WGRZ.com: Bills will not participate in the new blackout rule at all

[Skooby]

No ticky, no washy:

http://orchardpark.wgrz.com/news/news/67624-report-bills-will-not-participate-new-blackout-rules

http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/bills-nfl/article946089.ece

[PTI]

Well, Western New Yorkers not at the December home games, hope you like radio!!! Or you can maybe log in to my Atlanta NFL Sunday Ticket account!!!!

You actually can get Sunday Ticket online and it will work when there are blackouts, I visited Buffalo last year when there was a black out and logged in to my Sunday Ticket online and hooke dit up to the TV and we had the game.

[stuckincincy]

Well, Western New Yorkers not at the December home games, hope you like radio!!! Or you can maybe log in to my Atlanta NFL Sunday Ticket account!!!!

You actually can get Sunday Ticket online and it will work when there are blackouts, I visited Buffalo last year when there was a black out and logged in to my Sunday Ticket online and hooked it up to the TV and we had the game.

Listening to a game on the radio isn't exactly like The End of The Universe. And I've long used CBS Sports' "Game Tracker" to "watch" BUF games. Give it a try - as you watch stats and play selections mount, you get a different perspective re the evolving strategies of the combatants, a feeling for the flow of the contest.

I generally invoke multiple tabs to keep an eye on division rivals. Give it a try.

:cool:

[Typ0]

Well, Western New Yorkers not at the December home games, hope you like radio!!! Or you can maybe log in to my Atlanta NFL Sunday Ticket account!!!!

You actually can get Sunday Ticket online and it will work when there are blackouts, I visited Buffalo last year when there was a black out and logged in to my Sunday Ticket online and hooke dit up to the TV and we had the game.


Your account goes by home zip code not GPS location though.

This whole thing just tells the story of how RW feels about the fans and his words don't hold water. He blows smoke up our asses just to manipulate us but he could give a rats ass about anything other than maximizing his lined pockets. No one would care and buy all the tickets in the world if he would field a decent team.

[SquishDaFish]

One of the cheapest sports tix prices. Everyone should be there

[stuckincincy]

One of the cheapest sports tix prices. Everyone should be there

Right...90+ decibels crushing your ears, fat parking fees, 5 buck beers, standing in the stands for hours, getting your footwear flooded with urine, vomit spewing, filthy language and physical threats at a moment's notice, thousands of drunk drivers spilling out onto the roadways, folks shoving 4 dollar hot dogs past the lips while watching multi-millionaires tweet and cavort, warp a kid for life if you brought one to witness the mayhem, etc. Then wondering when your county of residence will go bankrupt due to stadium bond obligations while the police and fire departments disappear because of the debt service.

I say they double the tix price - those that want the "experience", pay for it.

[PTI]

IK think they should charge twice as much for parking and make people take busses to the game from places in town so there are less people driving drunk.

The game day experience is still fun, I have to fly in for at least one game every year and also attend some Falcons games and sometimes Bills games in other cities.

[X-Era]

No one should be surprised by this. This is a regional team that relies on it's fans from outside of Buffalo to keep the team viable. When such a large percentage of fans is from outside Buffalo, they risk losing huge profits if they ease the blackout rule.

I'm 3 hours away and it sucks sometimes... But I'm not at all surprised by this.

[Skooby]

Right...90+ decibels crushing your ears, fat parking fees, 5 buck beers, standing in the stands for hours, getting your footwear flooded with urine, vomit spewing, filthy language and physical threats at a moment's notice, thousands of drunk drivers spilling out onto the roadways, folks shoving 4 dollar hot dogs past the lips while watching multi-millionaires tweet and cavort, warp a kid for life if you brought one to witness the mayhem, etc. Then wondering when your county of residence will go bankrupt due to stadium bond obligations while the police and fire departments disappear because of the debt service.

I say they double the tix price - those that want the "experience", pay for it.

Lol, you must be a ball at the Christmas party.

[bluerosekiller]

Yeah, it was the smart to to do fiscally, but the wrong thing to do morally IMO.
Wilson has banked countless millions from this area & it's loyal Bills fans for half a century now. And he can't give a token bit back by adopting the 85% rule?
Hell, it's not like it would come into effect for use until a couple of games late in the season - during the holidays - anyhow. The rest of the games normally sell out, until the working class people here have to make a choice between tickets to the game or gifts for their families, that is.
Way to go you greedy old bastard Ralph. I hope you choke on that little bit extra that you get in ticket sales from each game due to your refusal to adopt the 85% clause.
Let's see if you can take it to hell with you.

[X-Era]

CB on BB.com said that since 2010 there have only been 6 blackouts and only 1 of those would apply to this rule. So how much of a difference is it really?

Again, it sucks though for some of us that are 3 hours away.

I just can understand it from their perspective and it's not like they're taking something away. They're just not giving us something new.

[YardRat]

Good call...considering some of the financial ramifications of setting the 85%, I don't blame the team one bit for sticking with the status quo.

[BLeonard]

CB on BB.com said that since 2010 there have only been 6 blackouts and only 1 of those would apply to this rule. So how much of a difference is it really?

Again, it sucks though for some of us that are 3 hours away.

I just can understand it from their perspective and it's not like they're taking something away. They're just not giving us something new.

The bolded is the key...

What that means is, even if the Bills had adopted the 85% rule, 5 of the past 6 blackouts would have STILL been blacked out...

Meanwhile, for all of the games that sold out, the Bills would have to split 15% of the ticket revenue with the visiting team... That's a considerable amout of money to give up to only get one of the six games that were blacked out...

If the sales were consistently in the 90%-95% range for those blackouts, I would be more angered by this, because under that scenario, the blackouts would have been lifted. But, when 83.3% of the blackouts were going to be blacked out regardless, it's hard to blame the Bills for not adopting the rule.

Personally, I don't think that ANY GAMES should be blacked out, ESPECIALLY given the fact that they use taxpayer money to fund the stadiums... But, the league didn't give the Bills the option of doing away with blackouts completely.

Given the choices they had, the Bills made the right decision... And, I haven't said that too often in the past decade.

-Bill

[Meathead]

yeah based on the way its been set up they had little choice. i would have liked to see them set it at 95%, which they could have done and then only lost half the ticket sales above that to the new sharing rule, but i can also see why they didnt

now that we have had a chance to think through this new rule a little i think its safe to say this was more of a public relations stunt than a real policy that would help show any games. id be surprised if any of the teams go for it

[BLeonard]

yeah based on the way its been set up they had little choice. i would have liked to see them set it at 95%, which they could have done and then only lost half the ticket sales above that to the new sharing rule, but i can also see why they didnt

now that we have had a chance to think through this new rule a little i think its safe to say this was more of a public relations stunt than a real policy that would help show any games. id be surprised if any of the teams go for it

So far, only Tampa Bay has decided to drop to 85%: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82a89440/article/tampa-bay-buccaneers-ease-nfl-blackout-level-for-12

Keep in mind, the Buccaneers' owner owns another football team, some team called Manchester United...

Jacksonville has also declined: http://www.bigcatcountry.com/2012/7/13/3158085/nfl-blackout-rule-jacksonville-jaguars

-Bill

[BertSquirtgum]

I don't understand why some scum bags are mad that the Bills aren't participating. I wouldn't either if I was the Bills. What incentive would it give people to buy tickets if the games were virtually guaranteed to be on the tv.

[BertSquirtgum]

Right...90+ decibels crushing your ears, Seriously? No fat parking fees Plenty of cheap parking around the stadium, 5 buck beers No one is making you buy beer, standing in the stands for hours I'm pretty sure they have seats, getting your footwear flooded with urine Do you piss on yourself?, vomit spewing Never seen this yet but I'm sure it happens, filthy language and physical threats at a moment's notice This happens everywhere, everyday, thousands of drunk drivers spilling out onto the roadways Prove it, we always have a DD and we are alcoholics, folks shoving 4 dollar hot dogs past the lips while watching multi-millionaires tweet and cavort What?, warp a kid for life if you brought one to witness the mayhem Pay the money for the family section if your so worried about scarring a kid for life, etc. Then wondering when your county of residence will go bankrupt due to stadium bond obligations while the police and fire departments disappear because of the debt service.

I say they double the tix price - those that want the "experience", pay for it.

I have to say this is the dumbest post I have ever read on here.

[X-Era]

So far, only Tampa Bay has decided to drop to 85%: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82a89440/article/tampa-bay-buccaneers-ease-nfl-blackout-level-for-12

Keep in mind, the Buccaneers' owner owns another football team, some team called Manchester United...

Jacksonville has also declined: http://www.bigcatcountry.com/2012/7/13/3158085/nfl-blackout-rule-jacksonville-jaguars

-BillSo my thought on this is that Tampa doesn't rely much on fans making a long trek... So it can afford to give those people a break without drastically impacting the number of fanny's in the seats... The 85% rule doesn't affect the number of fans who will go since the fan base is mainly from right around the area and will go to the stadium since it's close to them.

Jacksonville, if I'm not mistaken, is one the largest cities in the U.S. by square miles... So, their fan base is spread out and fans who get blacked out may have a long haul to go to watch it. Jax, who stinks anyways, can't afford to give a large portion of their fan base who might make the trek incentive to just stay home.

[X-Era]

Right...90+ decibels crushing your ears, fat parking fees, 5 buck beers, standing in the stands for hours, getting your footwear flooded with urine, vomit spewing, filthy language and physical threats at a moment's notice, thousands of drunk drivers spilling out onto the roadways, folks shoving 4 dollar hot dogs past the lips while watching multi-millionaires tweet and cavort, warp a kid for life if you brought one to witness the mayhem, etc. Then wondering when your county of residence will go bankrupt due to stadium bond obligations while the police and fire departments disappear because of the debt service.

I say they double the tix price - those that want the "experience", pay for it.This is an irrelevant argument because it's like that for every single team in the NFL (minus the local economics).

[Skooby]

This is an irrelevant argument because it's like that for every single team in the NFL (minus the local economics).

Just double the price in every major city.

[Extremebillsfan247]

No ticky, no washy:

http://orchardpark.wgrz.com/news/news/67624-report-bills-will-not-participate-new-blackout-rules

http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/bills-nfl/article946089.ece Not surprising in the least. Anyone who didn't expect this, doesn't know the teams situation. The Bills can't afford to lift the blackout rule. They struggled to get tickets sold even with the blackout rule enforcement. Lifting it, would be disastrous on this team's part. This isn't the Dallas Cowboys who could afford a few empty seats here and there. They are not at risk of being moved to another city like this team is. The Bills need all the help getting fans in the seats that they can get. Just my opinion.

[DraftBoy]

Its the right decision for this team.

[Typ0]

I would like to know how many people actually go to the game who wouldn't if it were on TV. They act like they blackout the games it's going to cause ticket sales but those games remain sold out. I think it's a load of crap and making the games available gets people into the team more and makes them want to go to more games not less. They are idiots. Human psychology tells me what I am saying is true and it's been tested in other industries. This whole blackout BS is a way for larger market teams to punish the smaller market teams and also to perpetuate idiot stupid dumb ass anchient owners like RW.

[OpIv37]

I would like to know how many people actually go to the game who wouldn't if it were on TV. They act like they blackout the games it's going to cause ticket sales but those games remain sold out. I think it's a load of crap and making the games available gets people into the team more and makes them want to go to more games not less. They are idiots. Human psychology tells me what I am saying is true and it's been tested in other industries. This whole blackout BS is a way for larger market teams to punish the smaller market teams and also to perpetuate idiot stupid dumb ass anchient owners like RW.

It's also asinine as such a small percentage of revenue comes from gate receipts and concession sales. If 10k or 15k seats go unsold, the lost ticket and concession revenue pales in comparison to what they get from TV contracts, corporate partnerships, luxury boxes, etc.

If a significant portion of their revenue came from tickets and concessions, then MAYBE I could understand the blackouts because it would basically be an economic necessity. But that's simply not the case- the extra revenue is just icing on the cake.

[Typ0]

The thing that bothers me the most is they think we are stupid and they need to grow up. The more games that are on TV the more fans there are going to be plain and simple. Especially kids and those young minds are bigger or smaller lifetime values in the making. If they didn't think we were stupid consumers and weren't so disrespectful towards us you can bet I would STILL be a season ticket holder...

[BertSquirtgum]

Don't worry you cry babies. We will buy tickets so you can watch your precious Bills on tv.

[bluerosekiller]

Don't worry you cry babies. We will buy tickets so you can watch your precious Bills on tv.

Oh, by all means, THANK YOU kind sir for your precious crumbs.
How will all the rest of us unfortunates who toil for meager wages each day & can not afford season tickets ever be able to repay your generosity?
F**king one percenter wannabe *****.

[BertSquirtgum]

Oh, by all means, THANK YOU kind sir for your precious crumbs.
How will all the rest of us unfortunates who toil for meager wages each day & can not afford season tickets ever be able to repay your generosity?
F**king one percenter wannabe *****.

Don't worry you cry baby. We will buy tickets so you can watch your precious Bills on tv.

[MikeInRoch]

I have to say this is the dumbest post I have ever read on here.

I'm sure we can find a bunch of ones that are dumber.

The fact is that there are many unpleasant things about going to a game - not the least of which is obnoxious fans who are only there to drink and be rowdy.

[YardRat]

I got over the 'it's so much better live' a long time ago.

[BertSquirtgum]

I'm sure we can find a bunch of ones that are dumber.

The fact is that there are many unpleasant things about going to a game - not the least of which is obnoxious fans who are only there to drink and be rowdy.

I agree that drunk rowdy fans are the worst and very annoying.

[BertSquirtgum]

I got over the 'it's so much better live' a long time ago.

It is so much better live when they are playing well and winning. Nothing is close to the energy you feel inside that stadium.

[zone]

Does anyone think it really matters? If this team stays healthy and lives up to it's potential they will be winning games and no one will have to worry about a blackout. In fact if you don't have tickets and want to go to the game you will be paying a premium this December because there will not be any tickets.

[BertSquirtgum]

Go Bills