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If the Buffalo Bills were for sale, would you be interested in buying the team? The answer is worth noting.
The reply from Jacobs, the billionaire chairman of Buffalo-based Delaware North Cos., was affirmative.
"It would be something I might be interested in," Jacobs said. "I think it is a great product."
Jacobs knows sports products, and he already owns one - the National Hockey League's Boston Bruins - which in itself would be a major deterrent to his buying the Bills. NFL rules prohibit those who own a major sports franchise in an NFL city from buying a football team in another city. Thus, because the Boston region is already home to football's New England Patriots, NFL rules don't allow the Bills to be sold to Jacobs. And he isn't selling the Bruins.
"The NFL would have to change its rules," Jacobs said.
However, those same rules would allow B. Thomas Golisano, the owner of the Buffalo Sabres and another wealthy businessman, to purchase the Bills.
But as Jacobs and Golisano - who has also acknowledged his potential interest in the Bills - point out, the football team is not for sale. It remains in the control of its healthy and active 88-year-old founder, Ralph Wilson Jr. Talk of the Bills' future is fueled only by Wilson's age and his recently stated intentions to keep the team for as long as he lives. Only after Wilson dies will his family sell the team, and that's when talk of the team's future in Buffalo will switch into high gear.
Many hope that an upstate New Yorker such as Jacobs, Golisano or Rich Products Corp. Chairman Robert Rich Jr. will buy the team, recently valued by Forbes at $627 million, and keep it here. Beyond any emotional ties he might feel as a Western New Yorker, Jacobs has a practical reason to want the Bills here: His Delaware North Sportservice subsidiary handles concessions at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
The reply from Jacobs, the billionaire chairman of Buffalo-based Delaware North Cos., was affirmative.
"It would be something I might be interested in," Jacobs said. "I think it is a great product."
Jacobs knows sports products, and he already owns one - the National Hockey League's Boston Bruins - which in itself would be a major deterrent to his buying the Bills. NFL rules prohibit those who own a major sports franchise in an NFL city from buying a football team in another city. Thus, because the Boston region is already home to football's New England Patriots, NFL rules don't allow the Bills to be sold to Jacobs. And he isn't selling the Bruins.
"The NFL would have to change its rules," Jacobs said.
However, those same rules would allow B. Thomas Golisano, the owner of the Buffalo Sabres and another wealthy businessman, to purchase the Bills.
But as Jacobs and Golisano - who has also acknowledged his potential interest in the Bills - point out, the football team is not for sale. It remains in the control of its healthy and active 88-year-old founder, Ralph Wilson Jr. Talk of the Bills' future is fueled only by Wilson's age and his recently stated intentions to keep the team for as long as he lives. Only after Wilson dies will his family sell the team, and that's when talk of the team's future in Buffalo will switch into high gear.
Many hope that an upstate New Yorker such as Jacobs, Golisano or Rich Products Corp. Chairman Robert Rich Jr. will buy the team, recently valued by Forbes at $627 million, and keep it here. Beyond any emotional ties he might feel as a Western New Yorker, Jacobs has a practical reason to want the Bills here: His Delaware North Sportservice subsidiary handles concessions at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
:sarcasm off:
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