Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

[Fletch]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

The only point I wanted to make is I believe the Bills will be sold to a person/persons that WANT to keep the Bills in Buffalo.

There are enough people with deep pockets that want to keep the Bills in Buffalo that paying market value will be no problem.

The next owner of the Bills will be someone that as Bob Rich said consider the Bills a cultural asset to WNY & want to keep them in WNY for that reason, not to make money.

And I read that if Trump invested as little as 20% of the Bills, he could use them as a tax write off & save a bundle in taxes. I expect whoever buys the Bills to do that, use them as a tax write off.

Here's the problem with that theory, that the NFL is hardly a closed business system. It relies on municipalities, whether it's cities, counties, or states, to pitch in, usually and almost always for financing an expensive modern stadium, among other lesser things.

Few businesses have that luxury, of being able to rob from taxpayers to help an owner of a biz make money. But the bottom line is that our municipalities simply don't have the money anymore, particularly the city a/o county. So it all falls back onto the state and they don't have the money either to finance a $500M stadium or whatever it would cost, and that's a low cost these days with most pushing a billion.

The financing on that would be well over the cost of the stadium much like the interest on the average mortgage is more than the cost of the home over time. That money simply isn't there in/for Buffalo or WNY.

I don't think that any new owner(s) is going to consider anything less than state-of-the-art for his/her new team and there will be places offering it among which Buffalo cannot compete with and among which Toronto must be at the forefront. I don't see the NFL defending such a decision either, namely to forego that kind of stadium merely for purposes of nostalgia, which is all that it would be at that point.

IMO all the talk of keeping the team here is simply to keep the fans' interest while the team remains in Buffalo, at least to the extent possible.

[Fletch]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

When the new owner is named & it is known he has ties to Buffalo, which he will, all talk about the Bills moving can & should end.

A new stadium is a forgone conclusion. It is just a question of where it goes & if it will have a roof or not.

You keep talking as if the team remaining in the region is a forgone conclusion too. If Buffalo currently did not have a team and threw its hat into the ring for a new team, it wouldn't have a chance. Given that it needs a new stadium, despite the "upgrades" to the current one, it may as well be competing as if it did not have a team because WNY, or NYS in general, cannot afford it. The taxpayers are already screwed to the max.

I just don't see it happening and any amount of BILL-ieving isn't going to change anything. Money talks, BS walks, and unfortunately we're full of the latter no matter how much we all want the team to stay here. This team, as unfortunate as it may be for us, has Toronto written all over it. It's no secret whatsoever that the NFL wants to market itself internationally, and anyone thinking that that's going to be England before it's Canada is being naive.

Canada's the very first "international" stop, and the attractiveness of a huge global financial center like Toronto, or at least Ontario, is far too great to pass up for the NFL. Toronto is Canada's financial center and wealthiest city and among the world's biggest financial cities as well, so it's the first in Canada. Mexico will never have an NFL team. It'll mean money, and as that adage goes, money talks. Toronto, Ontario has the money on WNY hands down, so much so that there's no contest.

If the team stays in Buffalo, I'll try to do a real backflip, and for my age that'll be something. lol

I'm with everyone on hoping that the team stays, but as I've said many times, if Wilson really wanted to keep the team in Buffalo, given that no one in his family wants to have anything to do with it now, he'd have sold it, even for less than its "worth," to an owner or ownership group that had designs on keeping it here. Every penny he makes on it is pure profit so "his family" will become wealthy regardless of the sales price even if it's sold for a small fraction of its value, even after estate tax.

Then the legacy could have continued, but the odds for it continuing now, minus a few years during which uncertainty will be the operative term, are slim to nil. IMO Wilson's not having sold it while he could have then was purely for self-centered reasons, having absolutely nothing to do with keeping the team in Buffalo.

[better days]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

Here's the problem with that theory, that the NFL is hardly a closed business system. It relies on municipalities, whether it's cities, counties, or states, to pitch in, usually and almost always for financing an expensive modern stadium, among other lesser things.

Few businesses have that luxury, of being able to rob from taxpayers to help an owner of a biz make money. But the bottom line is that our municipalities simply don't have the money anymore, particularly the city a/o county. So it all falls back onto the state and they don't have the money either to finance a $500M stadium or whatever it would cost, and that's a low cost these days with most pushing a billion.

The financing on that would be well over the cost of the stadium much like the interest on the average mortgage is more than the cost of the home over time. That money simply isn't there in/for Buffalo or WNY.

I don't think that any new owner(s) is going to consider anything less than state-of-the-art for his/her new team and there will be places offering it among which Buffalo cannot compete with and among which Toronto must be at the forefront. I don't see the NFL defending such a decision either, namely to forego that kind of stadium merely for purposes of nostalgia, which is all that it would be at that point.

IMO all the talk of keeping the team here is simply to keep the fans' interest while the team remains in Buffalo, at least to the extent possible.

Keeping the Bills in Buffalo is not about nostalgia at all. It is about keeping the Bills fan base interested in the NFL.

Even though Buffalo lost a lot of its population in the last 30 years, the people that left Buffalo did not stop being Bills fans.

There are MANY Bills fans that spend a lot of money buying the Sunday ticket & going to sports bars that pay for the Sunday ticket, the NFL profits from Bills fans all over the Country.

As I said it won't be long & I will no longer have to read the STUPID talk of the Bills moving.

[Fletch]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

Keeping the Bills in Buffalo is not about nostalgia at all. It is about keeping the Bills fan base interested in the NFL.

Even though Buffalo lost a lot of its population in the last 30 years, the people that left Buffalo did not stop being Bills fans.

There are MANY Bills fans that spend a lot of money buying the Sunday ticket & going to sports bars that pay for the Sunday ticket, the NFL profits from Bills fans all over the Country.

As I said it won't be long & I will no longer have to read the STUPID talk of the Bills moving.

Where we agree is that it won't be long. You're way off on the rest.

For starters, I cannot tell you how many Bills fans, fans that I attended the '90s era SB team games with for instance, that have simply given up for the most part due to the negligence in the administration of the team rendering something simple into some experts-only mental effort while simultaneously reducing the effectiveness of this team to proverbial rubble.

Only politicians or some government agency could do worse.

Otherwise, you talk as if Buffalo has a bigger fanbase than say Toronto and Ontario, really reaching all of Canada as the NFL's first both international as well as Canadian team would, which is a huge mistake.

The other even more notable mistake that you make in your calculations is that the NFL doesn't give a crap about the "average fan" or "joe blue-collar fan" anymore. It's entirely about the Benjamins and the corporate support for teams. Just take a good hard look around the league, what do you see?

You see almost every stadium named after a huge corporate sponsor, the likes of which simply don't exist in WNY or Buffalo.

Gillette Stadium, Fed Ex Field, Met Life Stadium, AT&T Stadium, Sports Authority Field, Sun Life Stadium, Bank of America Stadium, Mercedes-Benz stadium, First Energy Stadium, NRG Stadium, M&T Bank Stadium, Qualcom Stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, Levi's Stadium, EverBank Field, Century Link Field, Edward Jones Dome, Raymond James Stadium, Heinz Field, Ford Field, University of Phoenix Stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium, TCF Bank Stadium.

The days of "Rockpile" like public stadiums are over. When one corporation bows out, there's another to buy the naming rights. They're almost all financed by public tax dollars, unfortunately.

I appreciate your zeal, and the emotional part of me encourages it, but the reality of it makes no sense. I'm also not necessarily trying to discourage your thinking and others that think like it, just trying to warn you to not be too disappointed when what you're hoping for doesn't come to pass.

The biggest thing about this is, or will be, what the other 31 owners want. Wilson's best friends passed away before he did. The old school owners like Davis and Adams are all but gone. Money and nothing else drives this NFL train.

They're all saying publicly what the public wants to hear, particularly those most sensitive to the issue, namely Bills fans like us, but the reality is that Wilson's ownership opinions were not popular with modern era owners when he was here, for years even. So why would they be popular now.

The NFL benefits as a unit, more so than any other sport. If they can boost their revenues and profits by even a significant amount, that's what they'll vote for, and unfortunately that's not going to involve keeping the team in Buffalo. For now they're "playing the game" as it were, saying what everyone wants to hear, but once the rumors and talk soften things up, watch how fast the county politicians start talking about a buyout because if they don't get one, the team will leave and they'll get nothing, ... "for the county" of course.

Either way, I don't see anything even remotely approaching 24 of the 31 other owners supporting the team remaining in Buffalo over an option like expansion to Canada, hence internationally, and into an enormous financially based market that is sure to build a state-of-the-art stadium and usher the NFL into its international era.

It may not be Portland, or L.A., or another US city, but the owners are going to do what puts money into their pocket(s), not what's nostalgically or emotionally popular by a fanbase that's scattered as it is, much less what's in it for a small smoldering financial region that really cannot support a team in the modern financial era of the NFL.

Sorry, but that's just the way it is. We agree on what we'd like to see happen, the cards are just so stacked against it that it never will. I'd say that the best that we can hope for, and IMO this is the odds-on likelihood, is for a Toronto/Ontarian interest to buy the team and relocate it just on the other side of the border, say NF or St. Catherines, hoping that the US portion of the fanbase, aka Buffalonians and other WNY-ers, will continue their interest, particularly that it'll be the same TV market for all intents and purposes.

I'm thinking that they might even keep the "Bills" part of the name initially. IMO though it would be a big fail to assume that most current fans will continue to follow the team. I mean who wants to go through a border-crossing every time to go see a game, or much less, on the way back from one, particularly if they've had a few beers.

I see 90% of the fanbase losing interest if that were to happen.

I mean what would you do better days? Assume that the team did in fact move to Ontario, just over the border even, say less than an hour, including the border crossing time, from say the Buffalo suburbs.

Would you continue to follow that team knowing that the chances of it ever coming back to Buffalo in your lifetime were slim to nil?

I wouldn't. I wouldn't consider it a Buffalo team anymore, or even a NY team, ... as clearly it wouldn't be, but just the same and being the closest NFL team, I think I'd rather root for a team that didn't take mine away. My interest in the NFL would merely become a general one if/when that happened.

Anyway, curious what you'd do if that were to happen?

[Fletch]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

As I said it won't be long & I will no longer have to read the STUPID talk of the Bills moving.

PS, What I'm tired of is the stupid talk of the Bills losing and why. It's trivial and fundamental as to why, it's just that the dunderheads that run the team are ignoramuses.

This would be much more difficult for me to stomach if the Bills didn't have an abysmal record of performance outside of the Polian era team. There's no reason to even hope that they'll make the playoffs in Buffalo, even if they are here through the 2020 season, only seven more seasons.

I'll be much more upset if the org actually goes out and hires a competent coach who in turn then provides us with winning football. That would aggravate me to no end.

[Fletch]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

BTW, the TV market also plays into it, and if you think that the Bills have a big TV market, think again. It may be better than a few, but even the scattered remnants of Bills fans throughout the country cannot match what the Canadian TV market would be for their first team.

[better days]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

Where we agree is that it won't be long. You're way off on the rest.

For starters, I cannot tell you how many Bills fans, fans that I attended the '90s era SB team games with for instance, that have simply given up for the most part due to the negligence in the administration of the team rendering something simple into some experts-only mental effort while simultaneously reducing the effectiveness of this team to proverbial rubble.

Only politicians or some government agency could do worse.

Otherwise, you talk as if Buffalo has a bigger fanbase than say Toronto and Ontario, really reaching all of Canada as the NFL's first both international as well as Canadian team would, which is a huge mistake.

The other even more notable mistake that you make in your calculations is that the NFL doesn't give a crap about the "average fan" or "joe blue-collar fan" anymore. It's entirely about the Benjamins and the corporate support for teams. Just take a good hard look around the league, what do you see?

You see almost every stadium named after a huge corporate sponsor, the likes of which simply don't exist in WNY or Buffalo.

Gillette Stadium, Fed Ex Field, Met Life Stadium, AT&T Stadium, Sports Authority Field, Sun Life Stadium, Bank of America Stadium, Mercedes-Benz stadium, First Energy Stadium, NRG Stadium, M&T Bank Stadium, Qualcom Stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, Levi's Stadium, EverBank Field, Century Link Field, Edward Jones Dome, Raymond James Stadium, Heinz Field, Ford Field, University of Phoenix Stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium, TCF Bank Stadium.

The days of "Rockpile" like public stadiums are over. When one corporation bows out, there's another to buy the naming rights. They're almost all financed by public tax dollars, unfortunately.

I appreciate your zeal, and the emotional part of me encourages it, but the reality of it makes no sense. I'm also not necessarily trying to discourage your thinking and others that think like it, just trying to warn you to not be too disappointed when what you're hoping for doesn't come to pass.

The biggest thing about this is, or will be, what the other 31 owners want. Wilson's best friends passed away before he did. The old school owners like Davis and Adams are all but gone. Money and nothing else drives this NFL train.

They're all saying publicly what the public wants to hear, particularly those most sensitive to the issue, namely Bills fans like us, but the reality is that Wilson's ownership opinions were not popular with modern era owners when he was here, for years even. So why would they be popular now.

The NFL benefits as a unit, more so than any other sport. If they can boost their revenues and profits by even a significant amount, that's what they'll vote for, and unfortunately that's not going to involve keeping the team in Buffalo. For now they're "playing the game" as it were, saying what everyone wants to hear, but once the rumors and talk soften things up, watch how fast the county politicians start talking about a buyout because if they don't get one, the team will leave and they'll get nothing, ... "for the county" of course.

Either way, I don't see anything even remotely approaching 24 of the 31 other owners supporting the team remaining in Buffalo over an option like expansion to Canada, hence internationally, and into an enormous financially based market that is sure to build a state-of-the-art stadium and usher the NFL into its international era.

It may not be Portland, or L.A., or another US city, but the owners are going to do what puts money into their pocket(s), not what's nostalgically or emotionally popular by a fanbase that's scattered as it is, much less what's in it for a small smoldering financial region that really cannot support a team in the modern financial era of the NFL.

Sorry, but that's just the way it is. We agree on what we'd like to see happen, the cards are just so stacked against it that it never will. I'd say that the best that we can hope for, and IMO this is the odds-on likelihood, is for a Toronto/Ontarian interest to buy the team and relocate it just on the other side of the border, say NF or St. Catherines, hoping that the US portion of the fanbase, aka Buffalonians and other WNY-ers, will continue their interest, particularly that it'll be the same TV market for all intents and purposes.

I'm thinking that they might even keep the "Bills" part of the name initially. IMO though it would be a big fail to assume that most current fans will continue to follow the team. I mean who wants to go through a border-crossing every time to go see a game, or much less, on the way back from one, particularly if they've had a few beers.

I see 90% of the fanbase losing interest if that were to happen.

I mean what would you do better days? Assume that the team did in fact move to Ontario, just over the border even, say less than an hour, including the border crossing time, from say the Buffalo suburbs.

Would you continue to follow that team knowing that the chances of it ever coming back to Buffalo in your lifetime were slim to nil?

I wouldn't. I wouldn't consider it a Buffalo team anymore, or even a NY team, ... as clearly it wouldn't be, but just the same and being the closest NFL team, I think I'd rather root for a team that didn't take mine away. My interest in the NFL would merely become a general one if/when that happened.

Anyway, curious what you'd do if that were to happen?

There are pseudo Bills fans that are not true Buffalo Bills fans. People from Canada & other parts of America that follow the Bills for whatever reason.

Those people may follow the new team the Bills would become if they moved.

But the vast majority of Bills fans are TRUE BUFFALO Bills fans that would no longer have anything to do with the NFL if the Bills moved.

We are talking about a lot of lost money if the Bills fan base stops watching the NFL.

I posted before that Robert Rich (an apt name) has said he & his friends view the Bills as a cultural asset of WNY & he & his friends will do everything in their power to keep the Bills in Buffalo.

That is the reason I am so sure the Bills will not move. The people that will buy the Bills to keep them in Buffalo are not going to do that to make money, but more like the Albricht-Knox Art Gallery, as a Cultural asset.

But if the Bills ever were to move, I would no longer follow them or give the NFL another red cent of my money.

[GingerP]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

When the new owner is named & it is known he has ties to Buffalo, which he will, all talk about the Bills moving can & should end.

A new stadium is a forgone conclusion. It is just a question of where it goes & if it will have a roof or not.

I disagree. The big question, the only real question, is how is it going to be paid for.

Any new stadium is going to get built with a big subsidy of public funds of some sort and possibly PSL's? The question is, how will that negotiation to have public monies spent on a new stadium go? How will a fan base that traditionally has paid lower-tier ticket prices react to paying higher prices and possibly a big chunk of funds up front for a PSL?

That will ultimately be the determining factor, IMO.

[better days]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

I disagree. The big question, the only real question, is how is it going to be paid for.

Any new stadium is going to get built with a big subsidy of public funds of some sort and possibly PSL's? The question is, how will that negotiation to have public monies spent on a new stadium go? How will a fan base that traditionally has paid lower-tier ticket prices react to paying higher prices and possibly a big chunk of funds up front for a PSL?

That will ultimately be the determining factor, IMO.

I posted in another thread, a group of Bills fans are starting a fund to put towards the new Stadium.

They expect to collect about $100 Million for it.

NY State, Erie County (as long as the Stadium is located there) & the NFL will also contribute to the new Stadium.

[YardRat]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

Just for giggles, let's assume the team does cross the border, somewhere in southern Ontario or even Toronto...How would the TV gig work?

[better days]

Re: Jon Bon Jovi...More determined than Ever

Just for giggles, let's assume the team does cross the border, somewhere in southern Ontario or even Toronto...How would the TV gig work?

I would expect the same way it does now.

CTV pays the NFL for the right to televise NFL games in Canada.