Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

[Mitchy moo]

TORONTO - Communications mogul Ted Rogers says efforts to bring the NFL to Toronto are currently focused on having the Buffalo Bills play two games a year in the city and not on permanently relocating the franchise.
The president and CEO of Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI.B) and Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, are heading a group interested in landing an NFL team for Toronto and speculation has run wild since 89-year-old Bills owner Ralph Wilson announced the franchise would be sold to the highest bidder upon his death.
NFL fever turned up another notch last week when Wilson tabled a proposal at the NFL owners meetings for the Bills to play one exhibition game and one regular-season contest at the Rogers Centre from 2008 until 2012, when the Bills' lease expires at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ic3Uc1yY4EnbCLcn0YeGpPvRaofg

[Mitchy moo]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

Well you have to like this:

The NFL has said the plan is a "logical" and "necessary" step to further enhance the team's brand in southern Ontario and secure its long-term viability in western New York.

Home sweet home!!!!!!!!!!!

[acehole]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

Imagine that for a min....
The highest bidder.....
The highest bidder will pay a lot of money why?
To go crash to crap?
No! to build a winner!
I wish Ralph a ring before he passes but not if he isnt willing to do what it takes to get one.
I think the next owner(s) will want a return on thier investment.

Wow :"highest bidder" got to be at least 8-900 mil.

Welcome to "Gates" stadium.......I can dream cant I?

TORONTO - Communications mogul Ted Rogers says efforts to bring the NFL to Toronto are currently focused on having the Buffalo Bills play two games a year in the city and not on permanently relocating the franchise.
The president and CEO of Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI.B) and Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, are heading a group interested in landing an NFL team for Toronto and speculation has run wild since 89-year-old Bills owner Ralph Wilson announced the franchise would be sold to the highest bidder upon his death.
NFL fever turned up another notch last week when Wilson tabled a proposal at the NFL owners meetings for the Bills to play one exhibition game and one regular-season contest at the Rogers Centre from 2008 until 2012, when the Bills' lease expires at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

http://canadianpress.google.com/arti...cn0YeGpPvRaofg

[Mitchy moo]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

Imagine that for a min....
The highest bidder.....
The highest bidder will pay a lot of money why?
To go crash to crap?
No! to build a winner!
I wish Ralph a ring before he passes but not if he isnt willing to do what it takes to get one.
I think the next owner(s) will want a return on thier investment.

Wow :"highest bidder" got to be at least 8-900 mil.

Welcome to "Gates" stadium.......I can dream cant I?

He could afford to do this, without a problem. Paul and him can set up scrimmage games as well.

[Typ0]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

when did RW say the team was going to the highest bidder? I don't remember seeing anything about that. And this article states they are interested in buying the Bills they've already agreed to persue a strategy to make it happen:

""There are suggestions the move is the first step in an eventual relocation by Buffalo to the Southern Ontario market, talk Rogers seemed to cool, likely in attempt to avoid the perception his group was overtly trying to steal the Bills.

"If there is any followthrough from that, and there's nothing at all now, but if there is every any followthrough on an ownership basis, then Larry Tanenbaum and myself have agreed to work together to pursue that.""

Goobye to the Bills folks. Sorry to not be the eternal optimist but I've been saying it for years. $$ RW spends on this team is $$ that are taken directly from his estate and hence his family. That's why we have cheap coaches and crappy stadium policies. I find it very hard to believe anyone in this market is going to bid higher for this team than anyone in all the other markets on earth. Bye bye Bills.

[camelcowboy]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

when did RW say the team was going to the highest bidder? I don't remember seeing anything about that. And this article states they are interested in buying the Bills they've already agreed to persue a strategy to make it happen:

""There are suggestions the move is the first step in an eventual relocation by Buffalo to the Southern Ontario market, talk Rogers seemed to cool, likely in attempt to avoid the perception his group was overtly trying to steal the Bills.

"If there is any followthrough from that, and there's nothing at all now, but if there is every any followthrough on an ownership basis, then Larry Tanenbaum and myself have agreed to work together to pursue that.""

Goobye to the Bills folks. Sorry to not be the eternal optimist but I've been saying it for years. $$ RW spends on this team is $$ that are taken directly from his estate and hence his family. That's why we have cheap coaches and crappy stadium policies. I find it very hard to believe anyone in this market is going to bid higher for this team than anyone in all the other markets on earth. Bye bye Bills.

He went to the papers and said that he is not going to sell the team before he died. His family is not going to keep the team and it would go the highest bidder. It was in print i want to say earlier summer.

[camelcowboy]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

Our only ace in the sleeve is the fact that the Comish is a western New Yorker. Other then that it looks pretty grim.

[OpIv37]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

Losing two home games would suck but if it keeps the team viable and keeps them in Buffalo, it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

[Wys Guy]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

TORONTO - Communications mogul Ted Rogers says efforts to bring the NFL to Toronto are currently focused on having the Buffalo Bills play two games a year in the city and not on permanently relocating the franchise.
The president and CEO of Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI.B) and Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, are heading a group interested in landing an NFL team for Toronto and speculation has run wild since 89-year-old Bills owner Ralph Wilson announced the franchise would be sold to the highest bidder upon his death.
NFL fever turned up another notch last week when Wilson tabled a proposal at the NFL owners meetings for the Bills to play one exhibition game and one regular-season contest at the Rogers Centre from 2008 until 2012, when the Bills' lease expires at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

http://canadianpress.google.com/arti...cn0YeGpPvRaofg

The operative term in all of that is "currently" Skoob.

Rogers doesn't control the declining WNY economy either which is the determining factor in the mix here.

Currently that is their focus. In three years it will be a different focus, particularly if the team is embraced up there.

[Wys Guy]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

when did RW say the team was going to the highest bidder? I don't remember seeing anything about that. And this article states they are interested in buying the Bills they've already agreed to persue a strategy to make it happen:

""There are suggestions the move is the first step in an eventual relocation by Buffalo to the Southern Ontario market, talk Rogers seemed to cool, likely in attempt to avoid the perception his group was overtly trying to steal the Bills.

"If there is any followthrough from that, and there's nothing at all now, but if there is every any followthrough on an ownership basis, then Larry Tanenbaum and myself have agreed to work together to pursue that.""

Goobye to the Bills folks. Sorry to not be the eternal optimist but I've been saying it for years. $$ RW spends on this team is $$ that are taken directly from his estate and hence his family. That's why we have cheap coaches and crappy stadium policies. I find it very hard to believe anyone in this market is going to bid higher for this team than anyone in all the other markets on earth. Bye bye Bills.

Spot on.

[Saratoga Slim]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

Losing two home games would suck but if it keeps the team viable and keeps them in Buffalo, it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

The upside is if we can increase revenue through a plan like this over the next couple of years, then it will be more attractive for a new ownership group to keep the team in Buffalo when Ralphie dies--why move it and deal with the uncertainty of a new market if its doing well in Buffalo?

The downside is of course the chance that this is a step towards ingratiating the team in the Toronto market and making a future move easier. But if that's going to happen, it's going to happen whether or not we play a couple games up there over the next couple years. By that I mean that I don't think a potential Toronto ownership group would consider playing a few games up there as a prerequisite to moving the franchise.

Thus I tend to agree with you on this. It's a gamble, but the only sure way of keeping the Bills in Buffalo is making them more of a financial powerhouse. Hooking more southern Ontario fans might go a long way towards that, and I guess it's probably worth the gamble.

[Wys Guy]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

The upside is if we can increase revenue through a plan like this over the next couple of years, then it will be more attractive for a new ownership group to keep the team in Buffalo when Ralphie dies--why move it and deal with the uncertainty of a new market if its doing well in Buffalo?

The downside is of course the chance that this is a step towards ingratiating the team in the Toronto market and making a future move easier. But if that's going to happen, it's going to happen whether or not we play a couple games up there over the next couple years. By that I mean that I don't think a potential Toronto ownership group would consider playing a few games up there as a prerequisite to moving the franchise.

Thus I tend to agree with you on this. It's a gamble, but the only sure way of keeping the Bills in Buffalo is making them more of a financial powerhouse. Hooking more southern Ontario fans might go a long way towards that, and I guess it's probably worth the gamble.

Yeah, unfortunately that's all that we're left with is gambles and grasping at straws.

While this may solve some of the problems, it will also create some.

For instance, how will season ticket holders east of Buffalo/NF react to having to either miss two of the ten games that they've paid for or have to travel 4+ hours to get to them. Factor in a tripling of border traffic on game days from what it is coming this way and it merely complicates matters and lengthens the time for travel.

As I maintained back in 2001, when they were considering realignment, Wilson should have bent over backwards in demanding that the Bills be in a division with Pittsburgh and Cleveland. That may have been enough although I'd still be skeptical. But he absolutely had to have Miami even if the Bills and Miami were in a division all by themselves. Wilson had no vision then.

Frankly, having been in a division with Cleveland and Pittsburgh would have been quite a bit more exciting too IMO. Perhaps

[Wys Guy]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

The upside is if we can increase revenue through a plan like this over the next couple of years, then it will be more attractive for a new ownership group to keep the team in Buffalo when Ralphie dies--why move it and deal with the uncertainty of a new market if its doing well in Buffalo?

The downside is of course the chance that this is a step towards ingratiating the team in the Toronto market and making a future move easier. But if that's going to happen, it's going to happen whether or not we play a couple games up there over the next couple years. By that I mean that I don't think a potential Toronto ownership group would consider playing a few games up there as a prerequisite to moving the franchise.

Thus I tend to agree with you on this. It's a gamble, but the only sure way of keeping the Bills in Buffalo is making them more of a financial powerhouse. Hooking more southern Ontario fans might go a long way towards that, and I guess it's probably worth the gamble.

Yeah, unfortunately that's all that we're left with is gambles and grasping at straws.

While this may solve some of the problems, it will also create some.

For instance, how will season ticket holders east of Buffalo/NF react to having to either miss two of the ten games that they've paid for or have to travel 4+ hours to get to them. Factor in a tripling of border traffic on game days from what it is coming this way and it merely complicates matters and lengthens the time for travel.

As I maintained back in 2001, when they were considering realignment, Wilson should have bent over backwards in demanding that the Bills be in a division with Pittsburgh and Cleveland. That may have been enough although I'd still be skeptical. But he absolutely had to have Miami even if the Bills and Miami were in a division all by themselves. Wilson had no vision then.

Frankly, having been in a division with Cleveland and Pittsburgh would have been quite a bit more exciting too IMO. Perhaps w/ Baltimore and in place of Cincy who easily could have moved to another division.

[Typ0]

Re: Rogers says 'active file' is for sharing games with Bills, not buying team

if they take two regular season games and make the WNY peole pay for two pre-season games (or maybe even three) they are in for a big awakening that's for sure. But that works both ways too...if they take a pre-season game that wold be a bonus.

Yeah, unfortunately that's all that we're left with is gambles and grasping at straws.

While this may solve some of the problems, it will also create some.

For instance, how will season ticket holders east of Buffalo/NF react to having to either miss two of the ten games that they've paid for or have to travel 4+ hours to get to them. Factor in a tripling of border traffic on game days from what it is coming this way and it merely complicates matters and lengthens the time for travel.

As I maintained back in 2001, when they were considering realignment, Wilson should have bent over backwards in demanding that the Bills be in a division with Pittsburgh and Cleveland. That may have been enough although I'd still be skeptical. But he absolutely had to have Miami even if the Bills and Miami were in a division all by themselves. Wilson had no vision then.

Frankly, having been in a division with Cleveland and Pittsburgh would have been quite a bit more exciting too IMO. Perhaps w/ Baltimore and in place of Cincy who easily could have moved to another division.