DynaPaul
04-08-2006, 09:29 AM
http://www.profootballtalk.com
POSTED 10:10 p.m. EDT, April 7, 2006
WILSON UPS THE ANTE
Since the NFL owners approved the new CBA/revenue sharing plan, Bills owner Ralph Wilson generally kept fairly quiet. Sure, he initially explained that he joined the Bengals in voting against the plan because, as he said at the time, he didn't have the time to understand it.
But in the several weeks that passed after the vote, Wilson said nothing. He remained quiet through the ownership meetings of last week.
This week, however, it's been a far different story.
Three days ago, Wilson expressed concern regarding "the long-term viability" of the Bills in a meeting with New York Governor George Pataki. On Friday, Wilson went a giant leap farther, calling for a grass roots campaign to change the portions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that potentially disadvantage the Bills.
"We're going to fight very hard," Wilson said. "I don't know how long the team will be [in Buffalo]."
"We need people in political power to see that we get a fair treatment under this new extension from the league," Wilson added.
In our view, Wilson is employing premature scare tactics. For example, Wilson claims that a teams loses its ability to participate in revenue sharing if it is sold.
"Hypothetically speaking," writes Judy Wichrowksi of WGRZ-TV, "that means any future owner of the Buffalo Bills would not receive money from the league's wealthiest teams, and have an
even harder time making the franchise financially viable in Western New York."
Bullcrap, we say.
First of all, 80 percent of total NFL revenue already is shared, and will continue to be shared. The sale of a team has no relationship whatsoever to whether the team gets, for example, a cut of the billion-dollar television money.
Second, the league has not yet articulated the qualifying (or, as the case may be, disqualifying) factors for a team to participate in supplemental revenue sharing. So whether the sale of a team shuts it out from supplemental revenue sharing has yet to be determined.
Indeed, Wilson acknowledges that he doesn't know what the qualifiers are going to be. So why sound the alarm before the qualifiers have been determined? (Unless, of course, Wilson is hoping to influence the members of a committee that has not yet even been appointed.)
Third, it makes no sense to tell a team that selling the franchise slams the door on any chance at supplemental revenue sharing. There's no connection between the two concepts. Moreover, such a position would reduce the potential value of every franchise in a low-revenue market, since a sale of the franchise automatically would choke off a chunk of the new revenues.
We think that Wilson is trying to gin up some Nigerian yellow cake uranium in this regard, hoping that citizens of Western New York will conclude that when the team is sold upon Wilson's passing, the franchise will no longer be eligible for any amount of revenue sharing.
"The new guard don't have the same value of the league that the old guard did," Wilson said. "I don't think that a lot of the new owners were afraid of an uncapped year. We were not afraid of an uncapped year, or a strike in 1987," Wilson said. "[At the owners meetings], we don't talk football, we talk money. I'd like to go to an NFL meeting where we talk football."
But this issue boils down to whether all teams are trying to maximize revenues. If a team attempts to identify new revenue streams and/or to expand existing revenue streams and can't do it, the team will be eligible for a bigger chunk of the supplemental revenue pie.
But, you see, to make money you sometimes have to spend money. Is it an accident that the Patriots have 40 marketing employees . . . and the Bengals have only three?
For Ralph Wilson (or any future owner of the Bills), the question is whether the franchise is willing to invest the time, money, and effort necessary to make as much money as possible. If the organization tries and fails, the organization will get help from the high-revenue teams. If the organization doesn't try, it gets nothing.
Wilson, by all appearances, is more interested in spending his time complaining about the rules that now apply instead of undertaking an effort to grow his revenues. He pooh-poohs, for example, the potential monetary benefits of selling the naming rights to the Bills' stadium, which coincidentally is currently named after him.
"You wouldn't get enough money from my name on that stadium, to sign a college free agent," Wilson said.
But how does he know this? Has he tried to sell the naming rights? Is the best offer he has received only $250,000 a year?
We've got a ton of admiration for what Ralph Wilson has done for the NFL and for Buffalo. But much of his Friday press conference doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to us, and we wonder whether Wilson really has put together the best possible strategy for dealing with the fact that 30 of his co-members of the Billionaire Boys Club have moved his Brie.
Don't believe us? Listen to Wilson press conference, which is available at the team's official site. We could carve out some of his quotes, but we don't want to create the appearance that we're being disrespectful to him. Listen to the press conference, and decide for yourself.
Look, we think that the Bills are an integral part of the NFL, and an important aspect of life in Buffalo. We believe that the Bills should remain a part of Western New York indefinitely into the future. Our concern is that Wilson is going about this thing in a manner that will win him little brownie points with the league office or with his fellow owners -- making all of them less inclined to do him, and in turn the franchise, any favors moving forward.
POSTED 10:10 p.m. EDT, April 7, 2006
WILSON UPS THE ANTE
Since the NFL owners approved the new CBA/revenue sharing plan, Bills owner Ralph Wilson generally kept fairly quiet. Sure, he initially explained that he joined the Bengals in voting against the plan because, as he said at the time, he didn't have the time to understand it.
But in the several weeks that passed after the vote, Wilson said nothing. He remained quiet through the ownership meetings of last week.
This week, however, it's been a far different story.
Three days ago, Wilson expressed concern regarding "the long-term viability" of the Bills in a meeting with New York Governor George Pataki. On Friday, Wilson went a giant leap farther, calling for a grass roots campaign to change the portions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that potentially disadvantage the Bills.
"We're going to fight very hard," Wilson said. "I don't know how long the team will be [in Buffalo]."
"We need people in political power to see that we get a fair treatment under this new extension from the league," Wilson added.
In our view, Wilson is employing premature scare tactics. For example, Wilson claims that a teams loses its ability to participate in revenue sharing if it is sold.
"Hypothetically speaking," writes Judy Wichrowksi of WGRZ-TV, "that means any future owner of the Buffalo Bills would not receive money from the league's wealthiest teams, and have an
even harder time making the franchise financially viable in Western New York."
Bullcrap, we say.
First of all, 80 percent of total NFL revenue already is shared, and will continue to be shared. The sale of a team has no relationship whatsoever to whether the team gets, for example, a cut of the billion-dollar television money.
Second, the league has not yet articulated the qualifying (or, as the case may be, disqualifying) factors for a team to participate in supplemental revenue sharing. So whether the sale of a team shuts it out from supplemental revenue sharing has yet to be determined.
Indeed, Wilson acknowledges that he doesn't know what the qualifiers are going to be. So why sound the alarm before the qualifiers have been determined? (Unless, of course, Wilson is hoping to influence the members of a committee that has not yet even been appointed.)
Third, it makes no sense to tell a team that selling the franchise slams the door on any chance at supplemental revenue sharing. There's no connection between the two concepts. Moreover, such a position would reduce the potential value of every franchise in a low-revenue market, since a sale of the franchise automatically would choke off a chunk of the new revenues.
We think that Wilson is trying to gin up some Nigerian yellow cake uranium in this regard, hoping that citizens of Western New York will conclude that when the team is sold upon Wilson's passing, the franchise will no longer be eligible for any amount of revenue sharing.
"The new guard don't have the same value of the league that the old guard did," Wilson said. "I don't think that a lot of the new owners were afraid of an uncapped year. We were not afraid of an uncapped year, or a strike in 1987," Wilson said. "[At the owners meetings], we don't talk football, we talk money. I'd like to go to an NFL meeting where we talk football."
But this issue boils down to whether all teams are trying to maximize revenues. If a team attempts to identify new revenue streams and/or to expand existing revenue streams and can't do it, the team will be eligible for a bigger chunk of the supplemental revenue pie.
But, you see, to make money you sometimes have to spend money. Is it an accident that the Patriots have 40 marketing employees . . . and the Bengals have only three?
For Ralph Wilson (or any future owner of the Bills), the question is whether the franchise is willing to invest the time, money, and effort necessary to make as much money as possible. If the organization tries and fails, the organization will get help from the high-revenue teams. If the organization doesn't try, it gets nothing.
Wilson, by all appearances, is more interested in spending his time complaining about the rules that now apply instead of undertaking an effort to grow his revenues. He pooh-poohs, for example, the potential monetary benefits of selling the naming rights to the Bills' stadium, which coincidentally is currently named after him.
"You wouldn't get enough money from my name on that stadium, to sign a college free agent," Wilson said.
But how does he know this? Has he tried to sell the naming rights? Is the best offer he has received only $250,000 a year?
We've got a ton of admiration for what Ralph Wilson has done for the NFL and for Buffalo. But much of his Friday press conference doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to us, and we wonder whether Wilson really has put together the best possible strategy for dealing with the fact that 30 of his co-members of the Billionaire Boys Club have moved his Brie.
Don't believe us? Listen to Wilson press conference, which is available at the team's official site. We could carve out some of his quotes, but we don't want to create the appearance that we're being disrespectful to him. Listen to the press conference, and decide for yourself.
Look, we think that the Bills are an integral part of the NFL, and an important aspect of life in Buffalo. We believe that the Bills should remain a part of Western New York indefinitely into the future. Our concern is that Wilson is going about this thing in a manner that will win him little brownie points with the league office or with his fellow owners -- making all of them less inclined to do him, and in turn the franchise, any favors moving forward.