BillnutinHouston

Outstanding post.

Re: to your comment, the poster "Trader" said this in the Regionalization thread: "Boston household income is over 70k per year. Dallas is 56k per year. Both areas have many more residents that WNY, I will let you look up Buffalo metro income on your own. There are 20k unsold Miami Tickets. If there is no regionalization there is no NFL in Buffalo" Looking backward at the "good old days" and thinking the status quo will remain the same under the next owner is a very flawed strategy in my opinion. Hope you're feeling lucky when the franchise goes up for sale.

Way to think like a marketer! ^^ This 100 times.

Agreed, I feel your pain, but if it weren't for Stevie's & Chandler's fumbles last week, we'd be happy with those sacks..

Is there a Wingo story line? LOL Or, as Marrone's comments clarify, they pounced on the opportunity to pick up a productive tight end and needed a roster spot in order to facilitate that acquisition.

i don't think there's any indication they CAN get out of the deal. The linked article doesn't shed any light on that. While many here have their heads buried firmly in the sand, are oblivious to the big picture and just whine about one game being moved from their backyard, this is the most accurate summary of the reality that I've seen in awhile. Reading this thread is like watching a post-iceberg scene aboard the Titanic and seeing passengers complain about the warm champagne. The lack of vision is stunning. No wonder NYS is such a mess.

Wait, you're not actually arguing against the Bills regionalizing and expanding their market, are you? Should the Bills just accept the fact that they have available club seats, boxes, low ticket prices and manufactured sellouts? If you take comfort in the fact that the Bills "survived for decades" without regionalizing, what's your plan for making the market attractive to the next owner who will be wooed by big money markets? This line of thinking just amazes me.

Cool. Definitely shows the new defensive scheme + nice acquisitions have started to come together to produce results.

True, but those less-attended TO games still make the Bills more revenue.

The other plus is that many (if not all?) of the club sections have new radiant heating which have received rave reviews from what I've seen.

Clubs have nice and less crowded concessions, restrooms and access in/out. The club crowd is definitely less rowdy and a good place to take kids or elderly.

I was a WNY resident and season ticket holder (and still am) at the time of that "dance", and while I recall the situation to be dicey with respect to the lease, I do not ever recall any public statement made by Wilson or the Bills about specific places they would relocate to. I'd still like to see a link with quotes from Mr. Wilson or a team spokesman stating a threat to relocate. But giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you are correct that Mr. Wilson was vocal with threats to leave...did the stadium NOT need renovations to (among other things) increase the number of boxes? If you were the Bills owner at the time, how would you have persuaded NYS to get off the dime and put a miniscule $60 million into the stadium when your counterparts are getting $500 million - $1 billion dollar palaces left and right? Wilson was playing relative softball compared to what he could have done. Again I say, if he really was going to "bluff" WNY, he would have simply asked for a new stadium, then watched the mayhem as he easily built his case for relocating. We all know he did no such thing.

Ask yourself this - does the Toronto series make the Buffalo market more or less attractive as the future home to a franchise, relative to LA, London or elsewhere? Are you hoping that the next owner just happens to have a heart for Buffalo? What happens if the winning bidder is just a financial shark? If he is a shark, do you think his location decision will be unaffected by the proximity to the Toronto market? Before you answer, consider that Brandon just pointed out on GR this morning that Buffalo had only two true sellouts this year, with the other four being manufactured. And this is with ticket prices among the absolute lowest in the league. Bottom line, the Buffalo market has shown itself to be handicapped, and Toronto/Southern Ontario is the long term crutch. Nobody is asking people to like that, but the truth is the truth. People who whine about this fact only reveal the insularity and narrowmindedness of their thinking.

This link really does not discuss or refer to any threat that Ralph made to leave town.

Can you educate me with a link discussing an ultimatum that Ralph made at that time where he threatened to leave? I'm not recalling that.

Good point. The fact is, Ralph hasn't made waves to leave WNY in many, many years and even more revealing of his intention to work in good faith with Buffalo's sad-sack market is that he's never demanded a new stadium and has settled for a paltry combined $200 million or so in stadium upgrades over the last 20 years or so. That is extremely modest. If Ralph was ever going to "bluff" WNY, it would have been over the new stadium issue. Now consider the above statistics from the perspective of THE NEXT OWNER. Anyone who doesn't expect the next owner to keep the team in Buffalo without keeping or even expanding the Toronto series is extremely naive. The single biggest question facing the long term future of a Buffalo football team is how to make the economics work in Buffalo. And if the next owner demands a stadium, the numbers start looking even worse.

^^ In poor taste, even by TSW standards.

Interesting.

Go Bills.

Although I think you take yourself far too seriously, I agree with you about Stevie.

Do you mean the party's over? Why is basic grammar so hard?

Pathetic. TWO FUMBLES cause the loss? I'm convinced, you simply cannot rely on Stevie.

Wow. Where to start? It wouldn't matter if the Bills drew 10,000 a game in Toronto, because I'm NOT arguing that the Bills in TO series has been a success AT THE GATE. Sure they have made money (and paid Mario Williams) with this deal, but what I am arguing is, by physically playing in Toronto and by striking that deal, the Bills staked claim to that market FOR THE NEXT OWNER. By cementing the Buffalo-Toronto relationship, you make the potential future value of the franchise much greater, thereby improving ROI for the next prospective owner. Are there still people who think ticket sales trump corporate support? People need to get over the "woe is me" stuff and accept the reality that the Buffalo market without TO has no future in the NFL. I suggest that people who have trouble with this watch a few episodes of "Shark Tank" and learn to think like investors do.

Of course, Buffalo as the home of the Bills is in competition not just with Toronto, but also potentially LA. Investor groups have some options, and at the end of the day this is really about Buffalo vs. everywhere else. I think most recognize that capturing the Toronto market makes Buffalo much more economically powerful and therefore more attractive as home to an NFL club for the new owner, than if Russ hadn't captured Toronto via this series. The future location of this franchise is either going to come down to a local ownership group coming to the rescue despite what the return on investment numbers look like (unlikely), or a scenario whereby the new ownership group chooses a city based on their calculation of where they can get a favorable mix of support and ROI. I firmly believe the Toronto series helps Buffalo achieve the latter scenario.

For the "distrusting"... Would you really have felt more secure about the long term viability of the franchise, post-Ralph, if Russ had never ventured into the Toronto market? Do you believe the best approach is to hunker down and hope/pray that the next ownership group happens to have a heart for Buffalo, regardless of Buffalo's relatively weak socio-economic standing, considering the huge $ investment needed to submit the winning bid? If you honestly answered yes to the above, I don't know what else to say. The Toronto series has successfully incorporated TO into the Buffalo football market, meaning the Bills never have to compete with a separate Toronto NFL team. The TO series has massively bolstered Buffalo's "market", EVEN IF that market is largely theoretical at this time. If the doubters cannot see how that market expansion solidifies the feasibility of the franchise in Buffalo with the next ownership group, and how it INCREASES the likelihood of having a Buffalo football team past 2020, then I have to wonder if they are capable of thinking with their heads and not their hearts.