BATW20

Stay tuned but theirs a press conference to be held with the two at 3:30 hopefully to announce positive news about the Bills future in Buffalo after the two met yesterday.

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Nixon

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CUNT SAUCE!!!

boltalicious

Then they come out and say.....

"We officially have no new news on the situation in Green Bay concerning Brett Favre retiring".....

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Sig by Pred
“I play against a bunch of guys who hit hard,” Merriman said. “I hit harder.”

imported_ravinmaniac52

Wilson reconsiders succession plans

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) -- Ralph Wilson is reconsidering plans on who eventually will succeed him in owning the Buffalo Bills, saying selling the team might not be the best option under the NFL's new labor deal.

Speaking to reporters Sunday after meeting with Sen. Charles Schumer, Wilson said the new collective bargaining agreement could restrict any prospective Bills buyer from receiving revenue-sharing assistance, making it financially difficult to keep the team in Buffalo.

"Before, I was going to sell the team or something," Wilson said. "But I don't know now. This has changed everything."

Wilson, the sole owner since the team was established in 1960, repeated concerns about the Bills' long-term future.

"I have always said, always, that I would never move the team from Buffalo," Wilson said. "Now, with this new collective bargaining agreement, I'm hopeful that I can steadfastly adhere to what I've said. But I'm making no promises."

Wilson, who turns 88 in October, is now considering the possibility of one of his family members succeeding him as owner. That's something he had ruled out in the past, saying his wife, Mary, and three daughters had expressed no interest in running the team.

The NFL is still determining how teams will qualify for the labor deal's new revenue-sharing model. The league is considering a proposal that would prevent new owners from initially taking part in the program.

That worries Wilson because the Bills are among the NFL's smaller markets and rely on revenue sharing to stay competitive.

"The next new owner couldn't keep the team here," Wilson told The Associated Press after the press conference with Schumer. "It could not be fair. It's not a fair proposal. ... They're changing things on me."

The Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals cast the only votes against the agreement last month.

Schumer's visit to Buffalo was the latest in a series of meetings over the past week for Wilson in an attempt to generate political pressure on the NFL to ensure the viability of small-market teams. Wilson also met with Gov. George Pataki, western New York congressmen Tom Reynolds and Brian Higgins and Erie County executive Joel Giambra.

Schumer said he intends to express his concerns to NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue. He said he also intends to gather his colleagues, whose areas include small-market teams, in an attempt to meet with NFL executives.

"The bottom line is very simple. The smaller teams in the league, because of the new contract, are going to have a very tough time of making it," Schumer said. "I hope the NFL hasn't lost its way. I hope it sticks with the original model where smaller market teams can compete, can win Super Bowls and stay financially viable."

imported_ravinmaniac52

Why Wilson fears NFL's revenue deal

4/9/2006 By DAVID ROBINSON

Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson is worried about the future, but it's a little too early to hit the panic button.

It's OK to start worrying, though.

There's no question that the Bills have been a fabulous investment for Wilson, who has seen his $25,000 investment to secure a franchise 46 years ago mushroom into a team that Forbes magazine says could sell for upwards of $700 million.

There's also no question that the team has been nicely profitable, even in a shrinking, economically-strapped small market like Buffalo, thanks to a lucrative network television deal that virtually covered each team's player salaries.

But Buffalo isn't Dallas, and that's a problem that's going to become more apparent - and painful to Western New York - with the new labor agreement,
Wilson warned last week. Even with the revenue-sharing mechanism included in the new labor deal to help small-market teams like the Bills, costs are going way up, too.

"It forces medium-to-small market teams to operate at an investment level that they're not set up to support," said Ted Fay, a sports marketing professor at Cortland State College. "What happens in Dallas now impacts Buffalo directly, rather than indirectly."

Player salaries are expected to shoot up by $850 million to $900 million over the life of the six-year deal, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has said. The salary cap next season will jump by $17.5 million and another $7 million in 2007, eating up much of the additional revenue sharing money the Bills will receive.

Wilson also is worried about the impact from a fundamental change in the way the salary cap is calculated. The new labor deal counts all football revenue in calculating the salary cap, rather than excluding certain revenue such as naming rights and sponsorship money as the previous system did. He estimated that the new stadium for the New York Jets and the New York Giants will bring in so much additional revenue for those teams that it will drive up the salary cap for the Bills and all NFL teams by $2.3 million a year.

"Every new stadium costs the Buffalo Bills money," said Wilson, one of two owners to vote against the new labor deal. "The teams that have built these new stadiums where they can charge very high prices for suites and club seats and regular seats have thrown things out of balance."

Wilson said the team isn't looking for more government money or handouts, just political pressure to make sure the Bills get a fair shake. He's not even looking for a new stadium, because he realizes there isn't much more money that he can squeeze out of the region's fans and businesses.

"We can build a $600 million stadium across the street and it wouldn't make any difference," Wilson said. "Western New York is a poor area and we have no pricing power. We wouldn't have any more pricing power in a new stadium than we do now."

There's an even bigger uncertainty hanging over all this, though. What happens to the team when the 87-year-old Wilson dies? Will the team be sold to the highest bidder? Will a community-minded buyer, someone like B. Thomas Golisano, perhaps, step up?

No matter what, though, the Bills finances under a new owner would be vastly different, mostly because the franchise suddenly would be carrying upwards of $10 million or $20 million in annual interest expenses, depending on how much the team sells for and how it's financed.

Suddenly, that nice cushion of profits that Wilson now has gets a lot thinner.

"If you add debt service to the economics of the franchise, it's going to make it much more difficult," said Dean Bonham, a Colorado-based sports marketing consultant.

And that's when the fields might start looking greener in someplace like, say, Los Angeles.

imported_ravinmaniac52

I am not a crook

JLambert

He's whining and complaining, but he is right. This is the same thing that will rip the Jags out of Jacksonville. Maybe the Packers, Chargers and Bengals too.

For most of the time, the salary cap has increased, say 3-5M a year, now it is jumping up 7-10M+ per year. Small market teams don't have the luxury box sales, the sweet Stadium naming rights deals, merchandising sales numbers or the advertising possiblities that large market teams have.

What the new CBA did, thanks to the ****ing players, is lump all revenue into the salary cap, thus driving up the cap at a faster rate.

Unfortunately, the small market owners aren't enough of a force, or couldn't plead their case well enough before the new CBA was signed. Then again, a number of them don't sell their stadium naming rights, or weren't seen as being aggressive marketers of their team and brand, so the Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder's attitude was "**** Ya".

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Cowher was driving very conservatively, and it was easy to predict how he was planning on getting to the stadium.
It seemed as if he was driving not to crash and relying on his tires to pound their way down the asphalt about 3 yards at a time.

SDOGO

Don't you put this all on Jones and Snyder. It took more then 2 owners to get this thing together and pass it. They just had the most to lose and yes, I said lose! It's funny you mention Stadium naming rights. 4 years ago Alltel wanted to pay the Bills moo goo dollars for the right to put their name on that stadium but Wilson being the self centered, clueless and nieve **** that he is just could not live with the fact that the stadium he named after himself could be called anything else.

The Bills have been in danger of losing this team long before this new CBA was put into effect. Financial problems for the Bills started back in the early and mid 90's even when the Bills were playing in SB's. From that time the economic situation in Buffalo has gradually gotten worst and right now I can't think of any team that operates in a poorer demographic region then the Bills.

This is much more political then what your seeing on the surface.

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titansfan21

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JLambert

I am not putting it all on Jones and Snyder, its just that they are 2 of the owners who:
1) are the most successful at marketing their own team
2) would love to utterly destroy the cap and "Go Yankees" on the rest of the NFL.

And yes, I also understand that certain "old school" owners have been totally negligent in maximizing their revenue streams.

Try to reread what I posted without bringing your preconcevied notions into it.

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Cowher was driving very conservatively, and it was easy to predict how he was planning on getting to the stadium.
It seemed as if he was driving not to crash and relying on his tires to pound their way down the asphalt about 3 yards at a time.