When the Grass Isn't Always Greener

What do you get when you mix double blue with red? If you're a Toronto soccer fan, it's black, because you're worried there's bound to be too much brown in your green.

This week's news that the Toronto Argonauts will soon be playing CFL football at what's ostensibly Canada's national soccer stadium brought expected howls of derision from supporters of Toronto FC, BMO Field's main tenant. Their not wholly unreasonable fear: that gridiron football will exact a heavy toll on the pristine natural surface preferred for the beautiful game, turning it into an irredeemable muddy mess.

Rallying around the hashtag #BlackShirtsAtBMO, forsaken fans of TFC made dark promises to cloak themselves in the colour of coal for this Saturday's home game against Portland. "Not a protest. Just a FU," declared the Facebook page built by U-Sector, supporters of the club. "We know this is futile and we never really mattered and never will."

But before getting out their goth gear, TFC fans should acknowledge that the corporate overlords of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment haven't actually treated their team that badly. Admittedly, sharing your field with a bunch of CFLers who'll chop up the grass every time they use it isn't ideal for the fortunes of a playoff-starved soccer squad, still waiting for its first taste of postseason anything. Nevertheless, TFC is still the main money maker here, and a major source of investment. It hasn't borne fruit yet, but tens of millions have been poured into the acquisition of international talent, stadium upgrades and a top-notch training facility. To suggest that TFC never really mattered to MLSE brass is simply untrue. Ownership has tried hard to turn their soccer team into a bloody big deal. Unfortunately, they've just never been any bloody good, lurching from coach to coach, injury to injury, and struggle to struggle.

The truly paranoid (or anyone who's cheered for a Toronto team for more than a few years) might well fear MLSE's focus on TFC will waver once Tim Leiweke leaves his role as president and CEO, if and when the sports titan's fractious board can agree on someone to replace him. Leiweke himself insists that's not happening. "We have $200 million invested that shows where MLSE's heart is," he told the Toronto Sun hours after the Argos sale was formally announced.

Even with the Argos in the fold, Leiweke insists soccer will control the schedule at BMO, not the other way around. Logos, he says, will be limited to the end zones, where they'll be covered by rows of retractable seats during soccer games, while yard line markings will be made with special paint that can be steamed off for soccer.

Though it's the integrity of the surface that remains the major question. There's no small amount of irony here that the Argonauts are being booted out of Rogers Centre so that baseball's Blue Jays can switch from AstroTurf to natural grass, only for the vagabond football team to wind up risking the quality of the grass that TFC installed to replace the plastic pitch they first played on.

The Argos are developing something of a legacy of being ruinous guests, given what they'll leave behind at their current home. SkyDome was designed to accommodate two teams, but the 150-yard CFL field forced it to be built with a lower bowl that splits apart behind home plate and rolls sideways for Argos games. The end result is thousands of seats with shoddy sightlines for baseball fans, aimed at the outfield instead of the focal point of action around the pitcher's mound and home plate. They'll still be there once the Argos have moved on.

Still, Argonauts fans of a certain vintage might well consider all this cosmic payback for the changes wrought on their old home at Exhibition Stadium, which was converted for baseball's arrival in 1977 and turned into an unlovable muddle, Toronto's own mistake by the lake.

Will letting the Argos return to their roots at the CNE turn out to be another mistake? Hoping to avoid getting stuck in the mud, MLSE is spending $3 million to install a hybrid grass field at BMO. The surface, which is used by several top European soccer clubs and at least two NFL teams, combines natural grass with millions of artificial fibres, strengthening the root system. MLSE will also shell out for a heating and lighting system to promote springtime growth and provide solar energy that will be limited once the roof canopy is installed this coming winter.

Never one to shy away from bombast, Leiweke has guaranteed the playing surface at BMO will remain in "world class" shape even after the Argos arrive next year. But if ruts and ridges lead to wayward passes or, even worse, wrecked ankles for soccer players, fans of Toronto's Reds will have every reason to rue to that black day the CFL's Double Blue moved into their house.