This should be a time when the Canadian Football League is looking forward to the 2012 Grey Cup, the the 100th edition of the game, to be played at Rogers Centre in Toronto, but there is a sobering bit of reality tempering all the euphoria.

Once again Toronto Argonauts’ future at Rogers Centre is uncertain. This is not a new story. It pops up like a weed; it goes away and then comes back up again.

The recent revelation that the Toronto Blue Jays—who like the stadium they play in are owned by Rogers Communications—are seriously considering going to a permanent natural grass field sometime after 2012 in place of the current Astro Turf surface puts the Argos in jeopardy of having to find a new home.

The Argos have been able to play at Rogers Centre since it opened in 1989 when it was known as SkyDome because the field—and more importantly some of the seats—could be reconfigured for football.

At last month’s state of the franchise event for Blue Jays season ticket holders, team president and Rogers Centre CEO Paul Beeston said it is possible to sustain a grass field but it would mean not reconfiguring any seats for the duration of the baseball season.

But whether or not the Blue Jays go to real grass—and improved player safety and aesthetics are just two reasons to make the change—the reality is the Argos would still need a new home, if only to call their own and preferably one configured for football.

This has been an issue for some time and there have been occasions when the previous ownership examined alternate sites, but ultimately, they were either prevented from doing so by municipal resistance or by their own reluctance to pay the cost of building a stadium that would have limited usage.

In the end, it was decided to stick with the status quo.

While money was saved, it still didn’t solve the basic problem that the Argos are badly in need of a more intimate stadium, one that has a maximum capacity of 25,000-30,000 and is built for football.

Current Argos owner, Senator David Braley, has generously supported the CFL behind the scenes, keeping franchises afloat through his own benevolence. The man has deep pockets and a huge heart when it comes to Canadian football—It’s one of the reasons he currently owns the Argos and the B.C. Lions, effectively one-quarter of the teams in the CFL, for which he comes under criticism. But without Braley’s backing, one or both of the franchises might have gone under long ago.

Because of his political clout, Braley can perhaps make inroads to mount a rally and a case for money to be used for a new stadium.

But he can’t do it alone.

Toronto mayor Rob Ford is an avid football fan – even if some people think his leans more to the National Football League than the CFL – and this would be a great time for him to stand up and mount a campaign or at least make a statement in favour of a new stadium.

The federal government has said it doesn’t want to become involved in building sports stadiums, but the provinces and the municipalities can certainly join together, along with private funding. If Braley dug deep to put significant cash into building a new stadium, it would be his greatest legacy to the CFL, which is already indebted to him deeply.

There are also whispers he’s looking to pull out of ownership in three years when he turns 75.

It takes a year-to-18 months to build a stadium, so even if money was somehow pulled together today, where would the Argos play?

Could Rogers Centre still be a temporary solution? If so, why would the Argos build a new home? It’s kind of like chasing their tail.

Braley is doing all he can to prop up the Argos on and off the field after seemingly taking his eye off the football last year while his other team played host to and won the Grey Cup. After a 2011 season in which he saw the Argos take a step backwards and fail to make the playoffs, Braley wasted little time making key moves in both football and business operations.

The Argos may very well turn around their fortunes this year and perhaps make it to the Grey Cup. It would be a dream scenario. In 2007, the Argos came within one win of making it to the Grey Cup in their hometown, but stumbled in the East Division championship. The 2007 Grey Cup marked the first time the Grey Cup had been played in Toronto for 15 years. The CFL always planned to play the 100th Grey Cup in Toronto in 2012 with a back-to-the-future ideology.

It was decided last year to take the Cup on a tour of Canada in 2012 to emphasize that even though the game will be played in Toronto, the trophy remains an iconic national symbol.

While the Cup certainly has value, the Argos don’t – at least not beyond their core audience. The Argos have long since lost their grip on Toronto, and there are many reasons why, but the stadium has been a key issue, no matter how often it has been deflected as an excuse.

It’s been proven in Montreal, for example, that an intimate stadium of 20,000-25,000 works far more than one twice that size.

So the time has come for somebody, either Braley, the mayor of Toronto, the province of Ontario or a combination of them to address the fact that the Argos finally need to have their own home.

This isn’t about real grass or artificial turf, it’s about building a permanent stadium for a football team and therefore deciding whether the Argos really matter.

Sadly, BMO Field, a stadium located near Rogers Centre and built a few years ago primarily for the MLS team owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, did not include a footprint for football.

MLSE paid $8 million towards the construction of the facility and $10 million for naming rights it later sold for almost three times that amount to the Bank of Montreal. The Argos didn’t have the financial resources or influence to make a case back when the building was being constructed to ensure it could be used for CFL purposes.

Feasibility studies of the site by the CFL a few years ago determined that even with modifications, the field could not be constructed to accommodate the length and width of the Canadian game.

The City of Toronto, which owns the land, should have had the foresight to see this long ago, but MLSE came to the table with money and a plan, which did not include the Argos or the CFL. It made sense at the time for MLSE, but it has hurt the Argos and the CFL in the long run, and to a certain extent the City of Toronto bears responsibility given all the Argos have done as a sporting entity.