ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

You may have the legal right to tell your HOA what they can do with their attempted ban. I'm not kidding. Read this: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule There's more at the link, but here's an excerpt: Now whether it's in your best interests to be a jerk about it with your HOA is a different question, but you might be able to show them the FCC regulation and persuade them to repeal the ban, or not enforce it.

I agree that it's worthless if at least 24 other owners don't EVENTUALLY approve it. But before the Bills-In-Toronto series deal was made (1) Ralph publicly stated that the team would be sold after he died, rather than left to a member of his family, and (2) the Toronto Businessmen publicly announced that they were seeking to obtain an NFL franchise for Toronto. In those circumstances, don't you think it's at least plausible that the negotiations between Ralph Wilson ("RW") and the Toronto Businessmen ("TB") went something like this: RW: You know, for the right price, I'd be willing to have the Bills play a game now and then in Toronto. TB: Sounds good Ralph - - we think that would help us show the NFL that the Toronto market will support an NFL team. RW: Owning an NFL team is pretty much a license to print money, fellas. We already pull lots of fans from Toronto to Orchard Park anyway, just think about how easy it will be for you guys to get those fans, and plenty more, to see an NFL game in Toronto. Roger Goodell won't be able to ignore you after that. TB: So how much we talkin' about for 1 game per year, eh? RW: $7 million per game - - I know that sounds a little high, but you'll thank me for doing this deal. TB: C'mon Ralph, we may be Canadians, but we ain't stupid. We're billionaires, too, ya know? We can't make a profit at $7 million per game, but maybe we can make this a win-win situation. A game a year is nice an' all, but what we really want is our own NFL team. How about if you sell us a 49% minority interest in the team now, with an option to buy the rest after you're gone. We know that you're planning to have your estate sell the team anyway some day. If you do that, we will give you $6 million per game. A deal like that worked out OK for Modell and Huizenga. RW: Are you freakin' kiddin' me! I'd have to file the deal papers with the league office and get the deal approved by the other owners, and that lapdog Goodell would let it leak somehow, sure as I'm breathin'. Plus then I gotta pay capital gains taxes on the 49% share I sell you guys, which would be pretty stupid because I'm gonna be payin' estate taxes not long after that anyway. And when word gets out, I'll have those TSW loons buyin' billboards, carryin' torches and pitchforks, and returnin' their season tickets. TB: Well, if your estate's gonna be sellin' the team anyway, how about if you just give us a right-of-first-refusal to match the highest bid that your estate gets for the team after you're gone, eh? Won't cost you nothin' - - your estate still gets the same price - - no extra capital gains taxes, and no need to file anything with the league office until after you're gone. It can just be our little secret for now. Heck, we could go as high as $7 million per game if you throw in the right-of-first refusal, because we'll make it up on the back end after you're gone. RW: I gotta check with Littmann about this. [RW leaves room for a while, then comes back] RW: I can't find a decent GM or head coach to save my life, but that Littmann's a keeper. $7 million, huh? Now, you fellas know that I can't guarantee that the other owners are gonna approve a future sale to a bunch of foreigners, right? ========================================== At this point, your theory is that the Toronto Businessmen, some of whom have already been shmoozing Goodell for a while and may have some preliminary indication that the other NFL owners don't really care where the revenue comes from, as long as it keeps comin', say - - TB: Oh well, never mind about the right-of-first-refusal thingy - - we'll just pay you the $7 million per game anyway.

Why would the league need to currently approve the granting of a right-of-first-refusal, if it created no immediate transfer of any ownership interest and might never be exercised at all? I agree that if anyone ever tried to EXERCISE a right-of-first-refusal to actually cause a present transfer of NFL team ownership, the league would have to approve the sale. That would be similar to what happened when Art Modell sold a minority interest in the Baltimore Ravens to Steve Bisciotti in 1999, and combined it with the grant of an option for Bisciotti to later buy Modell's remaining ownership interest in the team: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-12-20/news/9912200039_1_bisciotti-art-modell-ravens In 2008, Wayne Huizenga agreed to sell 50% of the Miami Dolphins to Stephen Ross, and likewise combined it with an option to buy the remainder of the team at a future date. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-517728/Huizenga-sells-half-share-Miami-Dolphins.html But both of those transactions are significaantly different from a situation where no ownership interest has yet changed hands, and any actual transfer of any ownership interest would take place, if at all, only after Ralph dies at some point in the future. In that scenario, why would anyone need to file the agreement with the League office during Ralph's lifetime? Why not just keep it secret until after Ralph died and avoid the media firestorm that a leak would cause? It's certainly possible. Not sure exactly what "pining for the fjords" means, but assuming that it means "now that Ted Rogers is dead," I disagree with some of your conclusions. Toronto doesn't have a suitable stadium now, but jw says we shouldn't discount the "dig down" plan to expand the Rogers Center, and the current Toronto mayor is on record as favoring getting an NFL team. As for nobody associated with Rogers having the money or the interest, I've already posted links above showing that may be wrong. Phil Lind is pretty high up in the Rogers Communications food chain, and for a second time, here's a report of what he said in late 2010: http://sports.espn.g...tory?id=5768936 I don't naively think that corporate executives always tell the truth, but do you have any specific reason to think Lind lied or was misquoted about this? When Lind mentions the possibility of Rogers Communications "doing it itself with the Rogers family," don't you think he might be referring to the Rogers Control Trust funding the purchase, with Rogers Communications executives implementing the plan? You may be right about this, but it has no bearing one way or the other on whether a right-of-first-refusal was granted when the Bils-In-Toronto series deal was made.

Sometimes it's hard to evaluate sarcastic replies. Are you suggesting that the death of Ted Rogers eliminates even the possibility that a valid right-of-first-refusal to buy the Bills exists and could still be exercised? If so, that's wishful thinking. It may be that no such right-of-first-refusal was ever granted, but the Bills-In-Toronto series deal was completed before Ted Rogers died. If such a right was granted as part of that deal, it would not disappear just because Ted Rogers died, because a sole proprietorship is rarely a billionaire's choice for structuring his business. Likewise, Ralph Wilson is 1 businessman. If he died tomorrow, the Buffalo Bills stadium lease obligations to Erie County won't just disappear because Ralph died. It's no different for any right-of-first-refusal (if one was ever granted in the first place).

That's an interesting link - - thanks for posting it. But it uses an odd methodology for determining what qualifies as an "upset." If I am reading it correctly, it simply assumes that the team with the better end-of-season record was the favorite. Does that make sense? By that criterion, in the season that the Dolphins went from a 1 win season to winning the AFC East, any Dolphin win over the Patriots that year was NOT an upset. Seems to me like that quirk of the methodology might introduce enough error into the results to cast some doubt on the article's conclusions. If you used this article's methodology, and the Bills had an undefeated seasom this year, none of those wins would be counted as "upsets."

Hey jw! No attacks or sarcasm in this reply - - just a question: Is it your understanding that Ted Rogers made the visionary decision to go after bringing an NFL team to Toronto for some regular season games, and then later got Tanenbaum interested in some sort of participation in accomplishing that?

Fair enough. I think the Toronto Businessmen would have explored the idea during the negotiations leading up to the Bills-In-Toronto Series deal (especially since Larry Tanenbaum had previously used a right-of-first-refusal in his MLSE transactions), but you're in a far better position than me to predict how Ralph would have responded to the suggestion. I've still seen no quoted statements by Ralph that would be inconsistent with the granting of a right-of-first-refusal to the Toronto Businessmen, but because Ralph rarely talks about ownership succession, I suppose that's not surprising.

It's been a while since your above-quoted post. Although I think I responded to the rest of it, I never directly responded to your second point (bolded above). As I have pointed out elsewhere in this thread, we don't know exactly what persons or business entities were signatories to the Bills-In-Toronto deal, because unlike the Buffalo Bills stadium lease with Erie County, the Bills-In-Toronto series contract has never been made public, AFAIK. So let's just identify the interest on the Toronto side of the deal as the "Toronto Businessmen" for now, with the understanding that the actual people involved probably created or used some form of corporation, partnership, joint venture or other legal entity to carry out their objectives. So why would "Toronto Businessmen" continue to be involved in attempts to lure other NFL franchises to Toronto, if they had already received, as part of the Bills-In-Toronto Series deal, a right-of-first-refusal to buy the Bills exercisable upon Ralph's death? I can think of several reasons: 1. First, even if the "Toronto Businessmen" already had such a right-of-first-refusal, there would be no guarantee that they would be able to actually become owners of the Bills after Ralph's death, because: (a) A right-of-first-refusal is essentially a right to match the highest bid submitted by some other potential owner in the future. If somebody like Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder (not those exact people, but one or more businessmen with a similar approach) made a crazy-high bid to buy the Bills after Ralph dies at some indefinite future date, the Toronto Businessmen might lack the desire or ability to match a crazy-high future offer. But the good thing about having a right-of-first-refusal, from the perspective of the Toronto Businessmen, is that it doesn't obligate them to do anything at all. If Spawn Of Daniel Snyder makes a crazy high bid to buy the Bills after Ralph's death, the Toronto Businessmen could simply decide not to exercise their right to match the crazy-high offer. They could just let Spawn Of Daniel Snyder buy the Buffalo Bills, and wait for an opportunity to buy some other NFL franchise to arise. (b) The ability of the Toronto Businessmen to get the required approval votes of at least 24 of the other 31 NFL owners might change. Let's say that when Ralph dies, other potential owners make bids to buy the Bills, but none of the offers come in crazy-high. So in this scenario, the Toronto Businessmen make a reasonable business decision to exercise their right-of-first-refusal to buy the Bills. Even then, the Toronto Businessmen would not be guaranteed of taking ownership of the franchise. What if the collective views of the NFL owners toward international expansion change between the time the Bills-In-Toronto Series deal was signed, and the time that Ralph eventually dies? At that indefinite future date, the Toronto Businessmen might find themselves only able to get 23 approval votes, and lose the opportunity to buy the Bills. Lots of factors could impact how the 31 other NFL owners vote on some future sale of the Bills. Maybe the other business interests of the Toronto Businessmen take a turn for the worse by the time Ralph dies, and even though the Toronto Businessmen can still raise the cash to buy the Bills, the other 31 NFL owners have doubts about whether the Toronto Businessmen would be as desireable as some other bidder who offered the exact same price. (c ) The political climate in Toronto might become less favorable in the future with respect to getting public funding or other assistance with respect to getting a suitable NFL stadium. I'm not saying that any such assistance is a sure thing now, but from the Toronto Businessmen's perspective, at least the present Toronto mayor and his councilman brother have both publicly supported the idea of bringing an NFL team to Toronto. If the "dig down" theory is plausible, and could be done at reasonable expense with private money, the Toronto Businessmen could expect the current Toronto mayor to grease the skids for obtaining whatever city approvals were required to put the "dig down" plan in motion. Whenever Ralph eventually dies, somebody else could be the mayor of Toronto, and might be more hostile to the idea of bringing in an NFL team. 2. Second, who knows how long the Toronto Businesssmen might have to wait for Ralph to die? AFAIK, back when the Bills-In-Toronto Series deal was negotiated, Ralph was in pretty good health for a man his age. It was certainly possible that the Toronto Businessmen might have to wait a decade or more before they could exercise their right-of-first-refusal, even if the potential obstacles I outlined in 1(a), 1(b) and 1(c ) above never arose. From the Toronto Businessmen's perspective, why wait a decade or more to bring an NFL team to Toronto if you don't have to? In summary, does any of this prove that Toronto Businessmen already have a right-of-first-refusal to buy the Bills after Ralph dies? Absolutely not. But if you understand how a right-of-first refusal works and analyze the situation, I think you can conclude that there are sensible reasons why the Toronto Businessmen would still make attempts to buy other NFL teams and move them to Toronto, rather than just waiting for Ralph to die at some indefinite future date and just hoping that none of the above-described obstacles (or others) arise in the interim.

LA stadiun update: http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nfl/story/_/id/6900222/aeg-tim-leiweke-wants-legal-protection-los-angeles-stadium-plan

Hey crayonz! Think about this for a minute. An AP sportswriter publishes an article that he characterizes as shedding a "glimmer of light" on what is going on behind the curtain at the top of the Bills organization, and then makes comments here strongly implying that finances have become relatively more important to the organization - - but he doesn't actually cite specific sources for the information. Then NGU, who obviously has some sort of access to information that you would expect to be known only near the top of the Bills food chain, seems to try to deliberately provoke the sportswriter by continually, over and over, asserting that JW has absolutely no access to insider information, never has and never will. How would you expect jw to respond to this, especially if you followed this board enough to know that jw can have a bit of a temper at times? What could NGU possibly be trying to accomplish? And what happens next? JW, reputation predictably affronted, comes back with guarded examples of things he does know about, while leaving some of the details gray. So then NGU keeps baiting him, in a way that you think is out of character with NGU's previous posts. So why does NGU keep taunting jw about not having any inside information? Ask yourself this question - - if you were somewhere in the mid to upper ranges of the Bills food chain, and an AP article made it obvious that somebody, somewhere was telling the press things that you would prefer to remain hidden, how would you go about finding the leak? Can I prove this theory - - absolutely not - - but give me a different rational explanation for why NGU would choose this point in time to provoke JW by REPEATEDLY asserting, not merely that jw's story was inaccurate (indeed, NGU seems to have barely read the article), but that jw has no inside sources of information about how the Bills operate. I hope JW kept enough details hidden to protect his source(s), and suspect that he did.

It's always 5 o'clock somewhere. Jimmy Buffet even wrote a copyrighted song about this. Buddy should go there, use the Internet to see who the other teams cut, and then use the extra hour to decide who the Bills really should cut.

Thanks for the update - - I figured somebody here would be in a position to know both his historical attendance pattern and whether he followed it in the preseason this year.

I've never paid much attention to which games Ralph attended. With his ties to the Detroit area, my guess is that he has a history of attending the Detroit preseason game, but I'm just guessing. I saw most but not all of the telecast of this year's Lions game. Two questions: 1. In the recent past, has he attended the preseason game with Detroit? 2. Did he attend this year?

If you start with the constraint that the game against the Lions MUST be the 4th preseason game, then the odds of playing the Lions in any given preseason would be 1/28. But why do you start with that constraint? Maybe you assume that such a constraint applies because there is a recent historical pattern of the Bills often concluding their preseason with a game against the Lions - - but if you're factoring in a historical pattern, how is that "completely random," to use your own term? Did I ever tell you that my middle brother Darryl plays chess?

Hey Ralph, you don't have to trade anybody else to get way under the cap! Looky here, I can even do it with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back!

1. James Taylor reveals that the lyrics to the song "bad, bad Leroy Brown" are really about Levi Brown's dad, who was Ralph Wilson's secret love child with Eleanor Roosevelt - - turns out Kelsay knew about this some time ago; 2. Bud Adams flips a two-handed bird at the Bills bench in an AFC playoff game. In an ironic twist, he is then attacked by a peregrine falcon and loses his right eye; 3. Willis McGahee visits Travis Henry in prison during the Broncos' bye week, and then writes a best-selling expose of the Hamburg police department; 4. After the season, Buddy Nix drafts a dwarf in the 7th round from an obscure trade school in Alabama and explains - -"Our scout noticed this dwarf practicing without pads, and the wood shop instructor told us that none of the standard size pads would fit the guy, so he was making a custom set for him. We told the dwarf if he could add 60 pounds to get up to 105 pounds, we'd work him out. We were gonna sign him as a UDFA, but he got all the way up to 115, so we decided to just draft him." 5. This post gets flamed.

The link you posted says he's now in the last year of a contract that pays him an AVERAGE of $3.3 million/year. That doesn't mean he was scheduled to be paid $3.3 million in 2011. Here's a link to rotoworld's "player page" for Roscoe Parrish: http://www.rotoworld.com/player/nfl/3197/roscoe-parrish If you then click on "view contract details" near the top of the page, you get a pop-up that reads as follows: I don't know how accurate rotoworld typically is about contract details, and I don't know when the $500,000 roster bonus was due to be paid (could have already been paid). But if Rotoworld has the details right, if (I said IF) you wanted to get out from under 1 WR contract in 2011 to save money, you would save more by moving Evans than by moving Parrish.

If Michael Jackson was still with us, he could help you with that.

It occurs to me that #7 would also be a good choice, because I think he'd get along pretty well with Buddy Nix - - so we'd keep some continuity and maybe avoid another rebuilding cycle.

Well, I guess if nothing else, this thread will be one way to determine who bothers to click on posted links and who doesn't. There's already a member of the Rich family on the Forbes list. I suppose if he wanted to make other members of his family part-owners he could. So how about if future responders pick by number (as some above did) rather than by name? Ready, fire, aim!!!!!!!

Here's a chart from Forbes magazine. For each of 15 people, it shows their net worth, age, residence and the source of their money. All but one are billionaires, so each of them ought to be able to come up with at least enough cash to become the minimum 30% leader of any NFL ownership group. Whether you think highly or poorly of Ralph Wilson, he's about 92 years old, and won't be around forever. Which of these 15 people would you most like to see as the next owner of the Buffalo Bills, and why? My personal choice would be Mr. Howell (#9 on the list). He's not the richest, but he lives a long way from Buffalo, and might meddle less with how his football men run the operation. But reasonable people could differ about this. If Ralph walked up to you and said - - "I'm gonna put the future of the Buffalo Bills in your hands and let you pick the next owner of the team from this list" - - who would you choose? http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/fictional/Worth.html And before you flame me, there's nobody from Toronto on the list!

You're not being creative enough. If we're gonna think outside the box, let's consider physics. What we need is a dual threat quadraplegic midget (a "DTQM"). If the midget had no arms or legs, Jasper could chuck the DTQM farther and faster, and the little guy (or little gal for that matter) could make a Donte Whitner-like attempt at a tackle - - Donte refused to wrap up, whereas the DTQM would lack the arms necessary to accomplish that. But Donte made more tackles than most DBs, so who's to say it wouldn't work? Heck, have Jasper carry a DTQM in each hand, that way if he missed with the first one, he'd have a spare. Might come in handy against reverses and flea-flickers. Kinda poetic now that I think about it - - we would defend a flea-flicker with a midget-flicker. The midget would be a dual threat, because Jasper could also throw him in the air to block field goal attempts. Steve Tasker might not be the first special teams player to get inducted into the Hall of Fame. Think of all the money Ralph could save on shoes, thigh pads and gloves if we had not one but two DTQMs on the roster! If Littman reads this thread, it'll happen! And if the Bisons ever needed an extra third base . . . Or, as the OP suggests, we could just play Jasper at ILB, and avoid the inevitable backlash from the dwarf community.

It sounds like we agree that the NFL Bylaws allow trusts to own teams. I agree with the part I bolded above. Do you have any idea whether the beneficiaries were involved in the operation of the business before Ted Rogers died? Whatever people may have thought of him on a personal level, everything I've read seems to indicate that he was pretty good at making money. If the beneficiaries knew that Ted had publicly announced that he wanted to bring an NFL team to Toronto, and knew that such a plan was consistent with Ted's strategy of trying to control professional sports in Toronto so that he would own some of the content that he wanted to broadcast on other assets he already owned, don't you think his family members might be inclined to follow through on Ted's announced plans? Now I'll grant you that there is no guarantee that they would do so, but isn't it at least plausible that having watched Ted Rogers make a gazillion dollars over the years, the beneficiaries of his estate might value his announced business plans, and be hesitant to depart from them? Without knowing more details about the Rogers Control Trust's inner workings, it's hard to know exactly how it will make decisions. The press release does say: That doesn't sound to me like the Control Trust Chair is going to merely passively follow the directions of some bank acting as Trustee, but I'll also grant you that without seeing the governing trust documents it's difficult to know exactly how decisions will be made. It's been widely reported that Rogers Communications is trying to buy Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (the majority owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs). If that's true, there must be a trustee somewhere that's going along with it. Sure doesn't seem like the Rogers Control Trust is shying away from ownership of professional sports franchises. There's already lots of discussion about how Toronto might meet NFL football stadium requirements in this thread - - I won't rehash that here. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5768936

While there has been a lot of discussion about the "third" point in this thread, I'm not sure I ever directly replied to your first two points. This post addresses only your first point (bolded above). Article 3.2 of the 2006 version of the NFL Constitution & Bylaws (starting at page 5/292) makes it clear that, at least in some circumstances, a trust can own an NFL franchise. http://static.nfl.com/static/content//public/static/html/careers/pdf/co_.pdf Here's the full language: That's not easy to understand, but you can strip out some of the wording that's not pertinent to the question of whether the Rogers Control Trust is eligible to own an NFL team, and you are left with this: The "stripped down" version is a little easier to understand. While Ted Rogers was alive, he individually owned a private holding company, and that private holding company in turn owned most of the classs A voting shares of Rogers Communications, Inc. If Ted Rogers had wanted to make a bid to buy an NFL franchise while he was alive, he could have caused the holding company to form a new subsidiary - - let's call it Toronto Football Company - - and that subsidiary could have made the purchase offer for an NFL team. After Ted Rogers died, ownership of the holding company passed to the Rogers Control Trust. IF the Rogers Control Trust now wants to buy an NFL franchise, the Rogers Control Trust can likewise cause the same holding company to form a new subsidiary - - we can still call it Toronto Football Company - - and that subsidiary can make a purchase offer for an NFL team. Seems to me like after Ted Rogers died, the only significant difference, from the standpoint of the NFL Bylaws, is that (1) the Rogers Control Trust must not have more than a certain number of beneficiaries, (2) the Rogers Control Trust must include a person with at least a 30% beneficial interest, and (3) the Rogers Control Trust must be "approved by the Commmissioner's office." I have no idea how many beneficiaries the Rogers Control Trust has - - but it could easily be less than the upper limit allowed by the NFL. I also don't know if any single beneficiary of the Rogers Control Trust has more than a 30% interest - - but I do know that the NFL Bylaws define "immediate family" in a way that is likely to allow the interests of multiple beneficiaries to be aggregated for purposes of satisfying the 30% beneficial interest rule. That may leave getting the Rogers Control Trust "approved by the Commissioner's office" as the only real barrier to having "Toronto Football Company" make an offer to buy an NFL team. Now ask yourself, if the NFL wanted a team to move to Toronto after LA gets a team, but the NFL didn't want to publicly disclose that fact just yet, how easy would it be to simply delay formal approval of the Rogers Control Trust by the Commissioner's office? If the NFL simply delayed such final approval, the Rogers executives like Phil Lind could honestly say that "there is no one at Rogers currently in a position to buy an NFL franchise." Why start a firestorm in Buffalo now when it could so easily be avoided? The NFL Bylaws allow the ownership interests of the "controlling" owner's "immediate family" to be combined for purposes of meeting the requirement that the controlling owner must own at least a 30% benefical interest in a franchise. But if Ted Rogers set up the Rogers Control Trust in a way that left at least 30% of Ted's interest to members of his "immediate family," seems to me like Ted's death didn't necessarily disqualify his "family" (technically the "Rogers Control Trust") from making a purchase offer for an NFL team - - they just need to comply with the formality of creating "Toronto Football Company" - - something Ted Rogers probably would have done anyway had he lived. Wealthy people typically don't own multi-million dollar businesses in their individual capacities.

I don't understand the following link, but decided to post it anyway. It's a transcript of Rogers Communications, Inc.'s second quarter management conference call with Wall Street analysts, and is slightly over a month old. You would expect it to have a pro-company slant, but the company management can't just make stuff up: http://seekingalpha.com/article/281833-rogers-communications-ceo-discusses-q2-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript Now that Ted Rogers is gone, I sure wish I could figure out who controls how all that free cash is spent. BTW, we have widely divergent views about what bankers will do for a fee.