Ballsy

Why would you be surprised? When you buy a PSL you are essentially buying the exclusive rights to purchase the season tickets for those seats. Why would anyone spend between $500 - and $50K for a PSL if the team could decide in year 2 to NOT allow them to buy the tickets and instead the team could choose to sell them to someone else? For all the bitching about PSLs around here, they do guarantee the season ticket holder the exclusive right to renew. The team can't refuse to renew your seats for anything that isn't in the PSL contract. Now there may be a clause about bad behavior or other things, but apparently not for resell: Unlimited Resale. Now, the Bills might send out threatening letters, but that is just saber rattling.... Once the PSL contract is executed, the team cannot refuse to renew your tickets even if you resell every ticket for 30 years.

Sending threatening letters to season ticket holders about reselling tickets is not the same as preventing someone who paid a PSL from exercising their right to buy them. This is just saber rattling by the teams for the (valid) reasons you suggested - retaining home field advantage, etc. I think for teams where the season ticket holder bought a PSL, this is all bluster on the part of the team. I would need to see some proof with actual season ticket holders names to believe they are yanking tickets from someone who bought a PSL and resold tickets.

How can you get axed for selling tickets if you bought a PSL? The whole point of the PSL is that you have paid for the right to buy season tickets and no one else can buy season tickets for that seat. There is nothing in the contract that says you can't resell them. You can legally resell every single ticket and there's nothing the Bills can do about it once you bought the PSL. Purchasing the PSL guarantees you the right to buy those tickets. That being said, if you stop buying those season tickets, you forfeit that right in the future.

Why do you need to field a team on both sides of the ball? All it takes is one bold (crazy?) GM to never take offensive snaps. Imagine sinking 100% of your salary cap into defensive players and special teams. No quarterback, no offensive lineman. Every time your team gets the ball (on kick or turnover) you try to return for touchdown. If you don't return for a touchdown, on first down, you either attempt a field goal, or punt back to the other team. Never play offense. The typical NFL team takes 63 offensive snaps. Since your team will take zero offensive snaps, your opponents will have to take 125+ snaps. Imagine how tired their OL will get while you platoon the top 40 defensive players in the league against them. Imagine how frustrated your opponent's defense will be as they will never take the field the entire game. You could effectively take about 50% of your opponents salary cap out of the game. You'd have to buy the best kickers, punters and punt returners, and defensive players in the league, but I think no one would want to play you. This would only work in the NFL with the a salary cap.

By that definition, you could say buying tickets to the movies is an investment, or shopping for clothes is an investment. I know that my wife likes to call her shoe purchases an investment, but that is only to make her feel better. An investment is an asset or property acquired to generate income or gain appreciation. Concert tickets, clothing, and PSLs are generally not investments. Now, if you are buying PSLs to take clients to games and the clients are generating income, maybe, but if it's just for your enjoyment, probably not an investment.

I was keeping it to football, but, yes, I agree that Kelly is better at a lot of things than Josh - surviving cancer, judging wet t-shirt contests in Daytona, etc. The OP to which I replied made a statement which I believed was factually inaccurate: something along of lines, "there is not one thing that Kelly is better at than Josh in football." I found one think Kelly did better in football - getting to the Superbowl. I was not saying Kelly was more fortunate, or that Kelly was solely responsible for getting the Bills to the Superbowl. I'm just saying he was better than Josh at getting to Superbowls. That is indisputable. I made no assertions as to the reason why he got to Superbowls. Look, to be the QB of ANY team that makes the Superbowl, luck or fortune is a component. Luck has played a part for Mahomes, Brady, etc. So far, luck hasn't been kind to Josh in terms of advancing to the Superbowl. Coaching, defense, injuries, refs, quarterback ability as well as a myriad of other factors all play a role in advancing a team to the Superbowl. It's not just the Quarterback. We've had 59 Superbowls and I'll bet less than 70 total quarterbacks have started in the game (as many have started in multiple SBs). Josh isn't one of them. Does this mean Josh is a worse QB than Trent Dilfer or Tony Eason? No. But, like it or not, Josh will be judged on his lack of Superbowl appearances and Superbowl wins. Charles Barkely, Allen Iverson, Barry Bonds never won rings, but they all at least made it to the finals. Josh has yet to do that.

Again, not saying Kelley is better than Allen. I was just pointing out that the poster that said “there is not one thing that Kelly is better than Josh at” was wrong. I disagree. Kelly is currently better than Josh at getting to the superbowl. I never said it was because of Kelly the team got there. I never said that crappy quarterbacks who end up in the Super Bowl because they were blessed to be on great teams are great QBs. I was also not saying Kelly’s leadership, ability, personality, etc was the reason the team got to the Super Bowl. In fact, I never said Kelly was the reason the team made all those superbowls, or that that without Kelly, the wouldn’t have made any of them. I just pointed out a factual inaccuracy. As of today, factually, Kelly is/was better at getting to Superbowls than Josh. I’m also not saying it’s Josh’s fault or lack of leadership or ability that has prevented the team from getting to the Superbowl. Whether Kelly caused his team to make superbowls, or Josh prevented his team from making them is, in fact, unknowable.

I never said Kelly was better. I was saying that your statement that there is not ONE thing Kelly did better than Josh is wrong. Kelly was clearly better at making it to Superbowls. let’s hope that changes for Josh

Except take his team to Superbowls....

No problem with Cook holding out - he's free to work, or not work as he desires. Cook has already earned $4.6M. Playing this season on the existing contract earns him another $5.4M. He will have earned $10M before age 26. If you assume that between his agent and the tax man, he only nets half of that ($5M), he could have multi-generational wealth even if retired at the end of this upcoming season. If he controls his spending... My issue is with your two implications: First, that he needs this next contract to secure secure financial salvation for multiple generations. That the $10M in earnings on the first contract isn't enough for multi-generational wealth. Your second implication is that the difference between what the Bills would like to sign him to (probably around $10M/year) and what he wants, $15M/year) will be required for multi-generation wealth. With respect to issue #1: Studies about NFL player bankruptcies show that larger contracts and longer careers do NOT substantially reduce their risk of bankruptcy in retirement. This study (https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/beyond-bls/life-after-the-nfl.htm) projects 15%-40% of players, regardless of career duration and earnings, will file for bankruptcy within 25 years of retirement. As to implication #2, I would bet Beane would gladly sign him to a contract for $10M/year for 2 years right now. I'm not advocating that Cook accept $10M/year, just making a point that he could likely sign a contract today that guaranteed him $20M over 2 years. That would get him a total of 30M in career earnings before age 28. He has indicated he wants $15M+ year. Over 2 years, that would be an additional $10M+ in earnings. So $40M in career earnings vs. $30M. I would postulate that if an athlete (or person) doesn't have the financial discipline to create generational wealth on $30M in career earnings, the bump from $30M to $40M won't make a difference in financial salvation. Now, I don't have any issue with him (or anyone) holding out, refusing to play, holding in, etc. It's a free market. But let's not characterize this as "two generations of family wealth", or he's got to "feed his family" as Latrell Sprewell infamously said when rejecting a 3 year $21M contract 20 years ago. Speaking of Latrell, he had north of $100 million in career earnings and now has a net worth of about $150K. So much for financial salvation. Ronald Read, on the other hand never made more than minimum wage working as a janitor and gas station attendant yet died with a net worth of 8.6M I postulate, above $500K in annual income, financial salvation is only dependent on your spending....

Sure the flip side of that coin is you can be 3rd string, walk on, or no athlete. If you folks make less than 100K (200K at Harvard no) you will not pay a cent. I'm just pointing out that the Ivy League does not in fact provide any athletic scholarships.

No one at any Ivy is on an academic scholarship. All scholarship is need based. It doesn't matter how good at football, squash, lacrosse, etc. you are. If you or your parents can afford the full tuition you will pay it.

Your equivocations are impressive. Do you by chance moonlight in the executive branch of our government?

Can anyone speak to the financials of this? I assume that suspended players do not receive game checks. Does that mean their salary for next season is 6/18 less? Do this suspensions reduce the cap hit of these players at all?

Every NFL team is an extremely successful business.