Archives for September 10, 2014

‘”Bills fans, we stick through the good and bad, don’t we?” she said, acknowledging trips from Buffalo’s greats like Jim Kelly and Andre Reed to her alma mater Roberts Wesleyan College during the Super Bowl years. “They’re here, they’re our team, so going someplace else would’ve been the hardest thing. They’re a part of us.”‘

‘This is big news because it goes beyond sports. This is about making the decision to re-invest in a business for long-term benefits, rather than making a knee-jerk reaction to move that business to another city on the promise of short-term gains.’

‘The Pegulas’ bid was that dominant.’

‘A source close to the Bon Jovi bidding group, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the group bid $1,050,000,000 for the Bills and could have gone higher but felt that amount matched the team’s value. The source also said media reports that the rocker had split apart from the two Toronto investors were incorrect.’

‘The source added that Bon Jovi and his group signed a waiver during negotiations that they would not move the team to Toronto or any other city and that the group was engaged in talks with unidentified entities to build a new stadium in Western New York.’

‘”It was my great honor to have the opportunity to bid on the Buffalo Bills football team,” billionaire developer Donald Trump declared in statement. “A large part of the reason for my bid was to ensure that the team remained in Buffalo.’

‘I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. The sale is not yet official. The NFL owners still have to rubber-stamp it, and you never know with those people.’

‘In fact, it’s difficult to comprehend how the transaction makes financial sense for the Pegulas and their new NFL partners. There are much bigger markets with far more corporate dollars, starting with Los Angeles and Toronto, that would have generated more money in a revenue-sharing league.’

‘Here’s a refresher on Pegula’s history in the limelight in Buffalo.’

‘”What you’ll find, when you’re around the Pegulas, is everything is 100 percent first class,” said longtime player Rob Ray, head of the Buffalo Sabres Alumni Association, discussing the Sabres owner a few weeks ago when he was a Bills contender. “It’s awesome.”‘

‘”It’s a relief,” said Miller, a season-ticket holder from Allegany. “For the rest of my life I don’t have to worry about where the Bills are going to be.”‘

‘Ticket prices on the online ticket exchange spiked from a low of nearly $140 to sit in the 26th row of the upper deck to nearly $865 for a seat in the first few rows of the lower sidelines.’

‘”Now that I’m a fan instead of a player, I pull for the Bills, obviously, all the time, but more for the city than for the players themselves,” he said. “I mean, players come and go, but that city has supported the Buffalo Bills for over 50 years, and in my opinion, it’s the best franchise in the whole NFL. They haven’t made the playoffs in 14 years, and they still pack that stadium. I’m just thrilled that he got it. I’m so happy that he got it.”‘

‘Pegula rode the fracking frenzy to transform himself from a successful businessman who had built his own drilling company from scratch into a fabulously successful businessman who was able to sell a majority of his company’s assets in 2010 for $4.7 billion. Pegula’s share of the proceeds: a $3.3 billion fortune that made him one of the richest men in America.’