Bills first three Regular Season games sold out

[BLeonard]

http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-1/Bills-Titans-October-21-game-sells-out/2ada9b48-74aa-4def-9e78-b62f29ce33ac



The Buffalo Bills announced that tickets for the Sunday, October 21 home game vs. the Tennessee Titans are sold out. With this announcement the first three regular season home games are now sold out. Tickets still remain for the prime time Thursday night game vs. Miami, as well as Jacksonville, St. Louis, and the New York Jets. Club seats are available for all remaining home games.

The Buffalo Bills also announced that they have sold 43,267 season tickets for the 2012 season. The 43,267 season tickets sold mark a sales increase of over 15% from 2011. “Season ticket holders continue to be the building blocks of our franchise.” said Russ Brandon, Chief Executive Officer. “A strong season ticket base is the ultimate home field advantage.”


This is why the Bills didn't participate in the reduced blackout rule... If they had, as much as 15% of the home team's money for the first three games would be going to the visiting teams instead of the Bills.

-Bill

[better days]

http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-1/Bills-Titans-October-21-game-sells-out/2ada9b48-74aa-4def-9e78-b62f29ce33ac



This is why the Bills didn't participate in the reduced blackout rule... If they had, as much as 15% of the home team's money for the first three games would be going to the visiting teams instead of the Bills.

-Bill

Yeah, The NFL's new blackout rule is pure BS. It should be 85% sold PERIOD. Without the home team having to pay the visiting team extra.

[Skooby]

Yeah, The NFL's new blackout rule is pure BS. It should be 85% sold PERIOD. Without the home team having to pay the visiting team extra.

The blackout rule is not a fan favorite, that's for sure.

[better days]

The blackout rule is not a fan favorite, that's for sure.

When it was started, it made sense because the gate was the Lions share of the profit the NFL made, today, far more money is made from TV than the gate so it makes no sense at all.

[Meathead]

This is why the Bills didn't participate in the reduced blackout rule... If they had, as much as 15% of the home team's money for the first three games would be going to the visiting teams instead of the Bills.


the increase in money shared only applies to the difference between what a team decides its blackout allowance is and what they actually sell

ie. if they chose 90% as their blackout limit and they sold 95% of the seats they share more of the 5% above their blackout allowance

so the money the bills share for the first three games (or any sell outs) would not change not matter what they may have set their blackout allowance to

[Meathead]

thats why i said i was hoping theyd make the allowance 95% because that would ensure any nearly sold out games would be televised and not require some company or ralph to buy up the tix before the blackout deadline, while costing the bills a measley few dollars max in additional shared revenue if they ended up selling out and nothing if they didnt

[better days]

the increase in money shared only applies to the difference between what a team decides its blackout allowance is and what they actually sell

ie. if they chose 90% as their blackout limit and they sold 95% of the seats they share more of the 5% above their blackout allowance

so the money the bills share for the first three games (or any sell outs) would not change not matter what they may have set their blackout allowance to

My understanding is if the Bills chose the 85% option, for any seats sold above that 85% number the Bills would have to pay an additional amount more to the visiting team than they do now.

[BLeonard]

My understanding is if the Bills chose the 85% option, for any seats sold above that 85% number the Bills would have to pay an additional amount more to the visiting team than they do now.

This is correct, which is why I said "as much as 15%." 15% would have been if they had lowered all the way to 85%...

Meat, the problem is, setting it to 95% (as you wanted) wouldn't have made a difference: http://www.buffalobills101.com/2012/07/13/buffalo-bills-decide-not-to-lower-blackout-threshold-below-100-percent/



The new threshold wold not have even helped much lately. The Bills have had six blackouts the past two seasons. Only one of those games – last year's home game against the Miami Dolphins – would even have fallen within the 85 percent threshold.


Meaning, the games that didn't sell out, weren't even within the 85% mark... Meaning it would have been a blackout even if the Bills lowered it all the way to 85%... Meanwhile, on the games that they DO sell out, they'd have been splitting the percentage of the revenue 50/50 with the visiting team...

The way I worded it in my first post was a bit confusing, I admit. But, lowering the blackout percentage wouldn't have been smart regardless... History shows that Bills games are either sold out, or they fall below the 85% minimum. If a large chnk of those games had sold at 90-95%, I could see a reason for it. But, since they didn't, there was no reason to lower it and, as a result, have to give visiting teams more cash on the games that they do sell out.

IMO, the new blackout rule was made to try and make nice with the FCC, who was looking into getting rid of the blackout rules altogether. In reality, though, it doesn't really help many teams keep their games on local TV, without sacrificing ticket revenue, which is a bad thing for small market teams.

-Bill

[Meathead]

i see i wasnt clear on my explanation

i thought that if games sold out before the deadline there was no difference in shared revenue. so specifically, only the seats sold after the blackout deadline would be shared at a higher rate. if that is not correct then most of my previous post is invalid

but the 95% suggestion would remain even if my assumption was wrong. i know it wouldnt have made a difference last season, but it would make a big difference in a more successful season during the late december games that often come close without selling out before the blackout deadline. i thought it was a nice compromise that would benefit the team and the fans, but ralph wouldnt take my call

[Meathead]

btw - quite frankly i think that 50/50 penalty was a ruse by the league. they could say that they tried to improve the flexibility of the blackout policy, while realizing full well that most teams would opt out to avoid the penalty. why in the world would you impose a penalty on the home team when it is in everybodys interest to sell more tickets? it doesnt really make sense except as an intentional sabotage

[BLeonard]

i see i wasnt clear on my explanation

i thought that if games sold out before the deadline there was no difference in shared revenue. so specifically, only the seats sold after the blackout deadline would be shared at a higher rate. if that is not correct then most of my previous post is invalid


No, if you set your blackout number at 85%, anytime you sell more than 85%, you have to split the remaining ticket revenue 50/50 with the visiting team.

Which means your 95% suggestion, the Bills would now be splitting 5% of the ticket sales 50/50 with the Chiefs, Patriots and Titans, along with any other game that sells out along the way.

Problem is, if they don't hit your 95% sellout number, the game STILL gets blacked out. Again, only 1 in 6 of the games over the past 2 years even came within the 85% mark and my guess is, even that game wasn't above your 95%, so that game would have been blacked out, too.

RWS capacity is 73,967... So, 5% is just under 3700... The cheapest individual game ticket is $45... So, even if all of the remaining seats are in the Rockpile at $45, that's $166,500 in tickets. 34% (Normal visiting team cut) would be $56,510... 50% is $83,250 for a difference of $26,740.

With the first three games being sellouts and the Toronto game, the Bills would already have lost $106,960... For each additional sellout they would lose another $26,740... That's a pretty steep price to pay when none of your blackouts would be lifted anyway.

-Bill

[BLeonard]

btw - quite frankly i think that 50/50 penalty was a ruse by the league. they could say that they tried to improve the flexibility of the blackout policy, while realizing full well that most teams would opt out to avoid the penalty. why in the world would you impose a penalty on the home team when it is in everybodys interest to sell more tickets? it doesnt really make sense except as an intentional sabotage

Like I said, IMO, it was to say to the FCC "Hey, the teams have options to get the blackout lifted by only selling 85% of the tickets," while the NFL knew full well that it would benefit very few teams.

-Bill

[stuckincincy]

Tv revenue is shared equally among the 32 clubs. AFAIK, only MIN and MIA have opted in. Which makes me wonder if "side deals" can exist between clubs and local broadcasters, outside the NFL's aegis.

[Meathead]

well yeah if its all the revenue above the blackout allowance regardless of when the tix sell then hell no there isnt a team that would agree to that

have any teams decided to take the nfl up on that? i could see maybe teams that almost never sell out like jacksonville but any team that sells out even a third of their games would be crazy to do it

- - - Updated - - -


AFAIK, only MIN and MIA have opted in.

wonder if theres any others

[kishoph]

I think the games that have a chance to be blacked out are the 3 in December vs. Jax. the Rams and the Jets, unless the Bills are playoff bound or in a race for the playoffs. The schedulers giving the Bills 4 home games (the game vs. the Seahawks is at the Rogers Certre) in December doesn't bode well for attendance, but it is nice to have 4 home games at the end of the schedule and having 2 warm weather teams have to come to the Ralph during the Winter.