Doc
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Posts posted by Doc
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If you can't answer the questions, I'll lay off.
If you're looking for answers, just go re-read that quote by John Mara. And then realize that no owner has ever said that the 2006 CBA was a good deal, AT ANY TIME. So you see, you're the ONLY one in the world who takes that viewpoint. But everyone else is "insane." Classic.
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Great concept Beerball and excellent execution too!
I would only differ on 3 of the owners.
Indy/Irsay: I think you're confusing the older late Robert Irsay (who snuck out of Baltimore) with his son Jim, who has been an excellent owner. They've established a winning tradition in a smaller market, built a new stadium, hosted a Super Bowl, and won a Super Bowl. Pretty impressive stuff.
Kansas City/Hunt: Again you might be confusing the older late Lamar Hunt with his son Clark. However in this case (unlike with the Irsays) both Hunts were great owners. Lamar Hunt pretty much founded the AFL… arguably more than Ralph or Al Davis, Hunt was the most instrumental person in establishing that league. Also located in a smaller market, the Chiefs have a great tradition, are a model (along with Green Bay) for regionalizing a franchise, have played in 2 Super Bowls and won once, have done outstanding renovations to Arrowhead Stadium (no corporate sponsor and not named Lamar Hunt Stadium), and unlike the Bills… have an all-time WINNING percentage. On top of all of this, Hunt established the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Honor which is reportedly an incredible facility which is considered the de facto AFL Hall of Fame.
Actually Ralph can't hold a candle to either Hunt… either Hunt is who Ralph could only dream of being as an owner.
Glazers/Tampa Bay: The Bucs have done some good things and some bad things since he bought the club from Culverhouse. They've built a new stadium (using the threat of leaving as leverage) and won a Super Bowl but they've also alienated fans, extorted public money, have vastly underspent the salary cap due to their ownership of Manchester United which has been hemorrhaging money, raised season ticket prices 6 years in a row, had the Ticketmaster scandal… very mixed bag and I wouldn't put him ahead of Ralph.
Irsays: Left town. Wouldn't want them.
Hunts: Lamar I agree. Sonny, nope.
Glazers: I'd agree.
Personally I'd love Pegs as the next owner of the Bills.
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Ralph voted against the revenue sharing last time because he wouldn't qualified for it, or thought he wouldn't. He was ready to deny it to those who qualified.
Huh? He voted against the CBA, which talked about ill-defined additional revenue sharing. Once additional revenue sharing was defined, he voted for the CBA. And instead of waiting for "charity," he went out and "put one over" on Toronto, so he didn't need it.
I mention the Mara's claim of temporary insanity in another post.LOL at "temporary insanity." Well, at least it beats permanent insanity.
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You've reached bottom. You've exhausted yourself with that limp jab.
Checkout the knockout punch that followed that "weak jab." I shook my head when I read he moved to Florida for tax purposes. If that was Ralph, you'd have been all over him (you get on his case for living in Michigan). But consistency has NEVER been your strong suit, has it?
No, of course not. Why even ask? The point is that Ralph could get much more if he fielded a competitive team. That is "not debatable".You mean, like the Jags? Because fielding a competitive team (as if that's as easy as you make it sound), is all that one needs.
Any owner could move at any time, by your logic--so what? Everyone else moved because of stadium issues, which Ralph didn't have. Exactly when would Ralph have moved? And why? You've never been able to articluate your reasons. What better deal was out there for him to take. What deals was he working on? Be specific for once on this topic.I said Ralph could have moved anytime a team moved or an expansion team was awarded. John Wawrow has corroborated this.
I've never claimed he doesn't give a **** about anyone else. But I do think he is about the money--it's all he publicly talks about (oh, wait-he did talk about the team last year to inform us that we shouldn't expect much from the Bills for another 3 years). He has STAYED in Buffalo (well, not physically of course) becuase he was able to make so much money! Why can't youget this? Almost everyone else does. In what other town would he be pulling in more profit?He could have made more money in EVERY OTHER TOWN. Buffalo's economy sucks, yet he's made money. Why can't you get this? Oh wait, I know.
I just wanted you to repeat this. Thank you. Luck is so funny--it pops up just when you need it to make a point.Look doc, it is what it is. Installing Larry Quinn as managing partner, not spending close to the salary cap, and firing all the scouts are bad/cheap move you'd criticize Ralph for making. Yet you don't because the Sabres fortunately did well in a league because they had a good coach already on-board and it's much easier to make the playoffs. The point I was making is that as an NFL owner, he likely wouldn't fare any better than Ralph. But at least he'd keep the team in Buffalo.
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Maybe the owners could have said "we were bargaining in bad faith when we accepted a suboptimal deal that we planned on dumping at the earliest allowable time." It would have been honest. Instead they now want us to believe they (30 of them) suddenly lost their wits that one day and only realized soon after that a horrible mistake had been made. They also said that they were losing or would lose money under that CBA but that notion was roundly thrashed on this site ("show us the books!!"). Same guys are now geefully pointing out Mara's "we were crazy to sign that deal" stuff now. You've been played.
Why do you think the NFLPA would say Upshaw never said that? Hmmmmm.
Anyway, they made a tough, but, as we see now, a sound business decision at that time. Everyone benefitted. Now they have a long term contract (containing things they couldn't dream of in the last CBA) and a weakened union. Not sure if this was some sort of plan (Tags himself said what he said--he wasn't misquoted) but it certainly worked out very well for owners, fans (even players). I'm still looking for the "bad" in 2006.
I, forgot--they opted out so it must have been bad. Whereas if they let it go to maturity in 2012 it would not have been a bad deal? Yeah, that makes sense.
Stop embarrassing yourself here doc. Really.
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TG last ran for gov almost 10 years ago. Since then, the bulk of his giving has occrued. Look, you're not going to make any points knocking TG for his giving no matter how much he spent on his campaigns. It's a strange argument anyway.
The context was that Golisano is now a philanthropist, to which I made the joke that yes he was good at giving away his money during his failed campaigns. With the subtext being that Ralph doesn't donate to charity, which is hogwash. Or that he doesn't donate enough, despite Golisano having a lot more liquid funds than Ralph. Not that donating to charity isn't a tax move, like his move to Florida was.
Yes, the market can always bear lower prices! hahaha--thanks for pointing that out for us. Not sure why it's important to get to the average ticket price, but if the Bills were a perennial contender, it's likely they could do that.It's NOT important to get to average ticket prices for Ralph. Or even above the minimum ticket prices. As for "if the Bills were a perennial contender," does the worst team in the league make their ticket prices the lowest in the league?
Classic doc obfuscation. The awarding of an expansion franchise to Houston. The other "sites" were competing for a new franchise. Absolutely no one was mentioning moving an existing team to any of these places. You go on and on about how Ralph could have moved to Indy, Cleveland, Baltimore, etc, as though he could have simply stepped into the deals that those other owners created themselves with those towns. Exactly when would RW moved? Righ after his new stadium was built?Let's see...
Rich Stadium opens in '73 and Colts move in '84. In '84, Erie County adds 16 executive suites. That rules Indy out.
Baltimore in '96? Nashvillle in 97? Houston in '99? In '92, 24 more suites added. In'94, Red Zone and Goal Line suites added, as were 14 new luxury suites and the nation's largest Jumbotron. In '98 the County agrees to pour in another $63 million into the place.
So, as you can see--there was never a reason to move the team for traditional reasons (why everyone else moved). As so many here have pointed out, Ralph has made plenty of money here. There is no reason to believe he could have extracted so much profit from another fan base for such a poor product. Your argument makes no sense--as does your "LA premium" for the sale of the team. The team is not worth more on the possibility that it might move to LA.
If there was a better deal out there (and there were, many, despite your claims that Buffalo is some sort of boomtown) and Ralph really wanted to take it, why would he care that the stadium was built in 1973? He doesn't give a **** about anyone else, and is all about himself and the money, right?
Actually, in the popular meaning of the term, Golisano was a "white knight"--who stepped in and bought the Sabres. And looks like "doc's luck argument" is making its way into yet another discussion. TG was simply "lucky" that the Sabres did well, despite him making all the wrong moves! Very convincing stuff.The Sabres are small potatoes compared to the NFL. And yes it was mostly luck, considering the moves he made, yet the team still did well.
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Again, under the new CBA, the extra income pool would have to be more than 5 billion to equal the supplimental income pool of the last CBA.
KFBD posted a Mark Gaughan (the guy you have mocked many times for his "sell to the highest bidder") quote that mentioned RW's involvement in the last CBA. So now you say that RW was instrumental in the evolution of the revenue sharing component of the last CBA, while at the same time claiming he didn't understand the details of it. Look, revenue sharing was put in the 06 CBA at the insistence of Upshaw. There was no report a that time otherwise.
The quote by Gaughan (sorry but I can't take a guy seriously who says he doesn't know Ralph's succession plan...but that it's to "sell to the highest bidder") was about revenue sharing this time. And again, the revenue sharing details weren't defined when the owners hastily (and mistakenly, according to Giants' owner John Mara, which I know you saw) voted for the 2006 CBA. Obviously the additional revenue sharing arrangement this time around is more favorable, seeing as how Ralph voted for it whereas he didn't vote for it initially last time. In addition to Wayne Weaver also saying it's better.
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My point?
You said it "wasn't even debatable" that TG spent more on his campaign than philanthropy--you were off by over 50 million.
You asked if TG comes up fro FL to check up on how his company is run--even though he hadn't been President or CEO for 7 years--and when he does come up only to preside over board meetings when they are scheduled. You said RW hired others to run the business for him and then conceded he makes final decisions on all major calls.
You said that RW kept tix prices low as a favor to Bills fans, then you conceded that the market determines ticket prices.
I did say he could charge more (especially if he found a HC/GM who could win games)--before the 2009 season, when season tickets reached a peak 55,000. However, in the face of 11,000 fewer tickets being sold in 2010, he did the fans a favor of raising prices 20%.
By the way, season tickets are currently trading for as low as 28-38 bucks on stubhub for the last 3 home games.
As has been pointed out to you, all NFL teams that moved did so only because the cities they were in (and were willing to stay in) wouldn't build (or refurbish) stadiums for them. Ralph made the same demand as they did and he got a new stadium and then got it refurbished years later. Also, his stay in Buffalo has been wildly profitable, no reason to believe he would have made more in Indy or Balt--especially with his managerial ineptitude. So to continue to say he "could have moved the team any time" makes no sense whatsoever.
I only conceded the charity versus campaign money thing, not that giving $145M to charity makes spending $93M to stroke his ego any better. Ralph's "final say" is likely little more than him saying "yes" to everything at "board meetings" over the phone. Again he doesn't do any of the practical day-to-day stuff.
As for the ticket prices, the market can bear lower prices easily. And I've said all along that the market could bear $10 more per ticket. But getting to average ticket price is out of the question.
The last team to move/be added to the league was Houston (awarded in 1999) and sites for a new franchise were being chosen prior to the renovation of the Ralph in 1998. Ralph could have moved any time before then and now could sell the team for a hefty premium to the group looking to move a team to LA.
Again doc, if you think that Golisano is some white knight just because the Sabres did well despite installing Larry Quinn as managing partner and his efforts to keep costs down by not spending anywhere near to the cap and cutting all of the scouts, you're fooling yourself. Again he's little different from Ralph.
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I don't follow the Cowboys, so I don't claim to know Jerry Jones' current thinking. He must have voted for the currently proposed new CBA, but in 2009 he made some fairly strong anti-supplemental revenue sharing statements.
Yes he did. Looks like the owners told him where to go after that 2006 CBA.
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Why on earth would any owner not maximize all revenue whenever they could? To keep the welfare number down? No way. You make money when it's there to make.
Kraft has been a solid supporter of revenue sharing for low producers since he became an owner. Not sure what "crooked dealing" on this issue you are referring to. Enlighten please.
The last CBA was quite generous, offering a $500 million revenue (from high producers) pool to share. That would require $5 billion of extra revenue to be made to made under the new CBA--so it's hard to claim this CBA is "better" in revenue sharing than the last one.
Wayne Weaver wasn't happy with the revenue sharing in the last CBA, but was happy with this one. As were all of the other lower revenue team owners. That should tell you something.
You can thank Ralph, doc, but he nothing to do with this.KtFaBD already refuted this claim in the other thread on revenue sharing (where he also refuted your claim that the owners knew what they were doing with the 2006 CBA). But here it is again:
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Thursday night that the new deal does include a supplemental-revenue sharing system. A supplemental revenue system, aimed at helping lower-revenue teams, was added to the previous deal only after intense lobbying by Bills owner Ralph C. Wilson Jr.---Mark Gaughan
Not to mention Ralph was on the committee that worked on the revenue sharing plan from the 2006 CBA.
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The owners did not know what they were doing, period. Here is another one who freely admitted it.
“We made a mistake, no question about it,” Giants co-owner John Mara told Mike Lupica of ESPN 1050 in New York, via SportsRadioInterviews.com. “And we deserve criticism for making that mistake. The players, themselves, have acknowledged that they made a great deal back in 2006 and there were a number of us, myself included, who didn’t fully understand what we were doing in 2006. We understood pretty quickly, within about a year after that. At the end of the day, we’re businessmen who love football and we want to get a deal done that makes sense for our businesses and that’s good for the game and allows the game to grow. There is a deal there to be made that would be fair for both sides.”Game, set, match. And notice there's no mention of how "the situation changed."
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His NFL career is toast, and it appears his life may be as well.
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Revenue sharing has been in existence for many years. It was present in the last CBA--at the insistence of the union.
The NFLPA insisted on it in 2006, but this time around didn't care. And revenue sharing wasn't defined when they initially voted on the 2006 CBA. This revenue sharing plan is far more generous to the lowest revenue teams, which the Bills weren't the past 5 years.
Sharing 10% seems like a concession, but I have a feeling that the floodgates are about to open on the local revenue. I think that guys like JJ and Kraft have been holding back a bit on some of their local revenue potential in anticipation of the moment when they could get a hard and fast number in place of how much they would need to share to keep the other owners quiet. What I mean is that they may have been intentionally underproducing to get the small market owners to bite on 10% instead of demanding closer to half. This kind of crooked dealing is consistent with how JJ and Kraft have done business.
Additionally, a team like the Giants, who have traditionally "done the right thing" for the league now no longer has to stand up for the cause of small markets, and in fact will be hurting themselves by NOT maximizing local revenue. In short, 10% is better than nothing but keep in mind that 50% would STILL give the big market teams a huge advantage because that other 50% would have to be split evenly among the bottom feeders while the big market would keep half of their local pie to themselves.
Doesn't make sense. If they were holding back on "local revenue" streams, they were denying themselves 100% of that money up until now. And if they DO tap into those streams, the lowest revenue teams get 10% of a bigger pie.
10% is a decent amount and greater than what they got last time around. Going above that just makes getting a deal done that much harder. And 50% was never ever going to happen.
BTW, we can all thank Ralph for this, as it helps the Bills' long-term (i.e. post-Ralph) viability.
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But twitting about it is a stuupid idea. Somebody needs to find their myspace pages, then we can really let them know how much we desire them.
MySpace? Holy mid-2000's, Batman!
Doc, I'd love that scenario. Gotta re-sign Florence or at least get another starting CB, too.
Florence looks like a priority, but it seems they are willing to let Poz walk.
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If these changes force the Bills to move TC elsewhere in the future, I'll be pissed!
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If they only got Miller and a RT (Clabo?) in FA, I'd be extremely satisfied. Another LB would be sweet, but that's pushing it.
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Doc, the proof that Upshaw wouldn't budge is that the owners voted nearly unanimously for the CBA, after 300 hours of negotiations went nowhere. Why didn't the owners just tell him to "pound sand"? Because they didn't want to miss games. Do yourself a favor--read that ESPN piece I linked.
Ralph admitted that he didn't know enough about the CBA to vote for it. ANd he had abslolutely nothing to do with revenue sharing in that deal (it was Upshaw and owners like Kraft). And there is no evidence he was involved in any aspect of putting together this CBA.
I assume you didn't read it, but the piece you linked basically says that Upshaw pulled one over on the owners, doc. All it keeps talking about is "one man:" Upshaw. One of the owners even said "Let's call his bluff," but Tagliqaboob, wanting to preserve his legacy, steered them away from that course. So it was really two men who got one over on the owners.
What games were they going to miss? Potentially ones in 2008, which was TWO years later, since the original CBA was set to expire at the end of the 2007 season? And that in the interim the players would have had a lower salary cap and then the fools gold of the uncapped year, right?
Yes I saw the BSPN sound bite portraying Ralph as a doddering old fool that they replayed over and over. I also saw the section of the remainder of the interview where he says "I think they got too much." And eventually the other owners agreed.
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Cool. I've heard TC's will be open Friday, and I'll be in-town this weekend. Even if it takes until Sunday for them to open, I'll still be able to make one session.
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Ralph doesn't have to sell anything to "raise $1M". He just has to fill out a withdrawal slip.
Golisano doesn't do any of the things you mention--he can't becasue he is the chairman of the board, not the CEO or President. HE has no "underlings". How can you not get this? By the way, Ralph famously scouted your boy RJ...
Golisano can't just fill out a withdrawal slip? Remember, he's donated more than Ralph has ever made.
And even if it were true that Ralph scouted RJ (that myth was debunked awhile ago), that was over a decade ago. You know, when Golisano was running the show at Paychex. Your point?
Nice!Yes, as I said, the ticket prices are what the marrket will bear--not as a "favor", as you just claimed.
And, yes, Ralph could simply move the team any time he wants....
Ask fans that do it and they'll tell you is IS nice that they can recoup their entire ST price by selling a couple games. It's the reason you see more opposing teams' fans at some games. Then they can watch the games from the comfort of their family rooms.
And haven't you been saying for awhile that Ralph could easily charge more for tix than he does instead of demanding charity from the other owners? Now you're saying he's charging "what the market will bear?" If anything, you're more unfavorable to fans than Ralph is, saying the fans should pay more and to leave the other owners alone.
As I've said before, the time to move the team has passed. What he could do is sell the team to the group that wants to move the team to LA. He would make a couple hundred million more doing that than from selling/having it sold after his death to a group that wants to keep the team in Buffalo.
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Another temporary boost that won't amount to a hill of beans come November 2012.
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Barry is more to the wrong of Dubya, not the right.
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Missed the continent topography question. But really, is that (or the desertification in East Africa question) important to Americans?
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You can say the owners could have rolled Upshaw, if it makes sense to you and helps you be comfortable with your position, but if you read that article, there is nothing that suggests what you suggest (the ol' "pound sand") would have been successful. Upshaw had walked out and was celebrating an uncapped year--looking forward to it, actually. I'm sure the owners would have much rather been dealing with Smith back then but they weren't. I believe you understand this.
Why quit the deal? Becuase it's the only deal available to keep the games going. They knew it was temporary and for a short term--the lockout insurance is proof they were preparing not to lose any game money if the next CBA negotiations ended in a lockout. In the end, it seemed like a tough pill to swallow, but it seems that their plan worked: the CBA functionally lasted 3 years, no games were missed, contracts were re-signed with happy networks, players and owners made unprecedented money and now..now the owners have gotten it ll back and in a 10 year deal to boot. Why do you have a problem with this???
Upshaw was not taking less than 60%. FInd me any evidence to the contrary. Smith was happy to cut it back to 48%--and he threw in a rookie pay scale! If you can't see the difference between Upshaw's union and this circus that Smith is embarrassing his players with now, you're not being honest with yourself.
How do I prove something that never happened? Upshaw SAID he wasn't taking less, but the owners never called him on it. You see, that is the main difference between Upshaw and Smith, i.e. the owners standing firm, because of what happened last time. Again you're making the ridiculous claim that Upshaw had final say and/or that he pulled one over on 32 NFL owners (well, 30 owners). You can't say that and be honest with yourself, given all the time you've spent talking about how you side with the owners when they approved that 2006 CBA, because they're successful business men and are far smarter than any player.
And Upshaw may have "welcomed" the uncapped year, but so too did the players...until they realized it wasn't near the bonanza they thought it would be. Proving Upshaw wasn't too bright. Or maybe it was all for show. But apparently it worked.
You just can't give up the ghost that Ralph knew the 2006 CBA was a POS and the other owners didn't. I mean, doesn't it strike you as odd that Ralph was voted into the HOF after the owners opted-out of the CBA, and was instrumental in getting a better revenue sharing deal for small market teams in this new CBA?
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I'll admit my "more than Ralph has made" was hyperbole. You claimed that your point was beyond debate. What are your thoughts now? And TG didn't become a billionaire overnight, just like Ralph wasn't quite pulling in 20-40 mil a year until the past decade. His 1.3 billion is likely "tied-into" Paychex stock, which he can't exactly liquidate quickly.
Yes, TG is Chairman of the board. So what? As such, he makes no decisions about the day to day operation of the company. He meets with the rest of the board periodically to review the performance of the company's executives and the company itself, on behalf of the shareholders. So, you've answered your own silly question "does TG come up from Fla to check on his company".
Now you can answer whether you believe that Ralph, as owner and President, doesn't have the final say in the management of his team--that "CEO Russ Brandon" is in charge, and that's why Ralph doesn't have to be around? That Ralph is in control of his business seems "not even debatable", doesn't it?
And re: Ralph has "kept" ticket prices low as a "favor" to the fans--it's the market that keeps these ticket prices low, doc. And there is not much market for a perennially losing and serially mismanaged team. See the the 20% drop in season ticket sales last year. And even though they may be the lowest prices in the league, it's by a negligible amount--and they are hardly a value.
From Forbes 2009:
Finally, most Sabres fans (who weren't struggling to make a losing point) would agree that the team hasn't just snuck into the playoffs in the Golisano years. or that they played like they didn't belong there.
Yes, Golisano's wealth is tied into his Paychex stock. But to raise $1M, all he needs to do is sell just 40K shares, which is a drop in the bucket and doesn't change anything WRT ownership.
While Ralph may have ultimate say, he doesn't scout players, pick players, or negotiate contracts or any other practical stuff. He signs-off on things and provides a spending target, but that's about it. He basically does what Golisano does, i.e. let his underlings run things.
And yes, ticket prices are low because that's what the market can bear. He could have raised them and said "see, no one can afford my prices, I'm moving," and then moved.
Lowest is lowest and they ARE a value, considering it's the NFL and what other fans pay. And ST holders can recoup their ST money by selling a couple games to opposing fans.
Whitner to sign elsewhere
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
Nix basically said that Florence is their priority and Whitner and Poz aren't.