Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

[Uncle Jesse]

16,000 tickets left for this one....Mike Rodak of ESPN reports, and that the game will be blacked out.

http://espn.go.com/blog/buffalo-bills/post/_/id/5369/report-bills-dolphins-game-blacked-out

[stuckincincy]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

I recently learned that an owner can buy up tix at 34% of face value to avoid a blackout.

[BuffRanger]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

Russ Brandon is driving this franchise even deeper into the ground. What a ****up.

[Guest]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

We have known this one would be for a while.

No big charitable move by Ralph to buy the tickets and give them to away in some fashion?

[TacklingDummy]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

Shocker, next year our last home game will be against New England. They are more of a rivalry now than Miami which should cause the last game to sell more tickets seeing how the Bills probably will have 5 or 6 wins going into that game.

[sukie]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

Is the anger above because of the blackout? The fact the owner won't buy up the fanless seats? or the crappy product makin fans stay home? or the apathy of Bills fans ?, or the old man smell of mothballs, tooth plaque and urine coming from the owner's box?, or the fact that a sellout in JAX worth of tix still remain?

[Ed]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

If the Bills had beaten Atlanta and Tampa they would be in position to take the 6th seed with a win over Miami since they would hold head to head tie-breakers over both Miami and Baltimore. I bet they wouldn't have had any issues selling out the game under that scenario. It wouldn't take much for this team to be able to sell a lot more tickets fairly easily.

[black N yellow]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

this situation aside, the entire blackout rule is a crock of ****.

[Historian]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

this situation aside, the entire blackout rule is a crock of ****.

Brian Higgins, our Congressman sent a letter to Goodell a few weeks ago requesting an end to blackouts.

I don't know how far it will go, but the logic is, in essence, that blackouts really have become moot in the day and age of 500 channels and sports subsidies.

[Historian]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

http://higgins.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/higgins-calls-for-end-to-nfl-blackout-policy

[better days]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

Well, I expect many more fans at this game in Buffalo than the amount of fans that were in Jax on a cool day last Sunday.

If you live in the Buffalo Area & you want to see the game, go to it.

[G Wolly]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

If you live in the Buffalo Area & you want to see the game, go to it.

Perfect reiteration of the blackout rule.

[Guest]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

I recently learned that an owner can buy up tix at 34% of face value to avoid a blackout.

OK, let's do some math...

The 2013 average per game price for a non-premium individual game ticket is $74.51 .

Assuming another 1,000 get sold before Thursday leaving 15,000 tickets left.

$74.51 * 15,000 * 34% = $380,000.

The Bills must lose some local TV advertising if the game is blacked out.

The 15,000 used tickets will generate additional concession sales and parking lot sales.

If the Bills give the tickets to a charity, they may also get a tax write-off at the face value rather than the 34%.

In other words, it would seem to be cheap advertising for the Bills needing to sell tickets next year and future years to simply buy these tickets to remove the black out. After all, as Russ said they manufactured all of the sell outs this year except one or two games.

Ralph won't do it on principle. He voted against lowering the % of tickets needing to be sold to lift a blackout.

Why?

Because Ralph Wilson believes in his mind that he is THE pioneer that created the AFL and he should make as much money as teams in Dallas, Washington and New York. He resents the City of Buffalo and always has.

He did not move the team because he missed his window to do it before the Superbowl years and at an older age did not have the energy to go through the hassle of moving them after the Superbowl years. That plus not too many cities wanted him with his poor record from 1960 - 1990.

Not lifting the blackout is Ralph's way of saying FU to the City of Buffalo -- "those ungrateful losers of a city".

[BillsFever21]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

No real big surprise here. We've had trouble selling out games all season and there wasn't a chance this one would with a 5-9 record the weekend before Christmas.

We bring in a new coaching staff and a 1st round rookie QB and we still can't legitimately sell out most of our games. That is usually the thing to spur ticket sales. The only thing that will work is winning. We start winning and we will have better ticket sales once again. Each year the average fan is finding it a waste of money to spend hundreds of dollars to attend a game to watch a losing team.

[DolfanTom]

Re: Bills/Dolphins game will be blacked out

OK, let's do some math...

The 2013 average per game price for a non-premium individual game ticket is $74.51 .

Assuming another 1,000 get sold before Thursday leaving 15,000 tickets left.

$74.51 * 15,000 * 34% = $380,000.

The Bills must lose some local TV advertising if the game is blacked out.

The 15,000 used tickets will generate additional concession sales and parking lot sales.

If the Bills give the tickets to a charity, they may also get a tax write-off at the face value rather than the 34%.

In other words, it would seem to be cheap advertising for the Bills needing to sell tickets next year and future years to simply buy these tickets to remove the black out. After all, as Russ said they manufactured all of the sell outs this year except one or two games.

Ralph won't do it on principle. He voted against lowering the % of tickets needing to be sold to lift a blackout.

Why?

Because Ralph Wilson believes in his mind that he is THE pioneer that created the AFL and he should make as much money as teams in Dallas, Washington and New York. He resents the City of Buffalo and always has.

He did not move the team because he missed his window to do it before the Superbowl years and at an older age did not have the energy to go through the hassle of moving them after the Superbowl years. That plus not too many cities wanted him with his poor record from 1960 - 1990.

Not lifting the blackout is Ralph's way of saying FU to the City of Buffalo -- "those ungrateful losers of a city".

I highly doubt he did in the early 90's.