BuffaloBrad

Right or not, the vast majority of NFL stadiums have been built with a significant public subsidy . On average, the public has paid for 65% of the cost of NFL stadiums. Those that were built with private money, like MetLife, receive other subsidies such as property, infrastructure improvements, forgone property taxes, and operating expenses. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/08/sports/20100908-stadium-sidebar.html?_r=0 That said, I strongly disagree that he Bills need a new stadium to be viable in WNY. A renovated Ralph with wider concourses, improved concessions, better bathrooms, and improved seating would be competitive with stadiums of similar teams, like Pittsburgh and Cleveland. People that want to put MetLife or AT&T stadium in downtown Buffalo are just delusional.

I don't plan to see this. Bull Durham and Field of Dreams were great, but Kevin Costner hasn't done much to impress since.

Donahoe loved "his" guys. He got rid of quality players already the roster, like Antoine Winfield, Ruben Brown, and Pat Williams, and brought in his own free agents. There were also purges of the coaches and from office staff. It was under Donahoe that we lost our highly regarded strength and conditioning coach Rusty Jones. He hired Modrak as his personnel guy. He took a good team, though one one the decline, and left a complete disaster of a franchise from which we still haven't recovered. He is both a horrible GM and the spawn of Satan.

The radiant heating is great, but it only really works well for people that sit under the overhang.

After allowing contact all day, they decide to make the call now.

The best way to end the Toronto games is to sell out the games in Buffalo, including suites and club seats.

My guess it would make a move to Toronto less likely. The Rogers family is the most likely purchaser, and if Rogers Communications is partnering with the NHL, it doesn't make sense for them to bring in the NFL to compete against themselves. Unfortunately, this is the same reason I don't think Pegula would have any interest in purchasing the Bills. The Bills are the Sabres' biggest competition for entertainment dollars in Buffalo.

In the club seats and suites, there are a fair number of people that fly in for the games. At one point, I was part of that crowd flying in from San Francisco for 4 games a year and selling the rest. I remember one year sitting next to a couple that flew in from NYC for every game. As recent as 5 years ago, the sideline club seats were pretty full. It's just the last few years that they've had problems selling them. I have no doubt they will sell them when the Bills are good again, and I hope some of those seats are filled with folks from Toronto.

The bathroom situation can be addressed without building a new stadium. As can many of the Ralph's other issues: narrow concourses, crappy seats with broken erin holders, and poor concessions.

Right now, I'd be more scared to play Tampa Bay than Kansas City.

Holy double box! Panthers and Chiefs both score at the same time.

I disagree. Stadiums don't have a fixed life. They don't become obsolete because they are old, there needs to be a reason. Most NFL teams have built new stadiums to increate club and suite seating, but the 1998 renovation to the Ralph addressed this pretty well and the next renovation will probably add additional club seating.

Look at the Forbes rankings for NFL team revenues. There are a handful of teams that are over $300M of revenue: Dallas, Houston, Washington, New York (x2), New England. The rest of the league is in the range of $230M to $300M and Buffalo is close to the middle of that group at $256M. If Buffalo had a competitive team, I think they'd do much better revenue-wise. It's true that as more of the big market teams get new stadiums, the number of "haves" are increasing, but once San Francisco and Atlanta have their new stadiums, I think that that's mostly played out. In fact, I believe the focus on premium seats has hurt the NFL by worsening the in stadium experience for the majority of fans that sit in the cheap seats. I sometimes wonder if some of these new stadiums will seem as out of date 10 or 20 years from now as the multipurpose stadiums of the 60's and 70's are to us today.

For New York to get that extra $50M, they had to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a new stadium with expanded premium seating. Buffalo has no real stadium costs. Plus there are only a handful of teams that see that kind of revenue. I'm willing to bet that Tennessee, Cleveland, and Jacksonville are a lot closer to Buffalo in premium revenue than they are to New York and Dallas. The real issue is that TV is king in the NFL. Each team receives $125 million annually from the current TV contracts, and for most teams, it's regular old ticket sales, not premium seats, that are the next biggest slice of the pie. While it would be nice to be able to sell more premium seats, it's not a requirement to have a profitable NFL franchise.

While I don't think Marv was a good GM, he was better than the disaster that was Tom Donahoe. Donahoe not only had worse drafts than Levy, he also got rid of many of the good players he inherited, like Ruben Brown and Pat Williams, and generally alienated the fans.

I posted a few snapshots to a gallery.

I went on a tour of the Ralph earlier today. I'm a club seat holder and was offered the tour as a renewal bonus this season. We toured the press box, went down on the (tarped) field, walked through the tunnel and saw the visitor and Bills locker rooms. We also covered part of the administration building, though they seemed to try to keep us from running into any players or coaches that might be working. I'd seen much of the administration building before during various fieldhouse events, but I had never seen the AFL and AFC championship trophies in the lobby. I'd also never seen the outdoor grass practice field before today. We were told it was unusual for the NFL to allow a tour so close to game time and the Bills had to get some kind of waiver from the NFL. What was cool is we got to see the Bills locker room all setup for the game. The visitors locker room was still empty. Apparently they usually start setting up the visitors equipment in the afternoon and work until 1 or 2 in the morning. You can see Coach Marone's imprint around the stadium. Above the door to the locker room is another "Play like a Bill" sign. The meeting rooms had banners for the Bills AFC and AFL championships. It was a great experience. Our tour guide indicated that they were planning to do more of these tours in the future, so I'd expect club seat holders might get offered a similar tour at their next renewal.

Week 11-17 are the flex games. I believe they have to flex the game 12 days in advance.

Week 11 currently has Packers/Giants scheduled for Sunday Night. I could see Jets/Bills being flexed in there if we keep playing well.

My biggest gripe with the newer stadiums is that the addition of suites and large club areas tends to push the majority of seating farther away from the field. I've sat in the upper deck at Met Life and I would take the Ralph over it any day. I don't understand what people are looking for when they say they want a new stadium. I get that some people want a dome or a different location, but most of the stadiums current deficiencies could be addressed by renovations: narrow concourses, poor concessions, third world quality bathrooms.

I agree that it's tame compared to the Ralph, though you'll find the odd Jimmy Spagnola type that likes to act tough. The lower bowl is pretty sedate as it is all PSL and club seating. Like the Ralph, the club areas at Metlife often look less than full. Since there is significantly more club seating at Metlife, the empty seats look really bad. I'm not sure if that's due to unsold/unused tickets or just folks being inside the clubs The upper deck seems high up as a result of all of the clubs and suites. I'm sure I'm in a small minority, but I preferred the old Giants Stadium for watching the game. That was a tight bowl that made you feel like you were right on top of the field..

Second on the advice of taking PATH to Hoboken to pick up the train there. I've done this before and it's worked well.

I'm a Southowns guy: Pizza - Edie's in Hamburg, Bocce on Bailey is good too, both are Buffalo style as opposed to NY style Hot Dogs - Ted's Wings - Bar Bill in East Aurora, they also serve a mean Beef on Weck

I'm not sure that works as a defense. Typically if a death occurs in the commission of a felony, the killer and all accomplices can be charged with murder, the classic case being when someone is killed during a robbery, the getaway car driver can be charged with murder. I'm guessing that there's a felony somewhere in that plan to scare Odin.

The argument is that the NFL lied about the risk of head trauma to their players, cherry picking the medical evidence in the process. If that's true, then the NFL is certainly has culpability. From The Atlantic, here's a fairly incriminating timeline detailing the NFL's response to head trauma injuries http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/the-nfls-response-to-brain-trauma-a-brief-history/272520/