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Buffalo Bills won't rule out playing more NFL games in Canada

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
|
Sep 9 2025, 9:35 pm
Buffalo Bills won't rule out playing more NFL games in Canada
Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Buffalo Bills are looking to make their mark on the Canadian market.

On Tuesday, the Bills announced a joint partnership with the Toronto Argonauts and owner MLSE in an attempt to help grow the sport within Canada, particularly at the youth level.

According to a release from the Bills, the new deal “represents one of the many Canadian community partnerships the Bills are planning to forge this season.”

Earlier this year, former Toronto athletes Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, and Jozy Altidore were announced as minority shareholders in the Bills, with all three of them on hand at a ceremony announcing the partnership at BMO Field.

But one question that was on a lot of minds with the new deal: would the Bills ever play another game in Canada, more than a decade since their last one?

Buffalo Bills’ history of NFL games in Canada

From 2008 to 2013, the Bills played two preseason and six regular-season games in Toronto, all of which were hosted at the Argos’ former home of the Rogers Centre. To date, they remain the only NFL regular-season games to be played north of the border, though several preseason games have been played throughout Canada over the years.

Since 2007 and through the end of this season, the NFL has played or is scheduled to play 55 regular-season games in other countries around the world, including England, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, and Spain.

Canada is an interesting market for the Bills and other NFL teams close to the Canadian border, such as the Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings. Many fans in Southern Ontario cheer for the Bills, but loyalties are spread to many of the league’s 32 teams.

While it’s certainly sensible to try to grow the sport’s international footprint, each NFL team only has eight or nine home games per year on a normal rotation, and international games have a history of upsetting local season ticket holders.

Plus, while getting to and from a game in Buffalo might be a bit of a pain, Toronto is much closer to the Bills’ home stadium than many other international destinations the league has recently visited.

So will the Bills be returning to Canada anytime soon?

Well, maybe not in the immediate future, with their own new 62,000-seat stadium on the horizon for the 2026 season, but it’s not a downright denial from one of the team’s executives, either.

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Buffalo Bills Pete Guelli COO said in a question asked by Offside about future home games in Canada. “I think we want to build [the MLSE partnership] the right way and make sure we’re here inspiring that next generation of football fans. We’ve got a new stadium to launch and we’re probably going to play most of our games there in the short term at least, but long term, yeah, we’d absolutely consider it.”

BMO Field’s current capacity is around 28,000, though it’s expanding to around 45,000 with temporary seating for next year’s FIFA World Cup. The lowest attendance for the previous Bills in Toronto series clocked in at 38,969 for their 2013 game at the Rogers Centre.

The Argonauts themselves moved to BMO Field in 2016, and the Rogers Centre (which now boasts a reduced capacity of around 39,000) hasn’t had a regular football tenant since.

BC Place and Commonwealth Stadium in Vancouver and Edmonton, respectively, are the only active stadiums in Canada that currently hold a capacity above 40,000 seats, though they’re obviously much further from Buffalo than Toronto.

In any case, if you’re in Canada and are looking to see the Bills play anytime soon, it might have to be on TV.

With files from Neve Van Pelt

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