RALPH VOTED AGAINST DEAL

[Bill Brasky]

NFL owners have approved a six-year extension of the collective bargaining agreement by a vote of 30-2 Wednesday night.

Buffalo and Cincinnati were the two teams to vote against the proposal, according to ESPN's Chris Mortensen.

Wonder what this all means....

on a side note, any way we could ban skooby from posting while the site is being updated.

[Nublar7]

HAHAHAH! What a loser. A new CBA and it screws over Ralph Wilson. What a night! :D

[TheWingHead]

Ya, i just saw that! So did Cinci! I thought we needed this! Both of us are low revenue!!

[T-Long]

i wonder what Ralph is gonna say....and why he voted against it...must not have been enough revenue sharing for his liking

[LtFinFan66]

Why the hell would 2 small market teams vote against the deal?? That makes no sense

[OpIv37]

The two small market teams didn't get the degree of revenue sharing that they wanted.

But it's all political- they knew they didn't have a choice, they knew they couldn't stop the deal so they opposed it just to make a point.

[ILOVEMIBILLS]

Apparently, the new revenue sharing deal involves the large market teams giving around 10% of local revenue back to the league for sharing, while smaller market teams might have to give as much as 50% of local revenue, meaning it just became that much harder for the Bills to operate in Buffalo.

[patmoran2006]

This deal is VERY bad for the future of football in Buffalo.. You will see as details become more available

[LtFinFan66]

I don't have a firm grasp on this whole revenue sharing deal. I hope the Bills stay there though for your sake!

[Turf]

You know what I like? Is having one hand tied behind your back and kicking everyone's ass. It makes it all the much sweeter. Go Bills!

[kgun12]

I just think it happened to fast for Ralph, hopefully as facts come out it will be ok.

[bledslow]

ralph is big time challenged.he had no clue what was going on in there(LITERALLY). almost felt bad for the guy.he was interviewed after the deal was done,and he should never talk in public again.jim kelly qb'ing in superbowls was more fun to watch then that.

[socalfan]

Bledslow - you are an idiot. You haven't seen the deal, how the hell would you know how much time it would take to understand it? What, you see the vote is 30-2 and so you conclude 30 owners understood it and 2 are morons??? How about after two days of meetings, maybe 15 owners just didn't give a **** anymore, all they knew was some teams would contribute to the fund and some wouldn't and their vote was determined solely by their desire to go home. If you're so bright why don't you explain to us how much each of the teams will contribute this year, and what do the teams that don't contribute have to do to get some of that money put into the fund? Then explain whether or not the sharing is good enough to keep some semblance of parity among the teams. When you are done with that, explain the cash over cap agreement in the new contract. I want to see your responses recorded for posterity....that way they can laugh at you too.

What a frikkin moron you are.

[SABURZFAN]

Bledslow - you are an idiot. You haven't seen the deal, how the hell would you know how much time it would take to understand it? What, you see the vote is 30-2 and so you conclude 30 owners understood it and 2 are morons??? How about after two days of meetings, maybe 15 owners just didn't give a **** anymore, all they knew was some teams would contribute to the fund and some wouldn't and their vote was determined solely by their desire to go home. If you're so bright why don't you explain to us how much each of the teams will contribute this year, and what do the teams that don't contribute have to do to get some of that money put into the fund? Then explain whether or not the sharing is good enough to keep some semblance of parity among the teams. When you are done with that, explain the cash over cap agreement in the new contract. I want to see your responses recorded for posterity....that way they can laugh at you too.

What a frikkin moron you are.



:lolpoint: bledslow

[Night Train]

Apparently, the new revenue sharing deal involves the large market teams giving around 10% of local revenue back to the league for sharing, while smaller market teams might have to give as much as 50% of local revenue, meaning it just became that much harder for the Bills to operate in Buffalo.

Link ? I read this outside speculation days ago, before the new details were drawn up.

Do you have the details of the new agreement to make such a bold statement ?

[Night Train]

This deal is VERY bad for the future of football in Buffalo.. You will see as details become more available

You don't know that at all. "Could" should replace "is" .



Low-income teams say high-revenue teams should contribute proportionately to the player pool because they can earn far more in nonfootball income from things such as advertising and local radio rights.

Under the new deal, the bottom 17 teams in revenue will not contribute to the pool, which will be funded with the top five teams contributing the most; the second five less; and the third five less than them.



That seems to counter what you're stating. Ralphs " No" vote seems to reflect an older man being rushed and not understanding the parameters.

[LifetimeBillsFan]

While Ralph Wilson definitely looks and sounds like a man whose age is catching up with him (we should all be lucky enough to live as long as he has!), I think he raised a very valid point at the end of his comments in stating that 45 minutes is not long enough of a time to study a complicated financial formula before voting on it.

For a younger man, for someone used to doing calculations in his head, for someone who was in on the process of coming up with the proposal, and, in particular, for someone whose franchise and financial future is not at stake, 45 minutes might be enough time to read through the proposal and figure out how it would impact his team, etc., but not for an older man with as much at stake as Ralph Wilson.

First of all, Wilson is "Old School", from an era when business deals were done more slowly and it was common practice to actually contemplate whether a deal was good or not--when you slept on it overnight (if that hadn't been common sports business practice back in Wilson's day, Ted Williams would have finished his career as a Yankee and Joe Dimaggio would have ended his in Boston!). The way that modern business deals are made these days--quick, quick, quick--is something that is foreign to him and, as came across in his interview, rubs him the wrong way. I think it might have rubbed Wellington Mara the wrong way, too.

Secondly, while I won't say that Wilson doesn't know how to use a calculator and work out the numbers using one, for him and his team, which has one of the poorest owners and one of the smallest markets, the calculations are more difficult and more critical. The Rooneys, whose gambling interests are expanding, etc., are not going to go broke or have a cash-flow problem if this deal doesn't give the small-market Steelers enough cash-flow to pay signing bonuses until the CBA is up for renewal again, a Ralph Wilson actually has to figure that out before he can determine whether he needs another 1%, 2%, 5%, etc. to be able to keep his head above water and live the lifestyle he and his family are accustomed to living while keeping his team competitive. He, personally, doesn't have the lee-way, in terms of wealth, that even most of the other small market owners have and who can blame him for wanting more time to figure out if the deal, as structured, would work for him. I can't. And, it's not easy to work out all of the numbers and then figure out what the impact will be on not only a football franchise, but on all of your other investments, family finances, etc. Not for someone Ralph Wilson's age. Not in 45 minutes. And, not for someone who can't afford to be wrong.

Now, I'm not crying poverty for Ralph Wilson--the man has more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes. But, compared with the other men in that room, Ralph is a poor man, a sportsman, playing what has increasingly become an ultra-wealthy younger corporate executive's game for much larger stakes than Ralph could ever have imagined. With greater money has come greater pressure, greater potential risk, and a more cut-throat corporate attitude. And, one can understand if an aged man, like Ralph Wilson, whose mental and physical agility and acuity are not what they used to be, is uncomfortable with being asked to make a financial decision with major implications and risks under pressure and in a short period of time. (Anyone who has helped or seen an elderly parent or grandparent trying to figure out the new Medicare drug coverage will understand exactly what I am talking about!)

So, when Ralph Wilson goes before the cameras and says that he voted against the proposal because he didn't really understand it and didn't like the fact that he was forced to vote on it after only 45 minutes, it actually makes a lot of sense that he would feel that way. While I don't think that Ralph is ever going to sound "with it" in front of the cameras again in his life--not that he ever really did--I do think that he would have had an entirely different outlook, and may even have voted differently (I can't say because there isn't enough information available about the details of the deal), had he been given 24 hours to work out the numbers for himself and thought the deal through. Without that time, it should not be that surprising that he balked at the deal or that he sounded as upset and confused as he did in that interview.

All I can hope is that, once he works through the numbers, Ralph Wilson will find that this deal will allow him to continue to keep the Bills in Buffalo for the rest of his life. And, yes, I hope that, in doing so, it will also put more money in his pocket--not because he needs it, but as an encouragement to any future owners of the team to keep the team in Buffalo as well.