Kirby Jackson

Just for simple math 20,000 seats with a $5,000 average PSL is $100M. Yeah, they keep pumping money into it but I’m not a big fan either. They are going to throw more money at it again with the Super Bowl coming. The location can’t be beat which is why so many events are here. You can walk from the hotels, to restaurants, to Bourbon to the stadium without any issues. That isn’t the case in any other city (especially a party city).

You are probably in the neighborhood on some of it. When I started I made $8 an hour (plus commission) and did miserable work. When I go my out it was a lot different. There are probably (at least) 30 or so front office people (not including the football side) that are in the 6 figures. It’s roughly 30% of the staff I would say. It ranges from low to mid six figures depending on the role. All of the assistants are paid that way as well. There is a large disparity though between the top and bottom.

There are tons of people in the front office with 6 figure pay checks. RB’s pay check was in the 7 figures.

Yeah, it sounds like we were talking about 2 different things. So your suggestion is that the home team keeps 70% and the visiting team 30% or something like that? They will always be contributing a portion of their revenue though so I’m not sure if it changes much? The Bills in this case would contribute even less because heir overall revenue would decrease. If they went to a firm number for ticket revenue (probably have to be calculated prior to the start of the year) I suppose it could have the impact you are saying. If each team was required to contribute $3M a game from gate receipts that could have the impact. That however does change the cap from being a percentage of total revenues which I still don’t think will happen.

100% he was!! He wasn’t out of touch; he was wise. He was the smartest guy in the room.

Yes, but there isn’t the trust there. If the owners say, “we will give you $150M a year for 10 years” the players won’t go for it. The reason is that they don’t trust the owners wont sign a deal tomorrow that brings in billions more. The cap will always, always, always, always be tied to a percentage of the revenue. They will bicker over what that percentage should be but it will never go to a firm number. Thos also doesn’t take into account that every team has an equal say. They will never get enough support from the smaller teams to make this a reality. It just isn’t an option. Exactly!!

Which would have to be negotiated with the players association in the next CBA. The players will NEVER agree to that. They will want the piece of the pie to continue to grow with revenues. That won’t ever happen (to say nothing of the fact that other lower revenue teams would never vote for that). We don’t agree that they have leverage. We do agree that if the Bills keep falling behind it will hurt them. That is happening now and will only get worse with LA and Vegas. There is some urgency for sure.

As an aside, it becomes even more important with the new Vegas and LA stadiums on the horizon. League wide revenues (and in turn the cap) will spike and the Bills contribution will remain stagnant. I suspect that is a big reason that they are talking about this now.

I would imagine that he received a payout when the team was sold. Additionally, he may have had a small stake. I have a friend that has a small stake in an NHL franchise as part of his compensation package. He dreads the cash calls though because his net worth is minuscule in proportion to everyone else involved.

I think that it is primarily local (but some of both). The Bills need to create new area to monetize (like they did the gates a few years ago). A new stadium gives them a clean slate to create new areas, amenities and pricing. That’s the reason (or one of) the reasons that the league wants it. They want the Bills to kick in a greater portion. At the same time, in terms of “leverage” they have none. They can’t kick the Pegula’s out. The owner makes those decisions. It just becomes increasingly difficult to compete. The cap and revenues continue to rise all over the league and the Bills revenues don’t rise at the same rate.

There isn’t leverage from the league. With that being said the salary cap is a portion of the revenues both shared and non-shared. If these teams keep raising generating more and more non-shared revenue the cap climbs. The Bills pay a higher and higher percentage of overall revenue to the players than other teams. That’s the case now but it gets more extreme every year. That was Ralph Wilson’s initial pushback on the CBA.

It’s not about “adding to the experience” it is about “adding to the bottom line.” While it is concerning, their investments in WNY pretty much assure the team’s future there. This, to me, is the natural next step to the stadium being built. It is posturing. She’s just saying “we aren’t paying for it ourselves.” There will be some back and forth and at the end of the day it will work out. The team, the state (or county) and fans will fund it it. She is correct though that this is essential. The Bills cannot remain viable long-term playing at New Era as is presently constructed. The stadium yields a fraction of the revenue of other venues around the country. Every year that is the case, the gap widens betweens the Bills and every other team in the league.

We sat behind the Bills bench last time in my friend’s work seats. I don’t know if that will be the case again or if we will just buy some.

You really think that someone is dying to add him to their active roster?!? Who? These teams let him fall to pick 191 and then he was a disaster. I don’t think that ANY team has a higher opinion of him than they did a year ago. That doesn’t even factor in that less than half of the teams carry 3 and pretty much every has “a” young guy. If we say there are 85 QB jobs (accounting for injuries) he absolutely isn’t a lock to be in that 85. Look at Qb depth charts around the league and give me the list of teams that are snatching him up to their active roster?

Quick side story that you may find interesting. In New Orleans when they built the arena they basically used the Superdome and scaled it down. It was (and is) a terrible decision for a basketball arena. There are roughly 17,000 seats and about 10,000 of them are upstairs. You can get anywhere from $60 to $250 downstairs (floors excluded) and about $10 to $40 upstairs. They really missed the boat on the design. They should have had more rows downstairs, especially on the ends where you can get “cheaper” seats and less rows upstairs. One more fun fact about the arena build, they forgot to put the box office in when it was originally built. They were pretty much done and had to blow out a wall in a hallway to create something (and it was awful). It has since been renovated.

Then you and I have heard totally different things (and Polian never came so I’ll trust what I heard). It’s not a coincidence that the Pegula’s put RB over the Sabres after they took over the Bills. They didn’t replace him, they promoted him. They knew that he was good and could stabilize their business.

Curse you @Augie for dragging me in on these conversations!! I was trying to stay out!! I just can’t help myself...

That’s not the case. They wanted to stabilize he football department. People get confused as to the org chart. Think of the business side and the football side as to separate businesses. There isn’t much/any crossover. The team president oversees the business operations, marketing, stadium ops, community relations, public relations (some crossover on that), ticket sales, IT and sponsorship. I worked in sports for multiple teams for almost a decade. I’m pretty well-versed as to the way that it flows. The reason that they can overcome Russ leaving is because he left behind talented sports business executives. Dave Wheat and Bruce Popko jump out as guys that have been high level executives for years in sports. Either one of them could have had (and may had) chances to interview for other team president positions. This isn’t at all “new” to them. Winning will always help. That’s obvious. It just isn’t always going to happen. It doesn’t for anyone. You can’t build your budget for the upcoming year based on results on the field. The reason a team asks for your renewal at the end of the previous year is to monitor the revenue for the upcoming year. They need to know where they stand.

From the Bills standpoint those issues will fall well behind revenue generating opportunities IMO. The first thing that I would do is redo the entire lower level between the 20’s at least. The amenities there (and pricing) would be stepped up. The weirdest part about New Era Field is that the best locations aren’t combined with the best amenities. That is asinine to me. It would be like an NBA having floor seats with no private clubs or other benefits. You’d have the benefits for people in worse locations. It’s crazy. The best way to maximize revenue is to marry the best locations and the best benefits.

It’s actually a zillion times harder than that. You don’t think every team just says, “let’s just win this year and we are fine?” That’s an awful business strategy. There are 32 teams and that will always be somewhat cyclical (the Patriots are an obvious outlier). You have to build a business model and plan that is sustainable whether you are 14-2 or 2-14. Your budget is what it is regardless of your record. Obviously winning helps you achieve those numbers but there is not one team, in any level of professional sports, that’s business model is “let’s win and it will be okay.”

She certainly has less leverage than other owners in that everyone knows they are married to Buffalo. At the same time she took the natural first step of “don’t look at us to pay for this whole thing.” It will end like these things always do, the state, the team and the fans will share in the cost.

They have people in place capable of handling the job. Polian was to stabilize the football department. There was no turmoil on the business side (which is what a team president oversees). Russ was good at his job just not good in the me too era. There are people in place (like Bruce Popko) whose name you’ll start to see. They are the ones doing the work, Kim is the one relaying the message. To be very clear though, Kim is learning from Popko & company not the other way around.

I’m going to try to stay out of this but it sure sounds EXACTLY like I said it would...LAMP

One of the guys in our group is a UGA alum so we are tentatively planning to double dip. That could change but the thought was that we could be to Houston by 9 or 10. If the Yanks are in Houston though all bets are off.

Yeah, that was a good time