was so bad it was dubbed the "Rain Bowl,"  and it led to the movement to replace the stadium with a dome (the eventual SkyDome). For another, less fans will be able to watch the game; 40,000's not a terrible number, but it's way less than the 53,208 that packed the Rogers Centre for the 2012 Grey Cup. The lowered numbers of seats also likely mean higher ticket prices, as the organizers will still be looking to bring in big money, and the Grey Cup isn't cheap in the first place; putting it in a small stadium won't help with that. There are also questions about just how good the 15,000 temporary seats will be. Another issue is that this game would likely take place during Major League Soccer's conference finals, so if Toronto FC made it there, there would be a stadium conflict, and that could create all sorts of problems. By contrast, the Rogers Centre (whose scheduling conflicts with the Blue Jays are ruining things for the Argos this year) has no sports going on in late November, and it's a bigger venue with no risks of weather problems. It's also more easily accessible from transit, being right on the subway line, while BMO Field requires a streetcar trip.

Will BMO Field wind up working out better than playing another Grey Cup at the Rogers Centre would? From the outside, it's hard to tell right now. We don't know if Rogers, which owns that building as well as its naming rights, was even willing to let the CFL host another Grey Cup there; keep in mind that Rogers wants so little to do with the CFL that their MLSE partners Bell and Larry Tanenbaum had to form a separate partnership to buy the Argonauts. It's possible that the terms for putting a Grey Cup at the Rogers Centre were prohibitive, and that BMO Field set up as a much better situation for the CFL and the team. We also don't know if the weather will wind up causing any problems, and even if it is bad, that may not be disastrous; some of the CFL's most memorable games have come from bad weather. It's just worth noting that there are substantial potential hazards to a Grey Cup at BMO Field. Perhaps those risks are outweighed by the rewards, and perhaps the Rogers Centre wasn't even much of an alternative, but this is a Grey Cup decision that carries some questions. We'll see how the league and the Argos answer those.