Something to consider about Ralph and the Bills

[mrags]

I'd rather have a team go 2-14 every single season than not have a team. The gameday experience is what it's all about. IF we lose this team in the future because of Ralphs passing or any other reason, a little bit inside me will die. I can't say for sure I wouldn't be a football fan or not at that point. But it would be lime losing your life partner. I've been a Bills fan longer than I've been with my girlfriend, longer than I've had my best friends, longer than my job, dog, cat, car, house, etc..... Chances are a piece of me will die. The Bills were always there for us. Good or bad, if you were feeling down you could always enjoy a game, or at least realize you had it better than thier sorry players. Lol

[BuffaloBaumer]

I never said Ralph was Mother Theresa. I'm asking would you rather have the Bills as they are or no NFL team in Buffalo ever? Don't read schitt into this.

 

PTR

 

No need to make it so black and white...it IS possible to have a team, make it competitive AND still make many millions every year

[Kelly the Dog]

People like to say this, but it's just not true.

 

He couldn't care less about the region. His heirs don't want the team, and he won't put any succession plan in place, but instead just prefers to let the team sell to the highest bidder after his death.

 

Why? Because he's a businessman, in his motive is to make money. If he could have easily made a lot more money by moving the team, he would have done so in a heartbeat.

It seems you know little about him, and less about the economics and history of the team and the NFL. That's okay with me.

[Endless Ike]

Thank you for your answer. I'm not saying eat the crap RW is serving, just whether you'd rather have the team or not?

 

PTR

 

If the moon were made of BBQ spare ribs, would you eat it?

 

If the team leaves, I think UB would be wise to sink as much money as they can into their program. the University can't leave town. Buffalo just might be a college football town in 50 years.

[NaPolian8693]

Kelly how many millions of dollars to you estimate that Ralph chose to just throw away in order to keep the team in Buffalo? Please just throw out a number.

 

What are the reasons that would cause him to so charitably throw away all these millions?

[Endless Ike]

I'd rather have a team go 2-14 every single season than not have a team. The gameday experience is what it's all about. IF we lose this team in the future because of Ralphs passing or any other reason, a little bit inside me will die. I can't say for sure I wouldn't be a football fan or not at that point. But it would be lime losing your life partner. I've been a Bills fan longer than I've been with my girlfriend, longer than I've had my best friends, longer than my job, dog, cat, car, house, etc..... Chances are a piece of me will die. The Bills were always there for us. Good or bad, if you were feeling down you could always enjoy a game, or at least realize you had it better than thier sorry players. Lol

 

Take drive out to syracuse and tailgate there on saturdays. You don't have to worry about being hungover on sundays if all you care about is the "game day experience" of being at a football game.

 

Ralph's a miserable old bastard, and I can't wait to see what happens when he's gone. Even if that means the team moves. I'm sick of feeling like a hostage. Shoot me or release me, !@#$er

Edited August 25, 2011 by Endless Ike

[GG]

I love the Bills, and have all my life. I love Ralph Wilson for keeping the team here when he could have made more money elsewhere pretty much any time he wanted to, despite what people may say. And I fully blame Ralph Wilson's often narrow minded, erratic, irrational, compulsive, ill-informed and ill-fated decisions for making the team the second worse run franchise in the league over the last 50 years.

 

I love the guy for a couple major decisions and I blame him for a thousand poor ones.

 

I disagree with the point about making more money elsewhere. The only way Wilson could have made more money was by outright selling the team. But if he moved it, he would not get as nice of a deal as he has in Buffalo. His team plays in a stadium paid by the county & the state. He has a sweetheart parking & concessions deals. He doesn't need to field a competitive product to fill the seats. NFL's revenue sharing means that middling teams can make $20 - $30 mil profit just by showing up. Meanwhile owners who try to improve their teams usually take a cash bath for a couple of years. That's never been Wilson's modus operandi. If anything, the growing pie of TV revenues make gate receipts that much more irrelevant.

 

Buffalo is the perfect market for an owner like Wilson.

[BuffaloBillsForever]

I'm pretty sure you have Stockholm Syndrome.

 

I lol'd. There is a lot of truth to that. There are lots of Bills fans that have this mindset. Who cares if we lose, just be happy we have a team. Why on earth as fans should we be happy and accept mediocrity. For the most part it has been worse than that.

 

As bills fans don't we want to strive for greatness?? Don't you want this team to be great. It seems many are just passive with the Bills losing ways. Mind boggling!

[PromoTheRobot]

No need to make it so black and white...it IS possible to have a team, make it competitive AND still make many millions every year

The post was not how Ralph runs the team, just a choice between what we have or no team.

 

I lol'd. There is a lot of truth to that. There are lots of Bills fans that have this mindset. Who cares if we lose, just be happy we have a team. Why on earth as fans should we be happy and accept mediocrity. For the most part it has been worse than that.

 

As bills fans don't we want to strive for greatness?? Don't you want this team to be great. It seems many are just passive with the Bills losing ways. Mind boggling!

Wow...is reading comprehension that bad? I'm not asking people to accept what RW created, just whether you prefer what we have over no team.

 

And by they way, how are the fans supposed to strive for greatness? B word more? We don't run the team.

 

PTR

Edited August 25, 2011 by PromoTheRobot

[Erik Flowers]

I'm not saying eat the crap RW is serving, just whether you'd rather have the team or not?

 

No you're not. You're asking this :

 

I'm asking would you rather have the Bills as they are or no NFL team in Buffalo ever?

 

which is an entirely different question. That's the problem people have with the question you are posing.

 

Of course we want the team, or we wouldn't be here. Suggesting we have no right to complain about the crappy way the team is run is wrong.

 

You think we should sit, down, shut up, blindly support the team, and spend all our money on them no matter how ineptly they are run? Because that seems to be what you are suggesting. You seem to have a hard time internalizing that people can love an entity, like the Bills or our country, but be unhappy about the way that entity is managed. The great thing about being an American, or a Bills fan, is that we have that right. Exercising that right to complain when things aren't being run the way they should be isn't just a right, its an obligation.

[PromoTheRobot]

No you're not. You're asking this :

 

 

 

which is an entirely different question. That's the problem people have with the question you are posing.

 

Of course we want the team, or we wouldn't be here. Suggesting we have no right to complain about the crappy way the team is run is wrong.

 

You think we should sit, down, shut up, blindly support the team, and spend all our money on them no matter how ineptly they are run? Because that seems to be what you are suggesting. You seem to have a hard time internalizing that people can love an entity, like the Bills or our country, but be unhappy about the way that entity is managed. The great thing about being an American, or a Bills fan, is that we have that right. Exercising that right to complain when things aren't being run the way they should be isn't just a right, its an obligation.

 

If you can find this anywhere in my post, I'll give you $10! This has turned into an experiment in perceptions. People are seeing words that aren't there.

 

And both questions are the same because the Bills are what they are. If I ask would you accept the Bills as they are, there is not some alt-universe version of the Bills.

 

PTR

Edited August 25, 2011 by PromoTheRobot

[bowery4]

I am glad there is a team in Bflo.

[Kelly the Dog]

I disagree with the point about making more money elsewhere. The only way Wilson could have made more money was by outright selling the team. But if he moved it, he would not get as nice of a deal as he has in Buffalo. His team plays in a stadium paid by the county & the state. He has a sweetheart parking & concessions deals. He doesn't need to field a competitive product to fill the seats. NFL's revenue sharing means that middling teams can make $20 - $30 mil profit just by showing up. Meanwhile owners who try to improve their teams usually take a cash bath for a couple of years. That's never been Wilson's modus operandi. If anything, the growing pie of TV revenues make gate receipts that much more irrelevant.

 

Buffalo is the perfect market for an owner like Wilson.

This argument has been rehashed dozens of times, and it is a complex one. The scenario you just laid out is the state of the league right now, and yes, because he is 90+ years old, it would be difficult for him to move the team right now and make more money per year right now than he does because of the sweetheart deals he has after being here 50 years. he could make the franchise worth more right now though and more than cover those yearly losses.

 

I'm talking about over the course of the history of his ownership there were all kinds of if not endless opportunities to make more money elsewhere. And even if he didn't make as many millions in profit each year, the team would have been worth that much more and then some when it was sold. That's making more money, too.

 

If he wanted to more money because he is greedy, he could sell 10% of the team, have total control like he does, make 70-80 million in cash for himself. Or do (and I am not talking you here) people actually believe in some bizarro world that Ralph Wilson is really cheap and miserly and hoards all his pennies but really wants it so he can leave his family 780 million dollars and not spend it himself?

 

If he wanted to, he could probably move the team right now to LA, sell a large portion of it to AIG,or Roski or someone else, make 100-200 million cash for himself, and still have complete power over the running of the team, and his heirs worth just as much as the Bills are right now, contingent upon the sale to the other group upon his death. If he wanted to make more money, he could.

[Erik Flowers]

If you can find this anywhere in my post, I'll give you $10! This has turned into an experiment in perceptions. People are seeing words that aren't there.

 

And both questions are the same because the Bills are what they are. If I ask would you accept the Bills as they are, there is not other alt-universe version of the Bills.

 

PTR

Of course you didn't come out and say it, but you implied it. Your original question, after the obligatory fellating of Ralph, was this:

 

So my question to you is it better to love the Bills with all it's warts than to never had the Bills at all?

 

You should be on the Bills' payroll. 14,000 posts worth of thank your lucky stars we even have a team.

 

I'll ask the question you really meant and answer it. Would you rather have a team that sucks forever, is horribly managed, and doesn't make any real effort at fielding a competitive team, or no team at all? My answer is no team at all.

 

In the last 51 years, we have had 10 season of competitive football. The last 11 have been a joke. Ralph is a feeble incompetent sucking the last bit of meat off the bone. Give me a team that cares, or give me no team at all.

[hondo in seattle]

PTR, thanks for the history review. Good stuff. And I share your appreciations for Ralph. There's no doubt that he was making prudent business decisions when he started the Bills and then helped fold the AFL into the NFL. Regardless of the purity of his motivations, the net result was that he brought a NFL team to Buffalo. There's a good chance it wouldn't have happened without him. For that, I am grateful.

 

I really don't understand the efforts to vilify the man. He's not evil incarnate. He gives millions to charitable causes. He's kept the Bills in Buffalo when it might have been more profitable to relocate the team. Sure, he's made some bad decisions which have resulted in the Bills winning only something like 46% of their games since their inception. But we did have a couple AFL Championships and the Kelly/Thomas/Reed/Smith/et al years were a lot of fun despite the SB losses. In sum, he might be less competent than other owners but he's also more loyal. Would we be happier with the opposite - say someone like Art Modell?

[Coach Tuesday]

If you ask the question in the historical sense, i.e., would I experience the last few decades of ups and downs over not having had any team in Buffalo, then the answer would have to be yes.

 

But if the question is directed at the future, i.e., would I want another few decades of this kind of thing, the answer would be no. I'd rather the Bills left town.

 

But my reason for this is because there are different ways of running a small market team, and the Bills under RW are doing it the wrong way, and the insulting way. It would be one thing if they openly acknowledged their limitations as a small market franchise in an undesireable location, but said to their fans, look, we're going to have to try harder to compete, and we're going to have to do some things differently and creatively, but we're going to try to win. Our tactics might work, they might not, but we'll be creative and we'll try. Something like what the Moneyball Oakland A's did. That, I could and would root for.

 

But that's not what Ralph is about. He is OPENLY LYING to the taxpayers of WNY (who support him whether they like it or not) by insisting that he's going to compete with the Big Boys and build a winner, when in fact he has no intention of doing so and puts making a profit-certain ahead of any chance of actual success. He's a swindler, plain and simple. He's selling used cars and telling you that you have to buy the TruCoat. I appreciate what he's done, but I can't and won't support him going forward.

Edited August 25, 2011 by Coach Tuesday

[FistingBot]

So my question to you is it better to love the Bills with all it's warts than to never had the Bills at all?

 

PTR

 

With all due respect, it seems to me that you've posted a somewhat complex (and not particularly well-worded) question that legitimately has multiple answers.. and then you're blasting those who don't answer as you would like them to...

 

Personally I feel that if the team is going to leave anyway (i.e. it'll almost certainly go up for auction when Ralph dies) and if no effort is legitimately being made to make the team competitive in the meantime, then might as well get it over with and move the team sooner rather than later. I'd be satisfied with lousy teams if I thought the team was going to stay in Buffalo post-Ralph.

 

I don't think anyone here will say they have never derived any enjoyment from the team at some point over the past 50 years (your "never had the Bills at all" statement). But if it is inevitable that the team will leave, then IMHO, might as well pull the plug on the life support system now.

[billsfreak]

People like to say this, but it's just not true.

 

He couldn't care less about the region. His heirs don't want the team, and he won't put any succession plan in place, but instead just prefers to let the team sell to the highest bidder after his death.

 

Why? Because he's a businessman, in his motive is to make money. If he could have easily made a lot more money by moving the team, he would have done so in a heartbeat.

 

You think he just actively chose to throw away millions and millions of dollars in order to keep a team in some random geographic region that he has no particular ties to? How does that make any sense? He didn't even want to put the team here in the first place.

It would be safe to say that all NFL owners are businessmen first, that doesn't mean that they don't find a happy middle ground between making millions and trying to win.

[Delete This Account]

People like to say this, but it's just not true.

 

He couldn't care less about the region. His heirs don't want the team, and he won't put any succession plan in place, but instead just prefers to let the team sell to the highest bidder after his death.

 

Why? Because he's a businessman, in his motive is to make money. If he could have easily made a lot more money by moving the team, he would have done so in a heartbeat.

 

You think he just actively chose to throw away millions and millions of dollars in order to keep a team in some random geographic region that he has no particular ties to? How does that make any sense? He didn't even want to put the team here in the first place.

this response if pure baloney. wrong on couldn't care less about the region. wrong about his heirs not wanting the team (it's a little more complicated). wrong about moving the team, because he's had offers to move. ...

sure, the first choice among AFL founders was to put a team in Miami. that wasn't entirely Mr. Wilson's choice, so let's be clear on that. after being turned down in Miami, he went ahead and founded the team here in Buffalo, and has stuck with it.

 

as Kelly has noted, there are many things this organization can be faulted for, but i accuse you of playing a fast and loose game of twisting the facts to fit your own ideas. ... it's not as black and white as you make it sound.

 

my intention here, as it's been in numerous threads such as this over the years, is to merely provide perspective.

 

and yet, i'd be surprised if this sinks in as those who have had their minds made up on this subject have proven to be stubborn nuts to crack.

 

jw

Edited August 25, 2011 by john wawrow

[PromoTheRobot]

Of course you didn't come out and say it, but you implied it. Your original question, after the obligatory fellating of Ralph, was this:

 

 

 

You should be on the Bills' payroll. 14,000 posts worth of thank your lucky stars we even have a team.

 

I'll ask the question you really meant and answer it. Would you rather have a team that sucks forever, is horribly managed, and doesn't make any real effort at fielding a competitive team, or no team at all? My answer is no team at all.

 

In the last 51 years, we have had 10 season of competitive football. The last 11 have been a joke. Ralph is a feeble incompetent sucking the last bit of meat off the bone. Give me a team that cares, or give me no team at all.

 

I asked a simple question. You are reading stuff into it.

 

PTR