CircleTheWagons

I love those small 300 lb guys that are light on their feet I agree with you, but I find it amazing that an athlete can be considered small at 300 lbs.

End of work and 3 hours until game time for the Flames. I've been a long time Sabres follower, since the days Bowman got shafted by Les Canadiens and joined the Sabres. I'll be cheering for the Sabres at least to the final. If the Red Mile is still rocking in Calgary, I'll have to hope that the refs still hate Buffalo

I think we agree that the immediate problem is that the owners agreed too quickly on the new salary cap formula, but until the revenue sharing is ironed out, it's tough to say that anyone got screwed. Perhaps the rich owners will agree to share more revenue enabling small market teams to still spend to the cap. A simple formula would be that any team spending less than 60% of their overall revenue on salaries dumps the additional money into a league pool that is then distributed to teams needing to spend over 60% of their revenue on salaries. Salaries should then stay close to 60% of every teams revenue matching revenue sharing with the CBA. Long-term though, my concern is that the Bills days are numbered if they require handouts from other teams to be successful. As long as the "rich" owners have to subsidize the poor teams they are going to look for ways to eliminate/move them so that they can retain their money.

I wouldn't be so happy until it's determined which owners were thrown under the bus. It could be Ralph under the wheels. From a rich owner's perspective, Ralph is the greedy one, expecting to use their profits to meet his expenses. To the rich owners, Ralph isn't carrying his weight. It's like a group project and Ralph is sitting in the corner pouting but still expects to get an equal share of the credit. Tying the salary cap to overall revenues without revenue sharing will kill teams like the Bills. Using revenue sharing frustrates owners that are legitimately trying to maximize their return and unfairly subsidizes teams that don't try to maximize returns. The salary cap needs to be set based on a different criteria that would allow all of the franchises to compete without revenue sharing. This would significantly increase the value of teams generating the most revenue and lower the value of teams with less revenue, which sounds reasonable to me. If the Bills make $10,000,000 a year and the Cowboys make $100,000,000 year then the Cowboys should be worth 10X the Bills. It doesn't mean that the Bills can't compete against the Cowboys but the Bills' franchise is probably worth $120,000,000 instead of $600,000,000.

Not that it really matters, but the only number I've seen is $39 million cap this year - even after googling and checking a few sites. Any links for the $42M?

I think I quoted what is essentially your point and I agree with it, which is why I said that the league needs to set a salary cap that can be met by 30-35 teams. All I'm suggesting is that they should lower the cap and allow the teams that generate extra revenue to keep it rather than propping up poorer teams to match player salaries. Of course, I enjoy thinking that Pats, Skins and Cowboy fans are paying inflated prices to help pay Bills' player salaries

I'm sure the smaller market teams would think that is fair. The large market teams would probably prefer to kick in a specific amount of revenue (say $100 million) and then keep everything after that. In fact, if I were a large market team owner, I would be against revenue sharing completely. It's the salary cap that keeps the teams competitive not the revenue sharing. Determine a salary cap level where 30-35 teams should be able to successfully compete without revenue sharing and move forward.

"What you do should speak so loudly that no one can hear what you say." Marv Levy, former coach of the Montreal Alouettes For me, I'm confident and proud of my country. I don't need validation from anyone or any country. I have lived abroad, I know where our standard of living ranks in the world and I understand and support our reasonable restrictions on individual freedoms for the benefit of society as outlined in our Constitution. I accept that other people make different choices that are no less valid.

apuszczalowski - I'm not sure where you're going with this, but it's reflecting poorly on some of the Canadians on this board who enjoy watching American football and discussing it with our American friends on an American board.

By the way (just for a little education) the only NFL cities bigger than Vancouver (our 3rd largest city) are: New York, Chicago, and Houston. I did like the line about hockey arenas though. The population link I googled

You say that like it's a bad thing. But for a correction - the hockey arena goes first, then the farms and the lumberjacks

Sounds like the same sound military thinking you used in your last invasion. How's that one working out?

Why do you think the CFL does quite well? The CFL lost a franchise (Ottawa Renegades) in the last two weeks, leaving it with only 8 teams. There are probably more teams losing money than making money and at least one team typically changes owners every other year. Two years ago Toronto was going to fold if they didn't find new ownership. I love the CFL and attend 4 or 5 games a year but I would hesitate to say it does well.

How do you tap into Toronto revenue? The stadium is smaller and the dollar is worth 15% less, so it won't be by hosting the games in Toronto. Do you think there would be a huge increase in Toronto advertising $$$ with a couple of games hosted in Toronto?

I love the NFL and I'm Canadian, but I doubt that we will see a permanent NFL franchise in Canada. The baseball and basketball expansions have not gone very well - 2 went back to the US (Montreal Expos, Vancouver Grizzlies) and the remaining 2 aren't very healthy (Toronto Raptors and Jays). We don't have a stadium large enough and with the dollar worth 15% less, it would just add a team that needs revenue sharing. Besides, teams like the Dol-felons could never get their players across the border, or we would be worried you wouldn't take them back after the game

I mostly agree with this, but I would add a slight caveat - if the player is so superior at one skill it forces the other team to switch its base defense or defenders, his limited skills are less of a liability. For example, if the TE is a great receiver and forces the defense into using a nickle, then the TE just needs to block better than a 3rd WR to add value to the offense. Make sense?

Those damn rich people with all of their secret sources of income. And don't let the simple fact that people like Gates and Buffett have watched their net worth decline over the last few years stop you from believing your theory - they're probably hiding the real money and avoiding taxes.

Thanks. I have to admit that it suprised me to see that he founded a venture capital fund interested in funding techs Ralph Wilson Equity Fund.

I hate to admit it, but I really know nothing about the Bills owner, other than he owns the Bills and likes tennis. I've looked up his bio on the Bills' site but it only lists his charity work. Can somebody with a little knowledge tell me about some of his business accomplishments outside of football? Much appreciated.

It appears to me that you're trying to track specific individuals rather than the demographic. It's irrelevant that specific people have moved into or out of the population (18-34). It doesn't matter if Bob moved away or turned 35, if he's not replaced by somebody moving to the city or turning 18 the population in that age group declines. I guess I don't understand why you want to use specific people to account for the same population over time. If the population is defined as 18-34, individuals will move into and out of the population every day, but that's totally irrelevant for the businesses targeting the demographic. Everybody who is 40 was once 18-34 but they're no longer important to marketers targeting the younger crowd.

Funny, I think that's why a Redskins "writer" was writing an article on a Redskins website defending his owner after an attack from the Bills owner. What the heck, it's the off-season, lets do a little Hatfield-McCoy battle

Okay no more threads on topics unless we have all the information... [crickets chirping]...

If you were a potential owner... Would you rather pay $700 million for a team and receive $10 million/year in "free revenue" from the other owners or pay $500 million for a team and have to make up the additional $10 million/year out of your own capital? If you can make a better return on the $200 million in savings you should prefer to pay it out of your own capital and take the tax breaks on the operating loss in addition to looking like you are sacrificing for the community. Obviously if you currently owned the team, you would prefer to receive the $700 million since you won't be responsible for the $10 million in future years.

But if "current fiscal year cash flow" has no impact on the value of a franchise, why would revenue sharing matter to a new owner? He's still going to get 1 of only 32 franchises available.

Don't forget, our balls are bigger too. (Actual marketing campaign from a few years back).