Anyone else sick of being beholdent...

[SDS]

Maybe I'm just becoming apathetic (as opposed to pathetic) in my older age, but we have been talking about the Bills moving for so long that enough is enough. I'm sick of this tired played out scene straight from the Deer Hunter where every few years we hear "click!" and the chamber spins again.

 

I'm already fed up with Directv and the rising cost of the NFLST, their "SuperFan" bull sh--, commercials before and after every TD, PAT, and KO, and superstar athletes who actually think they're worth more than a warm pint of urine.

 

Somehow I want to see this resolved... not delayed - RESOLVED. Hit the bullseye or get it off our effing backs already.

 

I'm probably too old to shed a tear over a sport these days, but if this plays out with Buffalo losing the Bills, God forbid I bump into Danny Snyder at a Nats "Free Bat" promotion game...

[cåblelady]

What pricks you beholdent ?

[Simon]

You're not alone. I've also got a dent in the hole in my prick about the league right now.

Dollars to doughnuts this is going to be the first year since its inception that I dont pick up Sunday Ticket.

[PromoTheRobot]

Sorry you feel that way, Scott. I was going to ask if TBD could do some kind of rally or campaign. But I guess you wouldn't be up for doing it.

 

PTR

[Bill from NYC]

Maybe I'm just becoming apathetic (as opposed to pathetic) in my older age, but we have been talking about the Bills moving for so long that enough is enough. I'm sick of this tired played out scene straight from the Deer Hunter where every few years we hear "click!" and the chamber spins again.

 

I'm already fed up with Directv and the rising cost of the NFLST, their "SuperFan" bull sh--, commercials before and after every TD, PAT, and KO, and superstar athletes who actually think they're worth more than a warm pint of urine.

 

Somehow I want to see this resolved... not delayed - RESOLVED.  Hit the bullseye or get it off our effing backs already.

 

I'm probably too old to shed a tear over a sport these days, but if this plays out with Buffalo losing the Bills, God forbid I bump into Danny Snyder at a Nats "Free Bat" promotion game... 

656654[/snapback]

 

I think that everybody agrees with you Scott.

 

If at some point you come up with a TBD plan action in terms of letters to pols, or something else, count on my support.

 

Also, is it time for a TBD fund raiser? Please let us know. People appreciate what you do, Brother.

[Mark VI]

The constant threat of long term security has indeed become tiresome.

 

I was born into a season ticket family and have been lucky to always have tickets ( or not, if you look the record. ). Yet I'm to the point where the NFL doesn't have the same allure it once did. The constant whining from the players and owners about $$ is sickening. They're never happy and I can't see 32 teams 10 years from now. I'm thinking at least 8 teams are gone ( including the Bills ) unless something drastic happens.

 

Only legal action can possibly change anything but soon all the seats will be too expensive for most wage earners to afford.

 

I still like the game and will continue to follow college football. The NFL will cease to exist in my world, if the Bills leave.

 

Maybe a new 8 team AFL type league will form, with salaries more in line with reality. You never know.

[Buffaloed in Pa]

Maybe I'm just becoming apathetic (as opposed to pathetic) in my older age, but we have been talking about the Bills moving for so long that enough is enough. I'm sick of this tired played out scene straight from the Deer Hunter where every few years we hear "click!" and the chamber spins again.

 

I'm already fed up with Directv and the rising cost of the NFLST, their "SuperFan" bull sh--, commercials before and after every TD, PAT, and KO, and superstar athletes who actually think they're worth more than a warm pint of urine.

 

Somehow I want to see this resolved... not delayed - RESOLVED.  Hit the bullseye or get it off our effing backs already.

 

I'm probably too old to shed a tear over a sport these days, but if this plays out with Buffalo losing the Bills, God forbid I bump into Danny Snyder at a Nats "Free Bat" promotion game... 

656654[/snapback]

I feel the same way.....you want a couple of my blood pressure pills Dude? Just drink a couple cold one`s and chill. They are not worth it.

[jarthur31]

Remember this country is starting to embrace the corporate culture and anyone who thinks otherwise is un-American!

 

All love for life is lost.

 

Greed has replaced Godliness in this decaying society.

[Lv-Bills]

Maybe I'm just becoming apathetic (as opposed to pathetic) in my older age, but we have been talking about the Bills moving for so long that enough is enough. I'm sick of this tired played out scene straight from the Deer Hunter where every few years we hear "click!" and the chamber spins again.

 

I'm already fed up with Directv and the rising cost of the NFLST, their "SuperFan" bull sh--, commercials before and after every TD, PAT, and KO, and superstar athletes who actually think they're worth more than a warm pint of urine.

 

Somehow I want to see this resolved... not delayed - RESOLVED.  Hit the bullseye or get it off our effing backs already.

 

I'm probably too old to shed a tear over a sport these days, but if this plays out with Buffalo losing the Bills, God forbid I bump into Danny Snyder at a Nats "Free Bat" promotion game... 

656654[/snapback]

For me, I fear, I may soon start to pass off pro football like I have some of the other sports. I'm 33. I played D-I college baseball and was the head coach of a major high school in Indiana. Loved baseball, breathed it. Went to coaching clinics etc. I was a huge Pirates fan, being from Pittsburgh. Then the strike came. Here I was a college kid, traveling to see the Pirates in the playoffs every year, sleeping in my car, and driving back to Indiana for class the next day. Die Hard.

 

Then the strike came. Then the talk of the Pirates moving from Pittsburgh. For a guy who went to countless numbers of baseball games a year, I have been to ONE game the past 9 years. The first regular season game ever at PNC Park. There was no way I thought baseball could lose me as a fan. They did. I could care less about baseball anymore. Not one inkling.

 

I fear.....that with greed starting to rear it's ugly head in football, that if the Bills move, I'll be done with most Major League Sports period. You may think apathy won't set in, but for me and baseball it did. I'm an example of a die-hard fan they lost.

 

I hope football doesn't lose me too. I love football. But some of the greed is really starting to show. It's hard to support people like T.O. and Dan Snyder when my fiance teacher has to buy her own school supplies for kid's in her class. I used to watch four sports. I'm pretty much down to one. I put major energy into football and coming to see the Bills every week from 10 hours away, BUT, there are signs that the sport is going in the wrong direction under Snyder and Jones and company.

 

Please NFL, dont' lose me as fan. Long Live the Bills!

[BADOLBILZ]

Remember this country is starting to embrace the corporate culture and anyone who thinks otherwise is un-American!

 

All love for life is lost. 

 

Greed has replaced Godliness in this decaying society.

656785[/snapback]

 

GMAFB.

[Pyrite Gal]

I also am getting sick of the we're gonns have to move the franchise game. Yet, I'm not sure if I am sick and tired for the same reasons that you are sick and tired or that there is one party line which most Bills fans ascribe to as far as who the target of their anger would be (even though I do think we share the same goal of wanting the team to stay here in perpetuity).

 

I view the "game" as being in the hand most directly of Ralph the owner.

 

I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude for putting up his 10K to get a franchise here even though as far as I can tell his decision to place the franchise here in Buffalo was not done for the benefit of the community, but because his real desire to have a franchise close to home in Detroit was thwarted by the presence of a franchise already being in that territory. His decision to settle in Buffalo was not a choice he would have made all things being equal, but fortunately for us all things were not equal and Buffalo was where he went.

 

Nevertheless, though he probably gets limited kudos for moving here, I think we all owe him real credit for recognizing the rabidness of WNY Bills gfans making this community his home for NFL purposes. He did us proud and honored us by reversing field on a pretty tight businesman hold on his wallet and laid out the big bucks to acquire Bruce and really contribute and take risks to build a winner here that paid off in the early 90s big time. He has continued that tradition, honors us and deserves big time praise from us for his commitment to keep the team here as long as he is alive. Long live Ralphie!

 

Nevertheless, as much praise as I think he deserves for his cash commitment and stance from the mid 80s through now, I do recognize the reality and actually ma getting fairly tired of him also asserting his rights as an American to be a businessman.

 

I think that if he means to give the impression that the Bills are not economically viable as an NFL franchise he really is as senile as some folks seem to think he is. This is a different question from the one of whether the Bills are at a fiscal disadvantage to the higher revenue teams like the Deadskins because these uber cash cows have far better cash flow than our beloved Bills. Lower revenue smaller market teams flat out are at a fiscal disadvantage to higher revenue larger market teams.

 

This is also a different question than whether the Bills could bring in a lot more cash if they moved to a higher population more economically go-go population base than Buffalo. Flat out this has always been the case and always will be.

 

However, Ralph's current and his interpretation of the impacts of the CBA simply do not seem to reflect the truth of the economic reality here. Yes the Bills are and always will be an economic disadvantage compared to teams in bigger more well to do markets. However, though the Bills are at an economic disadvantage to the Dan Snyder ilk in no way is the Bills franchise economically not viable now nor cannot its economic viability likely be defended by some fairly straight-forward steps on his part now designed to insulate a future owner from the vagaries of any higher costs they might have to bear because they will not have the same advantages the small market teams have gotten in his negotiations and whining about the larger revenue teams.

 

Further, as best as I can tell, some of these steps which would insulate future owners or his family from large financial hits associated with his eventual death, can also be taken that in fact bind the Bills to WHY so a new owner cannot move them.

 

He cannot be forced to take these steps and we have no right to see him take them beyond him actually deciding to do them because he wants to. Specifically, were he to enter into contractual obligations with Erie County, Buffalo, or NYS which contractually committed the Bills to remain in WNY for the forseeabl;e future, it would actually drastically lower the paper value of this frachise as it would remove a significant number of bidders who would want to move the team to LA or elsewhere out of the bidding. He has every right not to do this, but if he wanted to he could also do thiis.

 

By lowerig the market value of this franchise by binding it to WNY, he would actually lower the cash hit from any estate tax transfer that his estate and family would have. By contractually aggreeing to keep the team here he can do this and no one could stop him. Alternately, he coul try to follow the community stock owership and professional management model used by the GB Packers. The NFL would not like it, but if they tried to stop an individual owner from doing this the result would be similar to their trying to stop Bob Irsay from moving in the middle of the night, Art Modell from moving in broad daylight, or their negotiations with the City of Cleveland over the prescence of a team there, the NFL would likely lose. Further, Ralph could sell a small minority ownership stake of the team to a local like Golisano or to the taxpayers and even give them a contractual veto over a decision to move the team. Or he could pursue a zillion other ideas, Ralph could easily bind this team to the region and do so in away that while it would lower the paper value of the team would still by orders of magnititude allow for massive profit over his original small investment.

 

The CBA does certainly mean an assessment of several million dollars is costs that the Bills franchise is now on the docket as having receipts and these receipts balance and cause a marginally higher allocation of gross receipts to the NFLPA.

 

However, make no mistakes about it, this marginally higher allocation is chump change compared to the massive appreciation RWS had for his orginal investment. Further, amy additional allocation is chump change compared to the amount of real revenue which the Bills and Ralph are guaranteed from the big cash cow which is the TV contract and receipts. An NFL team is such a low risj propostion and is close as a business can get to being a printing press which simply prints $ in the form of the payments from the networks to the NFLPA/NFL partnership and further from the substantial yet smaller amount of # the team receives from ticket sales, franchise logo sales , etc.

 

If Ralph wants to be satisfied making money hand over fist rather than also hand over fist and whatever he can scrape in with is feet like Dan Snyder does then Ralph can easily be satisfied. If however, he wants to whine and bleat that this franchise is somehow not economically viable because it brings in less money than Dab=n Snyder and the Deadskins, well boo-hooI feel so sorry for him.

 

I hope he cand his heirs can somehow find some way to struggle along with 10s of millions of dollars in profits rather than the 100s of millions Dan Snyder makes.

 

Who knows for sure outside of Ralph and his people who really see the books, however though I may be wrong about this fiscal situation, there certainly is nothing from the substantial amount of public info available because this is how the NFL and NFLPA check up on each other that indicates that while the Deadskins or Ravens are more profitable that this franchise is right now and probably even will be when sold a very viable entity here.

 

What I get tired of is his false interpretation of the CBA, We all saw the substantial amount of revenue NFL teams brought in prior to the CBA and we now can all the the even larger amount of revenue brought in with the labor peace of the CBA. Ralph's complaints about the CBA hurting small market teams worse than big market teams is probably true (well surprise surprise richer folk have more money than mere rich folk) but it fails to also state the reality that the CBA has brought the Bills and him far more money than he received in the past or likely would receive without the CBA.

 

Sure the NFLPA receives a good majority of the total receipts, but I am sorry Ralph, as stupid as I think Terrll Owens is I would rather watch him catch passes than watch you can passes anyday (though seeing you get out of breath would be amusing but I fear you would have a heart attack and watching you die would not be fun though I am amused by the fake thought of you and Al Davis swinging your walkers and O2 tanks at each other).

 

My hope is actually that rather than you sufferinf from some Alzheimer moment leading to you claiming confusion leading to your negative vote, you really are being crazy like a fox in stting up both NYS and Erie County to get fleeced by you and the Bills as they pony up some corporate welfare for the Bills during the 2006 electoral campaign. I hope to gosh you did not ask Pataki for a cent because you know that as our soon to be ex-governor he cannot deliver on any promises of cash he makes anyway.

 

Instead, the game here is to force Eliot Spitzer and whomever is the likely sacrificial lamb GOP gubernatorial nominee to promise big state bucks in the form of support for a sports authority to build a new stadium in Buffalo. In exchange for the Bills contractually obligating itself to remain in WNy, you should be able to extort some pretty massive fiscal concessions form the entire NYS tax base. In addition, to NYS being able to borrow dollars at a far cheaper rate than any private business (likely in the form of issuing bonds), if the new stadium is built on the waterfront in Buffalo, the one time slug of construction money and the ongoing slug of cash to the new downtown entertainment complex could be substantial and transformative for the economic well being of the City.

 

I know that your ringing the alarm bell is based on at best a likely false and gloomy view of economic uncertainties and actually is only part of the story and essemtially untrue, as a Bills fan and as a Buffaloanian I support you completely in what likely is a bid to steer a bunch of corporate welfare from NYS coffers to the benefit of Bills fans and of Buffalo.

 

I really do support what I think you are doing, but man I do get a little sick and tired of the lies you seem to be spinning to create a sense of panic which will lead to you ripping folks off on my and our behalf.

[Nanker]

All those words of denial and not much sense.

What a pity.

[Mark VI]

I fear.....that with greed starting to rear it's ugly head in football, that if the Bills move, I'll be done with most Major League Sports period.  You may think apathy won't set in, but for me and baseball it did.  I'm an example of a die-hard fan they lost.

656801[/snapback]

 

Bullseye.

[Nick in RaChaCha]

What pricks you beholdent ? 

656679[/snapback]

 

Now that was funny!

[ExiledInIllinois]

Yes... Exactly my thoughts.

[kegtapr]

Many things about sports has killed my interest in recent years. Steriods, record $ salaries, players holding out and not honoring their contracts, teams giving contracts they know they can't honor, contstant threat of teams moving, multi-million $ public funded stadiums, NCAA recruiting scandels......the list goes on.

 

I still watch sports and have my can't miss list, but I am know where near as fanactic as I was 5-10 years ago. Part of it is growing older and having my priorities in life change and part is the list above.

 

When the Bills move (and they will, whether it's in 5 years or 25 years) it will suck, but I won't lose sleep over it.

[Lurker]

The constant threat of long term security has indeed become tiresome.

656732[/snapback]

 

So's the year-after-year decline in the WNY economy and population.

 

I've always thought if the voters of this area were one-tenth as passionate about fixing the area's political problems as they are about the Bills, we'd be doing a lot better than we are (we are part of NYS, after all) rather than being in a continual death spiral.

 

I'd be curious to know what percentage of TSW-ers no longer live in WNY? It would go a long way toward explaining what Ralph's argument is about.

[Kelly the Dog]

You guys are all whiny and nuts. 10-20-30 years ago, and the first 50 years of the NFL, you got to watch 2-3 games total each week. The only football news you got about the Bills was a couple articles a day during the season from The Buffalo Evening News or Courier Express you had to buy. There was no cable and satellite and ESPN and ticker machines and Internet and message boards and Two Bills Drive and every game available and sports bars with 30 TVs and huge screens with great pictures and HDTV and The NFL Network.

 

You're lucky bastards to have NFL news and games everywhere 24-7 365.25 and you just complain. DirectTV is friggin' awesome. ESPN, even though they are evil blowhards, is friggin' awesome. The Internet is friggin' awesome. The NFL Network is friggin' awesome. The coverage of the NFL and the availability of it and the cheapness of price for how much time you spend with it and how much it matters to you is friggin' awesome.

 

The Bills aren't moving in the near and probably far off future.

 

Move to Iraq. We're the luckiest bastards in the history of the world.

[Bob Lamb]

You guys are all whiny and nuts. 10-20-30 years ago, and the first 50 years of the NFL, you got to watch 2-3 games total each week. The only football news you got about the Bills was a couple articles a day during the season from The Buffalo Evening News or Courier Express you had to buy. There was no ESPN and ticker machines and Internet and message boards and Two Bills Drive and every game available and sports bars with 30 TVs and The NFL Network.

 

You're lucky bastards to have NFL news and games everywhere 24-7 365.25 and you just complain. DirectTV is friggin' awesome. ESPN, even though they are evil blowhards, is friggin' awesome. The Internet is friggin' awesome. The NFL Network is friggin' awesome. The coverage of the NFL and the availability of it and the cheapness of price for how much time you spend with it and how much it matters to you is friggin' awesome.

 

Move to Iraq. We're the luckiest bastards in the history of the world.

657043[/snapback]

 

 

And all that coverage gives us the opportunity to see all the warts, scabs and blemishes of the system. Sometimes, too much information is a bad thing.

 

So, while Mr. Bonds whines about his life, I wonder how the wonderfully self-abusive Babe Ruth would have fared in today's media enviorment ?

[GG]

Bravo, Mr. Unblanced Dog.

 

BTW, how many of you are old enough to remember that Mr. Bob Lamb was your only source of Bills' news outside of Buffalo?