The owner can't buy the remaining seats every single week, that would defeat the entire purpose of the blackout. Fans would come to expect that generosity and think, "Oh, only 4,000 seats left - don't worry Ralph will pick that up, let's just sit home in front of our HDTV's"
No one on these boards can say for certain that he would not have bought them. Russ Salvatore has supported and worked with this organization for decades (donating to Bills sponsored charities, chartering flights to Miami games, etc), it wouldn't surprise me if this deal was in place all week. And it also wouldn't surprise me that another deal (Ralph) was in place in case Salvatore had to back out at the last minute.
