Bills will be paid $78 million for eight-game Toronto series

If the Bills have such a great fanbase, then explain to me:

1. Why are they playing games in Toronto? Why doesn't Ralph just raise ticket prices in order to make that 78 million? Surely that great fanbase would pay any price to support their team.

2. Why can't Ralph get a new stadium with luxury boxes, surely that great fanbase would vote to increase their taxes and build a new stadium to support their team?

3. Why do the Bills always come up whenever their is talk about a team moving to LA? Surely new ownership would want to keep the Bills in Buffalo with that great supporting fanbase.

I have been to three season home openers in Buffalo, I witness die hard season ticket owners at the Saints game cheer for the Saints because they did not want Rob Johnson as their QB. I have never seen a Patriots fans come to a game to cheer against the Pats because of some personnel change.

Now upstater1, you claim to be a Patriots fan. I don't really care what team you support, but don't try to put me down by claiming to be a Pats fan. I am a diehard Patriots fan who has supported this team through good and bad, and in their darkest hour, the Super Bowl loss to the Giants, I went and got my team's logo tattooed on my arm to show my respect and support.

I will wear my team colors proudly until the day I die, can you say that?

T-Bone said:

I have been to three season home openers in Buffalo, I witness die hard season ticket owners at the Saints game cheer for the Saints because they did not want Rob Johnson as their QB. I have never seen a Patriots fans come to a game to cheer against the Pats because of some personnel change.

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Perhaps you missed the Tony Eason years...

upstater1 said:

Well, your owner isn't helping you any. He's a horrible person.

All ego.

Bought the team for basically nothing. Made $800 million, and instead of giving back to the community by selling locally, he's hoarding all that money for himself and his family. He's such an egotist that he won't even sell the stadium name rights, and he forgets that the taxpayers of Erie County also help to fund his enterprise.

I could understand trying to maximize your profit if you paid say $200 million for the club, but Wilson bought it for peanuts.

It's disgusting.

There are local buyers, but they are not going to compete with LA's billions when the team goes to market.

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shhh. let's not do anything that could help make bills legit. i'm not so confident that i want to give up those 2 gimme wins we get from that broke ass team every year,

PatsWickedPissah said:

Perhaps you missed the Tony Eason years...

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There were some who booed some a garbage round draft pick QB because they thought their idiot coach was making a horrible mistake by not starting pro-bowl QB Drew Bledsloe when he was cleared by doctors and healthy enough to return.

T-Bone said:

If the Bills have such a great fanbase, then explain to me:

1. Why are they playing games in Toronto? Why doesn't Ralph just raise ticket prices in order to make that 78 million? Surely that great fanbase would pay any price to support their team.

2. Why can't Ralph get a new stadium with luxury boxes, surely that great fanbase would vote to increase their taxes and build a new stadium to support their team?

3. Why do the Bills always come up whenever their is talk about a team moving to LA? Surely new ownership would want to keep the Bills in Buffalo with that great supporting fanbase.

I have been to three season home openers in Buffalo, I witness die hard season ticket owners at the Saints game cheer for the Saints because they did not want Rob Johnson as their QB. I have never seen a Patriots fans come to a game to cheer against the Pats because of some personnel change.

Now upstater1, you claim to be a Patriots fan. I don't really care what team you support, but don't try to put me down by claiming to be a Pats fan. I am a diehard Patriots fan who has supported this team through good and bad, and in their darkest hour, the Super Bowl loss to the Giants, I went and got my team's logo tattooed on my arm to show my respect and support.

I will wear my team colors proudly until the day I die, can you say that?

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1., 2. and 3. To paraphrase a famous political quote, "it's the economy, stupid". If you can't figure that out on your own, I won't even bother, but in a nutshell, how do you get blood from a stone? In a rust belt region that has hemorraghed jobs (and population) over the last 30 years or so, and has seen it's average wages stagnate (upstate NY and Hawaii (due to the loss of Japanese tourists post-bubble) were the only regions in the US to have flat economic growth in the '90s), how do you get people to pay the ridiculous rates being charged in other places (like New England) to pay for season tickets? When the average working man's wages in a place like Buffalo may be $35,000 a year (roughly $30,000 or less after taxes, etc.), how do you get that person to pay $2,000 or more for a pair of season tickets? To do so would be irresponsible to his/her family no matter how much they love the Bills (and trust me, they do love the Bills through thick or thin--you guys haven't tested the "thin" part in a while, but when you do, I suspect you'll be back closer to 19,000 season ticket holders, like you had in 1992--just a hunch). Ralph Wilson (a) knows this and knows they have little or no pricing power, either with average fans or with corporations, the few left in the area and (b) I suspect also doesn't want to screw his fans out of every last dime, unlike some owners who shall remain nameless, as he really is "old school", with all the pluses and minuses that go with that.

The sad thing for folks like you all in Boston is that many of you won't be able to afford or have access to the opportunity to pass on your interest in the Pats to your kids by taking them to a game and sharing that experience with them, what with the prices being what they are and the corporate types filling Gillette (ever wonder why your games sound so less loud than say, the Bills Monday night loss to the Boys? I was there and it was deafening the whole game. Look no further than the types of folks who can afford to go to the game--and I'm not knocking them, since I'm one of them now, but I leave "him" home when I go these days and that ten year old fan goes in his place.)

Mr. Diehard, one question--did you follow the Pats pre-2001, or did you hop on the bandwagon like so many of your brethren? I went to my first Bills game in 1972 with my father (I had a sign that said "All the way with OJ") and buy him season tickets now even though I live in the NYC area. I lived in Boston in the late 1980s and 1990s and the Pats were a joke then in terms of fan support (and this only a few years after a SB appearance). They were an afterthought to the Celts (sorry about the tough loss, last night, BTW) and Sox--a far afterthought.

You remind me of my cousin, the Yankee fan, who just can't seem to understand how teams like Kansas City can't "just do what the Yankees do" to build their team and it's no use arguing with him that a team with a $200 million payroll should win EVERY SINGLE GAME against a team with a payroll 25% of that and that there's no way in Hades that a team in a market 1/15th the size of NY population-wise (and don't even go into the wage differential in those two areas) could ever possibly compete in the money game. Common sense, you either have it, or you don't.....

Funny thing, your answer to my questions just supports my belief about the myth of the Bills Fanbase and that the Bills will soon be history when their team is moved to another site. If folks are unable to buy tickets to the games, then something is creating those sellouts. That something is fans of other teams who travel in support of their team and local businesses buying up tickets.

If your area cannot support an NFL team, just admit it and stop spreading the myth.

And I have been a lifelong Patriots fan starting on the day I was born in 1960, for your information.

T-Bone said:

Funny thing, your answer to my questions just supports my belief about the myth of the Bills Fanbase and that the Bills will soon be history when their team is moved to another site. If folks are unable to buy tickets to the games, then something is creating those sellouts. That something is fans of other teams who travel in support of their team and local businesses buying up tickets.

If your area cannot support an NFL team, just admit it and stop spreading the myth.

And I have been a lifelong Patriots fan starting on the day I was born in 1960, for your information.

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Folks there do buy tickets (reasonably priced ones) and the games do sell out, they have about 48,000 season ticket holders, give or take, for ex.--those are facts. In fact, before they reduced the size of the stadium we used to set League-wide attendance records (look it up). What I wrote and those facts are not incongruous. In terms of games not selling out without help, I can think of two situations the last two years--one was 2006 when the Titans game was on Christmas Eve (and the team was out of the playoffs) and this past season for one of the December games. The first 6 games of this past season I recall were effectively sold out before the season started. This is because folks are in fact big fans there, win or lose, and because Wilson has not jacked the price to the sky (how did you like your 30% increase this year?)

In terms of the long-term viability of the team in the area, I agree with you. Now that owners like yours are effectively trying to remove the salary cap, either explicitly or implicitly, barring a Tom Golisano-led miracle, the team will in my opinion end up moving to Toronto when Wilson passes. If they're smart, they will move to sourthern Ontario about 40 minutes to an hour south of Toronto so that they can also capture the Buffalo area. A new stadium will definitely be needed and I suspect Rogers will go all out in doing that, so the corporate types who are the NFL's real target audience will love it. Then fans in Buffalo can have the opportunity too to buy $200 a game tickets, like Rogers got for the 8 games upcoming. That will be sad, but inevitable IMHO.

The funny part here is that some folks on this board act like that's a good thing somehow. Even for a NE fan it's not for two reasons--1. Toronto is a large (4th biggest in North America, I believe) wealthy city and Ted Rogers sounds like he wants to build a winner and 2. it's really bad karma to root to take away something that means so much to average folks you don't even know (unless, of course, your heroes are Goliath and Mr. Burns). But then again, folks here know a thing or two about really bad karma, I suspect.....

FootballFanetic said:

Folks there do buy tickets (reasonably priced ones) and the games do sell out, they have about 48,000 season ticket holders, give or take, for ex.--those are facts. In fact, before they reduced the size of the stadium we used to set League-wide attendance records (look it up). What I wrote and those facts are not incongruous. In terms of games not selling out without help, I can think of two situations the last two years--one was 2006 when the Titans game was on Christmas Eve (and the team was out of the playoffs) and this past season for one of the December games. The first 6 games of this past season I recall were effectively sold out before the season started. This is because folks are in fact big fans there, win or lose, and because Wilson has not jacked the price to the sky (how did you like your 30% increase this year?)

In terms of the long-term viability of the team in the area, I agree with you. Now that owners like yours are effectively trying to remove the salary cap, either explicitly or implicitly, barring a Tom Golisano-led miracle, the team will in my opinion end up moving to Toronto when Wilson passes. If they're smart, they will move to sourthern Ontario about 40 minutes to an hour south of Toronto so that they can also capture the Buffalo area. A new stadium will definitely be needed and I suspect Rogers will go all out in doing that, so the corporate types who are the NFL's real target audience will love it. Then fans in Buffalo can have the opportunity too to buy $200 a game tickets, like Rogers got for the 8 games upcoming. That will be sad, but inevitable IMHO.

The funny part here is that some folks on this board act like that's a good thing somehow. Even for a NE fan it's not for two reasons--1. Toronto is a large (4th biggest in North America, I believe) wealthy city and Ted Rogers sounds like he wants to build a winner and 2. it's really bad karma to root to take away something that means so much to average folks you don't even know (unless, of course, your heroes are Goliath and Mr. Burns). But then again, folks here know a thing or two about really bad karma, I suspect.....

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I have never seen as big a PATRIOT HATER as Mr Fanetic....the best thing about guys like you is that there is a far greater likelihood of the Patriots shutting you up than of any "outside" forces bringing us down.

You do realize this, don't you Fanetic?

If you could reason logically, (maybe like a lawyer would?) you would admit the chances of Mr Walsh having anything that will harm the Patriots are mighty slim.

After all, he's had years to tell this story. What logical reason would anyone have of keeping it a secret? Especially someone as vengeful as Walsh?

Hhhmmmm?

spacecrime said:

???? It's not already happening. It may happen in the future, or it may not, but it isn't happening "already."

The game in London has happened already. Ditto the game in Mexico City.

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Gwedd said:

Hell, it's already happening on Patiots Nation. Kraft is going all out to get the Patriots into China for a game or two. He's already got a Patriots website in Chinese.

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It actually happened much earlier than that; I can't think of a single example of a team in the non-American sports I follow (soccer, cricket, Rugby) changing cities. The stuff that happened with the Colts moving to Indy and the Rams moving to St Louis is unheard of, in those games. I can think of a couple of examples of teams moving across their cities, but nothing like moving cities.

PatriotsReign said:

I have never seen as big a PATRIOT HATER as Mr Fanetic....the best thing about guys like you is that there is a far greater likelihood of the Patriots shutting you up than of any "outside" forces bringing us down.

You do realize this, don't you Fanetic?

If you could reason logically, (maybe like a lawyer would?) you would admit the chances of Mr Walsh having anything that will harm the Patriots are mighty slim.

After all, he's had years to tell this story. What logical reason would anyone have of keeping it a secret? Especially someone as vengeful as Walsh?

Hhhmmmm?

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Can we keep this thread to its original topic, please, or do you always hijack others' threads?

If anyone wants to see my opinions on the Walsh stuff, feel free to go check out one of the many other threads on this board about Mr. Walsh.

If folks are unable to buy tickets to the games, then something is creating those sellouts. That something is fans of other teams who travel in support of their team and local businesses buying up tickets.

If your area cannot support an NFL team, just admit it and stop spreading the myth.

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T-Bone - If you are so confident, how about that wager I proposed earlier?

Make the wager - proceeds to the charity of your choice...put up or shut up.

bpeter17 said:

T-Bone - If you are so confident, how about that wager I proposed earlier?

Make the wager - proceeds to the charity of your choice...put up or shut up.

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One day at a Bills board, a Patriots fan beat a loudmouth Bills fan that the Patriots would have a better record than the Bills. The bet was similar to the one you proposed.

The season ended, the Patriots fan won and asked for payment. The Bills fan claimed to never make the bet. When the Patriots fan provided the link to show that he had made the bet, the fair and objective moderators deleted the posts and banned the Patriots fan.

So until I get some proof that Bills fans actually pay their bets, and it can start by righting the above wrong, I have no interest in making any bets with a fan of the Buffalo Bills.

One day at a Bills board,

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Great logic, "once upon a time, somebody welched...so I'm not going to do it"

I'll gladly have a mod keep track of things, and would even send in my money up front if you would do the same.

methinks you don't believe your argument is so strong...

When I joined this board, nowhere in the user's agreement was anything about having to take bets from Bills' Trolls. As for my example, it was a clear case showing what a Bills fan truly is, and that is my last word to you Troll.

When I joined this board, nowhere in the user's agreement was anything about having to take bets from Bills' Trolls. As for my example, it was a clear case showing what a Bills fan truly is, and that is my last word to you Troll.

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translation: I've been spewing bs and don't have the guts to make a bet - for charity nonetheless.

Anyway, back to the origins of this thread - I don't think the bills will move to Toronto full time - the NFL doesn't want that. I think a 4 game split is a very real possibility 5+ years down the road. The one bright option for bills fans is that Tom Golisano buys the team and keeps them there.

As for the support of the team, they are the 2nd smallest market in the NFL that is in the top 10 in attendance every single year despite mediocre at best performance over the past 10 years. The stadium is louder and the fans are more rabid than probably 25 other teams in the league. Unfortunately the economy blows. As another poster pointed out, I believe twice in the past 4 years or so has an outside business needed to come in and buy the remaining thousand or so tickets.

Anyway, to the rest of pats fans - Good luck this season, hopefully the games will at least be a bit more competitive than they have the last few years.

translation: I've been spewing bs and don't have the guts to make a bet - for charity nonetheless.

Oh my, what a wit you have there, I sure was put in my place.....

Hey, T-Bone, what does this do to your argument--

Bills Racking Up Sellouts

http://www.profootballtalk.com/2008/06/09/bills-racking-up-sellouts/

Shreds it is what I'd say.....

You brought this one back from the dead, Fanetic.

It is interesting though to see how the money situation plays out when you have fewer games available.

You cut a preseason and late season game from the schedule (I'm actually pissed that they scheduled the Patriots on Dec. 28th, WTF) and then you raise ticket prices by 11%, and what happens? You sell out the place and season ticket sales rise to the mid 50k range.

So what are the Bills going to do next year? Jack up the ticket prices again.

If Ralph Wilson manages to live another decade, Buffalo's balance sheet may actually look better than half the NFL because of this.

I have heard many stupid comments, but the one about a dead franchise takes the cake.

Apparently none of you know any NFL history. The Green Bay Packers for many years played a home game or two in Milwaukee. It hardly killed the mighty Packer franchise.

The mighty Celtics also played home games on another court, besides the famed Parquet floor. In Providence and/or Springfield, as I recall.