Donahoe

[ans4e64]

I dont think that TD is done after the season, but if you were RWS who would you promote thats better? Modrak maybe?

[San-O]

He did that and somehow kept the stadium full.  You are missing the point.

341374[/snapback]

 

 

I think the fans kept the stadium full.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I think the fans kept the stadium full.

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For sure it was the fans who sacrificed their nickels to fill the stadium. However, TD did his part in making it possible for them to do this and gets credit for it getting done.

 

Its taken the help of numberous parties from Business Backs the Bills to Ralohie donating a few leftover tickets to the armed forces or to kids in a couple of difficult to sale match-ups.

 

Hiwever, the fact has to be acknowledged that TD has overseen as GM to virtual perpertual selling out of a difficult to sell out completely stadium in the WNY environmental climate with a large stadium to fill and an up and down team result.

 

The best thing this team can do to sell tickets is to win games. Failing a gurantee of that in real life, TD has done the job needed and kudos to him because we benefit from it.

[San-O]

For sure it was the fans who sacrificed their nickels to fill the stadium. However, TD did his part in making it possible for them to do this and gets credit for it getting done.

 

Its taken the help of numberous parties from Business Backs the Bills to Ralohie donating a few leftover tickets to the armed forces or to kids in a couple of difficult to sale match-ups.

 

Hiwever, the fact has to be acknowledged that TD has overseen as GM to virtual perpertual selling out of a difficult to sell out completely stadium in the WNY environmental climate with a large stadium to fill and an up and down team result.

 

The best thing this team can do to sell tickets is to win games. Failing a gurantee of that in real life, TD has done the job needed and kudos to him because we benefit from it.

341752[/snapback]

 

 

Disagree.

 

 

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http://www.billszone.com/mtlog/archives/20..._usefulness.php

 

 

History of the Blackout Rule

 

The seeds of the blackout rule were planted in the early 1960’s as television became more popular. Then Commissioner Pete Rozelle feared that football would become a studio game, where fans, if given a choice of coming out to the stadium, or watching on TV at home, would opt for the comfort of their sofas, in effect, killing the sport. This line of thought seemed reasonable at the time. Baseball was still our number one past time, and the NFL was competing with the AFL in different markets for its fans. Rozelle knew another thing as well, and it was that television was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it was a new medium, and not everyone owned one. On the other, football, with its slow paced high drama, was tailor made for television, and certainly was an opportunity to grow the sport that was not to be passed up. So Rozelle compromised. He would allow every team’s road games to be televised back to the team’s home market, but would allow absolutely no local broadcasts of home teams. That’s the way it stayed until 1973.

 

In 1971, the Washington Redskins hired Head Coach George Allen away from the Los Angeles Rams. Allen had great success in Los Angeles throughout the 1960’s, and instantly turned the fortunes of the Redskins around. This of course, sent interest in the team skyrocketing, and being in the nation’s capital, the Redskins became a hot ticket with the politicians who set up residences there. Unfortunately, 55,004 seat RFK Stadium wasn’t large enough to accommodate the demand. Those without tickets could not see them play. Period. Demand reached a fever pitch in 1972, when the team went 11-3, and earned themselves a spot in Super Bowl VII. The natives were angry. The best season in the Skin’s forty-year history, and most fans were blacked out for half the season, as well as the playoffs. Congress immediately went to work, and threatened to pass legislation that eliminated blackouts completely. Upon meeting with politicians and hearing their intent, Rozelle capitulated and instituted the seventy-two hour rule, which would take effect in the fall of 1973. That meant that if a team sold out their home game seventy-two hours before their scheduled kickoff time, the blackout could be lifted, and the game broadcast locally. This is where the NFL has stood for thirty-two seasons.

 

Buffalo’s Blackout History

 

How ironic is it that the NFL instituted the seventy-two hour rule just as the Bills were leaving dilapidated War Memorial Stadium, for Orchard Park in 1973? Wilson and the league both felt that WMS was not suitable for NFL play. With the 1966 merger, the NFL instituted a rule that all of its stadiums need seat at least 50,000. War Memorial fell short at 46, 206 but had other problems as well. It had an antiquated boiler system, resulting in little hot water for the players, poor lighting for night games, an inadequate press box, was old and crumbling structurally, and was smack dab in the middle of one of the roughest neighborhoods in all of the city. Truth be told, it was an embarrassment. Hence, there was never a blackout lifted, or a Monday Night game scheduled while the Buffalo Bills played there.

 

With the move to state of the art Rich Stadium, the league wanted to showcase its newest sports palace. When the 1973 schedule came out, it noted that the Bills would host the Kansas City Chiefs, on October 29, 1973. While it was wonderful for Buffalo to finally get national exposure, it was also unfortunate, as Buffalo’s first foray into prime time, was blacked out locally. 76,071 attended, and saw the Bills win in convincing style…thousands in the western New York area were forced to listen in via radio. Now the outcry began. Why did the Bills, one of the NFL’s smallest markets, have to sell out 80,020 seats in advance, while those in cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, with much larger populations, only had to sell less than 60,000? The question has been asked for thirty plus years, and the only answer ever given has been that a large stadium was necessary for a small team market to compete with the big cities. A logical fallacy if ever there was one, due to the revenue sharing system of the NFL. In the NFL, gate revenue, although split with the visiting team, is gravy. The television money has always been shared equally, amongst all the teams. Buffalo receives the same share as New York, who receives the same share as Dallas. It’s one of the principles that the merger was founded on, and why the NFL continues to dominate the business of professional athletics.

 

In 1975, International Cable of West Seneca, tried to challenge the NFL’s blackout rule, and announced that they were going to broadcast via cable, a preseason game from Rich Stadium against the Los Angeles Rams. They planned to pick up the Syracuse affiliate that was showing the special ABC Monday Night broadcast, featuring local hero Ron Jaworski, then quarterback of the Rams. At the last minute, the FCC ordered International to pull the plug on the idea to which they agreed.

 

In the Chuck Knox era, NFL football became quite popular in Canada. So popular in fact, that the CBC began to show NBC and CBS feeds of games. Those lucky enough to live in border towns, like Buffalo, Detroit, and Seattle could actually get a blacked out game broadcast right into their living room, provided they had a powerful enough antenna. By the middle of the 1980’s, the NFL put the squeeze on those channels too. A person could still go over the border to watch a blacked out game on satellite, (different country, different rules) but it wasn’t broadcast on any local Canadian affiliates.

 

Around that time, satellites and sports bars became popular. Most bars had some type of dish, and could tune in local blacked out games. Once the NFL got wind of this, they began to hire plain-clothes detectives to investigate bars where this activity was alleged to be taking place. Steep fines were levied, and it became a personal choice for the owner of the bar. Will the money made, outweigh the fine paid? It pretty much ended the practice.

 

With the advent of DirecTV and NFL Sunday Ticket in 1994, blacked out fans figured out a new way to watch their favorite team. Simply register your account at an out of town relative’s address. That lasted one year. The following fall, DirecTV required a land based phone line be connected to their unit for all sports subscriptions, including the NFL.

 

On August 5, 1998, The NFL dropped a bombshell on Bills fans. They informed the Bills and their faithful that all Bills home games would be blacked out in the Syracuse area, because a tiny portion of the seventy-five mile radius from Rich Stadium overlapped into Yates County, New York. Since Yates County is in the Syracuse television market, another seventy-five mile radius had to be established, thus taking Bills home games off TV for most of Central New York. Fans were indignant. Not only did they have to sell out one of the larger stadiums for years, now they were getting double the blackout zone of most teams. Protests fell on deaf ears, and even attempts to cede the overlapping part of Yates County out of the zone failed.

 

All has been quiet on the blackout front in Buffalo since the Yates County incident. With the reconfiguration of Ralph Wilson Stadium in 1998, the seating capacity actually dropped from 80,000 to 75,000, making it easier to sell out. In fact when you deduct the luxury boxes, and premium seating, which are all prepaid five years in advance, Buffalo merely needs to sell 63,000 regular seats in order to achieve a sellout. Not terrible, considering their season ticket base averages between thirty-five and forty thousand per year.

Conclusions

 

So why does the NFL, especially in this day and age of satellites, and subscriber only NFL Sunday Ticket still cling to it’s antiquated blackout rule? It’s difficult to understand the rationale. It certainly does nothing to improve attendance, as evidenced by the 49ers, and Jaguars. San Francisco has been terrible, yet continues to sell out, while Jacksonville, a relatively new and successful franchise, continues to struggle to sell tickets. So the question remains…why does the NFL consistently try to limit the exposure of its product by applying a blackout policy, that has varying levels of unfairness to different clubs? Don’t the owners realize that by limiting exposure they’re tuning out the next generation of fans? At the very least, they’re cutting deeply into their own merchandise market.

 

What must be considered, are the economics of the blackout. They’re very short term. Yes, the fan in the stadium will buy the seven-dollar beer, and the five-dollar hot dog. Unfortunately, in-stadium advertising is only seen by those actually in attendance at the game, resulting in pro rated ad fees, and the team losing out on much needed revenue. The same goes for the ads on television. Rates are pro rated due to the uncertain number of games that will be telecast on the local affiliate. Broadcast a game locally, and the local companies line up to purchase ad time.

 

There are also intangibles to think about as well. In today’s instant gratification society, if you’re not on the tip of everyone’s tongue, you’re very easily forgotten. Madonna and Britney Spears understand this, why doesn’t the NFL? Like Madonna, television is an ad medium in its own right. The game should be it’s own marketing tool. Show how much fun it is at one, and people will want to go. Showing Elvis in the stands, or showing the group of guys dressed as lady hogs, is a better sales pitch than any marketing person could ever dream of.

 

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[Fake-Fat Sunny]

The lengthy article you posted seems to support the notion that TD has done a good job so I'm not sure why it leads you to disagree.

 

The article basically seems to say that the blackouts have short-term advantages for the teams in that it creates a scarcity for the commodity of seeing the games while it creates a long-term failure of gaining the benefit of advertising the product to future generations.

 

As GM TD has overseen a process where the Bills have essentially gotten almost the full benefit the last couple of years of getting fans in the seats by selling out and also getting advertising to future generations by avoiding the blackout.

 

Perhaps you were focusing on the point that I made that putting a winner on the field is the best thing TD can do for attendance with the example in the article of the Bills failing to sell out a larger Rich in the first televised game at the Rich where the team was good, put on a great show but was blacked out.

 

My sense of putting a better team on the field comes from my experiences in the early 90s where the team routinely sold out in the SB years, but it became tougher to do as the team weakened in its play (f0r example, the Greatest Game Ever Played against Houston was not televised as few expected this team to get to the SB that year. The other big factor however was that the timeline was so short for the Bills to sellout this playoff homedate that with a team unlikely to win it all and without the usual pre-planned season ticket sell run-up it was a toughsell).

 

At any rate the particular economics of the blackout are a sidepoint to the basic question of whether TD has done a good job as GM sellling the product.

 

The sellouts the last few years from a team with 9-7. 6-10. 8-8, and 3-13 records would indicate yes he has done a good job.

[ans4e64]

I dont think that TD is done after the season, but if you were RWS who would you promote thats better? Modrak maybe?

341637[/snapback]

 

 

I like Modrak a lot, and i wouldnt want to see any other guy in here except modrak if donahoe is out

[Sound_n_Fury]

http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2066417

 

• We hear the Cardinals' release of OT L.J. Shelton is seen as vindication of a Bills brain trust that was heavily criticized by some media members for not pulling the trigger on a proposed Travis Henry-for-Shelton trade. GM Tom Donahoe caught a lot of flak for not making that trade, but he said time and again that a player-for-player swap was not equal value. The Cardinals' decision to give Shelton his outright release is seen by the Bills as proof of that fact.