Apr. 30--The Buffalo Bills will be paid an average of $9.75 million a game from their new Toronto business partners, financial statements released in Canada revealed Tuesday.

The Bills' eight games in Canada over the next five years will earn the National Football League team a total of $78 million, Rogers Communications stated in its quarterly report. It was the first time the cost of the deal was made public.

The gross revenue is roughly double what the Bills garner in gross revenues for a home game at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park.

The Bills essentially are leasing the game to Rogers Communications. The team is being paid a flat fee for the games, and Rogers is handling virtually all of the game operations. Rogers is one of Canada's largest communications companies, with revenues of about $10 billion a year.

The terms of the deal are another indication that ticket prices are going to be high, as has been widely speculated.

The average ticket price for a seat in the 54,000-seat Rogers Centre is expected to be about $200, maybe more. At $200 a ticket, each game would generate $10.8 million. That doesn't count revenue from luxury boxes, concessions, parking, advertising, marketing and any other ancillary income Rogers Communications could generate.

It's easy to see why shifting games to Toronto is attractive to the Bills, as they try to increase revenues to keep pace with the other 31 teams in the NFL. An average ticket in Ralph Wilson Stadium is $51.24. Multiply that by roughly 62,000 general seats, and that's a take of $3.1 million a game, not counting luxury boxes, concessions, parking and all other revenue. The Bills had the lowest ticket prices in the NFL in 2007.

"I'm excited to say that we've now received nearly 180,000 indications of interest for tickets to the eight-game NFL series that the Buffalo Bills will play at the Rogers Centre starting this summer," said Anthony P. Viner, president and chief executive officer of Rogers Media, in a conference call. "The Rogers Centre seats about 54,000 for football, so we'll be holding a lottery shortly, and I think this will turn out to be a terrific series for Toronto and a great business for the Rogers Centre and for Rogers' various broadcasting properties as well."

The ticket prices are expected to be announced soon.

The Bills will play the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Rogers Centre in an exhibition game Aug. 14. They face the Miami Dolphins in Toronto in a regular- season game Dec. 7.

Buffalo will play one regular-season game in Toronto in 2009 and 2011. It will play two games, one regular season and one preseason, in Toronto in both 2010 and 2012.

It's hard to determine how much more profit the Bills will make from the games in Toronto. Ticket money from general seating in an NFL stadium is shared. Revenue from club seats, luxury boxes, concessions, parking and other income is not shared. It's believed that in approving the Bills' shift of games to Canada, the league approved some formula, based on percentages, for determining how much of the Bills' take is to be considered shared and how much is unshared revenue.

mgaughan@buffnews.com

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Bills getting $78 million for eight games in Toronto