Ray

These studies are VERY poorly done and studies are only as good as their assumptions. For instance, I myself have club seat season tickets because I love the Bills. I buy jerseys for my kids, go to the games, buy food pay for parking etc....I know many of you do the same. Conservatively say that is 5K a year. The studies assume that instead of me spending that money on the Bills I am going to go to the local mall instead, go to a loccal restaurant and spend the money there. I can guarantee you I am NOT spending 5k Sept thru Dec on Sundays at local restaurants, the mall and local businesses. So instead I will take my family on vacation. Go to NOTL or Toronto and spend it there if there was no Bills. There is more to do there than Buffalo. So the idea it takes money away from local business is a poor assumption. I know I am not the only one who would take that money and end up spending the majority of it on other things...many out of town. Also, stadiums can be economically enhancing to an area if they are done right. Baltimore Camden Yard for example. Had you been to Baltimore before the stadium was built? Little activity etc....on game day/night the place is fun, thousands of people, great activity. Great article by Tim but I don't think it captures just the devastation it would have to this area, our history, our great memories, if the Bills ever left. It is a local treasure that is part of this community the same way the Yankess are a part of New York, Red Sox in Boston, Green Bay and the Packers, etc..... Some teams help define the community. I like many of you travel a lot and without fail the only two things associated with Buffalo are snow and the Bills.

Love it! Perfect response.

Like 90% of the other posts I'd be upset, would not renew my season tix as it would add to the growing amount of evidence they have no idea what they are doing. Why create yet another hole in the team. You saw how awful the WR corps was without Stevie. Sign him or franchise him and get on with it. So they won't pay him $8M per year to sign who for what and play with a bunch of scrubs again? No thanks

Bingo....other teams may want to ask D Revis just how good SJ is? Best WR he played against this season. Letting Stevie go at $8M per season to sign a Vincent Jackson for $12M per season would be plain stupid. SJ is as good as him and already here and has a relationship with Fitz and the city and the team. Sign him already to $8M per year and be done with it. The guy played hurt, played hard and didn't pull a Jabari Greer at the end of year and decide not to play so he could preserve more money in free agnecy. Tell me who is more of a team guy? SJ is!!

Bills local TV ratings are typically either number one or number two in terms of the "share". So when the Bills play more households in the Buffalo area are watching them play than any other market.....it is typically either the Bills or Green Bay at number one/two. I know the Buffalo region was number one for the NFL Draft this year as well! And you're right the Bils region is huge. Go up and stay in Toronto and watch the Buffalo affiliates there....we're not as small as some like to say. Toronto is the number 5 market in North America but take Toronto out of the equation and say just Hamilton thru Rochester as the Bills market and there you have population of 3.5M people.....hardly a small population base.

Keep in mind if you run the numbers anywhere your ROI is pretty poor. If you go to LA (a place that has already lost 2 teams due to lack of interest) you have to lay out close to $800M and also over $1B for a stadium....likely a lot more for CA real estate, parking etc.... If you put down $500M cash you are still financing $1.5B not to mention relocation fee. So at 6% you are paying a good $100M in just interest a year....so all of your TV revenue essnetially goes just to interest and not even principal on your debt! I really think people overestimate the ability of all of these other places to get a team and make money. They will be lucky to make $20M a year.....considered good for a sports franchise. People want to own them for the prestige, the love of the game etc....But those who think it is for ROI are sadly mistaken unless you are buying, making a little money and then plan on selling it in a few years and that is not what the NFL wants.

Yet ironic the Bills beat the Pats and really were in control of the Giants' game. They can thank Buffalo. I guess in the end I would rather they be the NFC rep as I can not stand to see another Pats' SB and the 49ers would have gotten killed by the Pats I think. Giants match up a lot better as they have a big advantage over the Pats defense and have a good defense. Go Giants.....again have the Bills to thank for screwing things up for them to win another SB!!

I feel real bad for Lee too. He is a class act and has had nothing but great things to say about Buffalo, the fans and the people. I really wish he caught that ball and had a chance for the SB. When you watch the play in regular time he basically had it for about a half second before the Pats defender knocked it out and you see plays like that all the time. Some people make it sound like it hit his hands and he dropped it with nobody around. He should have made the catch but that play happens a couple times at least each game (not in the end zone) but all over the field. Great guy, feel bad for him. How many players leave Buffalo by writing a letter to the city and its fans? Very few.

Much to do about much of nothing. Any drug can be dangerous if not used correctly. Water can be deadly! But it is an injectable NSAID...think motrin being injected not morphine or dilaudid or fentanyl etc.... Now, it should not be used regularly as it is more likely than motrin and naprosyn to cause ulcers/GI bleeds and very very rarely renal problems. Its effect on causing ulcers is short lived....so if you take it for a few days the possible side effect of an ulcer occurs for about a week or so NOT years. It is a very reasonable choice of a pain medication for someone who has an acute injury. It is not something you give daily to someone/player. I have not seen the story but it would not be wose to say inject someone daily with this for more than three days straight. It is NOT addicting. Motrin actually in pain studies has comparable effects in terms of pain releif about 60 minutes out from dose.

Exactly.....the state spending 100M to have about 200M in return is a darn good ROI. How do think OP and Hamburg would feel if the biggest employer their moved out of town and hundreds of people moved....especially homes and condos and property tax revenue those ares receive from players, employees, coaches, etc...?

It is somewhat refreshing to hear "good news" if this is indeed true. With nothing positive going on in Buffalo sports recently this would be refreshing news. Keep in mind people that Jim Kelly has nowhere close to the kind of money it takes to own an NFL team. Michael Jordan doesn't have that kind of cash. Pegula would make sense as maybe the major investor with some others putting in a few hundred million dollars as well. Just keep in mind that someone buying the Bills is doing it because they love the Bills and NOT to make a profit as they are not going to make much of a profit at all. But this does/would bring up all types of great side stories. Who is involved? When would transition take place? Same stadium? New stadium to Buffalo or NF? We can all dream and hope but the Bills will stay in Buffalo...I am confident of that.

It is fine as long as they are consistent and say the same thing that the state should take back the money they gave to the Yankees and money and tax abatements they give to any other entertainment venue/stadium/arts group etc... Something tells me that's not the case. You can actually make an argument that the investment does reap NYS rewards. What companies in Buffalo have a payroll of $130M per year and bring in revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars? Very few. When NY is collecting about $10M per year in state income taxes alone from the Bills and you are not even taking into account what is projected to be about another 10M a year in sales taxes, hotel taxes etc....then it is a decent investment. As long as that money from the state comes with the stipulation the Bills stay and sign a lease for 15 years I think it is okay.

I am not sure people are "enchanted" with him as much as he would have been very nice to have on a roster full of no talent WRs. Donald Jones is no Lee Evans and never will be and neither is Hagan or Roosevelt or whoever we plugged in there and that is the point. You had a proven NFL caliber WR who other teams respected whether or not yo believe that. He is not an "elite" receiver now but is a very good receiver with excellent speed that does not have hands of stone like D Jones. There was no reason to unload a guy who was a valuable WR to your team who cost you what 3M against thte cap and you had NOBODY to replace him. That proved correct as the season went on you realized the Bills had NOBODY opposite SJ. That is what myself and others were saying at the beginning of the year and it turned out to be true. Now the Bills need to draft a WR very high in the draft as a complement to SJ. I think everyone realized that SJ had become the number one.....but it would have been helpful to have a legit number 2, that is all.

The math is wrong 52134 plus the 438864 is 490k not 460k. If the Bills had that game in Buffalo that was in Toronto then we are about 20th in attendence despite three awful Dec games that nodoby went to given the team was out of the playoffs for a 12th straight year. Bills were top 10 in attendance the first half of the year. ESPN's math and methodology is horrible to begin with as Lucas Oil stadium capacity is 63k and the amount they list is over that amount--->don't know if they have paid for tickets or actual attendance or how they calculate these numbers.

When Eli Manning won the SB in '07 his numbers were very average....his QB rating was worse than Fitz's this year and he threw 20 INTs that year with much better WR talent around him. So YES you can win a SB with average QB play IF you have a very good defense and other good offensive players. The Bills would be a good team and were a good team earlier in the year when they had a full complement of offensive players not the rag tag bunch they had to throw together for the second half of the season. The defense still needs a lot of work but a legit pass rusher and LB could go a long way at vastly improving this team.

I was thinking the same thing....sun is out, little wind and high 30s. Perfect day for weather. Nobody wants lots of snow and windy and cold. Those are miserable days to go to a game and lots of fans do NOT show up. Today would have been perfect. Ths year was actually the best weather consistently for home games that I can remember.

Tom Jackson is completely wrong! Fitz put up big numbers the first half of the season NOT just against the Pats and the extension was NOT done until about a month after the Pats game. Nice try on analysis, but completely wrong. Fitz did well the first half of the season until everyone went down. We have SOOOO many needs on this team that if you re-sign Stevie, get a decent number 2 and re-sign Chandler and Roscoe then you have the WR corps that Fitz had when he was AFC offensive player of the month and was doing well. He has played poorly a lot of the time but anybody would without a TE, w/o a legitimate WR. You realize many of Fitz's INTs this year and poor play was with the likes of Ruval Martin as your number one WR? Draft a guy in the 2nd round but other than that go defense, defense, defense. You can win with Fitz if he has a decent group of guys which he did not for the last half of the season.

You can win with Fitz and he has won WHEN he has some good talent around him. Do you really expect the Bills to be competitive with Derek Hagan and Ruvell Martin as your number one and two WRs? Let's see, D Hagan as your number 1 WR....a guy who has been cut by three teams. Same with Martin. Then add Kevin Brock as your TE, and N Roosevelt and D Nelson two undrafted free agent WRs. You have better WR talent than that on some college teams. Look at the games when Fitz has S Johnson, Chandler, and a decent crop of WRs and his INT goes way down. That being said he really has to add some bulk in the offseason and work on his deep ball. He is a smart guy with good enough accuracy on his short to medium balls. With a backfield of Fred and CJ, Steve Johnson a decent number 2 Chandler, Roscoe and Nelson you have a good offense. It really is no coincidence when Chandler and the rest of the teams WR corps went out that that is when this offense sputtered. Why Chan insists on going 5 wides with that type of WR corps is beyond me though.

Seriously? Are you kidding? The guy is still in college and has played a season and a half of football as a QB. He ultimately be better than Fitz in like a half dozen years but the guy has not played against pro competition yet and until he does and succeeds you just don't know. He could be a major major flop. JP Losman and Rob Johnson had Tannenhill's talent.....how did that work out. Guys who are good athletes frequently just cannot cut it in the NFL as QBs. Colt McCoy is really lighting it up too a guy with a good arm and athleticism

Succession plan is likely have Ralph give the team to his wife and she is the owner but Jim is the front man for it. That way no taxes at all and if/when she decides to sell she has to pay little tax on it if she holds it for a few years. She and the family may actually want the team despite what is said publicly.

Good stuff John. Sometimes I think you're the only one Ralph talks to in the media! I am not opposed to the Toronto extension and quite honestly given the Dec games at the Ralph over the past couple decades I think Ralph should make the stipulation that it be a December game being played there. Allow them to charge less but in return at least it is a sell out and the Bills can make some money.....granted not nearly as much as peope tend to state here. The deal was for $78M over 5 years for 8 games. The Bills usually make around $5M per game (at the Ralph) so $40M for those 8 games. So the Bills make an extra 7M per year roughly playing those games there. Even if it was only $5M per year extra it does help the team a bit. I personally think it really does not do much to generate Toronto's enthusiasm for the Bills. They would be better off having the players go to Southern Ontario and do appearances as So Ontario has a lot of Bills fans and they love coming to the games. They much more identify with the Bills and the Bills' fans thsn the population of Toronto.

Geez, I am shocked that people have taken comments out of context. When I write he is not that bad/as bad as many want to make him out to be I am saying look at the league as a whole, the QBs out there and everything he has done this season with the very limited talent around him. Very limited talent. A QB does not suck and is not horrible/horrific if they are throwing for 3600+ yards for a team with a lousy defense and lousy WRs in general. D Jones, Hagan, R Martin, a converted QB, Clauseen, Lee Smith etc.....do you really think that is a recipe for success? All I am saying is that the guy is an average NFL QB and when he had the guys early in the year around him with talent/Freddie, Chandler was healthy he performed a lot better. If we had the opportunity to take Luck (won't happen), or RG III I say take them. But the idea that Matt Cassell, Kyle Orton, Matt Sanchez, Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, etc....would do soooo much better with this team is just ridiculous. The point is that sooo many over react on this board and want to ignore certain facts. Fitz has had 6 lousy quarters out of 8 in the last two games....no question. But he played well in the 2nd Jets game and threw the ball very well in that game. Had 7-8 very good games early in the year. He also was not the reason we lost to Dallas, to the Titans etc... 2nd half of the year he has been bad but that is when the supporting cast was horrible too so look at the totality of the situation

Exactly...switch Alex Smith to our team and we are likely 3-10 if that. I will take a good or average defense at this point. When you blink and are 3 TDs down that definitely changes your philosophy on offense and changes a lot of what you want to do in a game. That happened in about 4 games straight during this losing streak.

No he is not that bad. He will throw for more yards in two years than any other QB in Bills history except for Jim Kelly. He has just had a really bad San Diego game and a very bad two quarters in the Dolphins game that are very much in everyone's mind right now. When everything is considered and you can objectively look back on things you will realize that when he was Offensive Player of the AFC for a month he had weapons to work with and that likely has a lot more to do with things than anything. I agree he needs to work on his accuracy at times and accuracy with the deep ball.....he can obviously throw the deep ball as he has many times and many times successfully. I hope the Bills reassess things and realize what his strengths are in terms of leadership, intelligence, sizing up defenses but also realize making him constantly run 4-5 WR sets likie Tom Brady is not a formula of success for this team. He can be a "good" QB and has actually played well a lot of the time. If he fails with a full compliment of WRs and RBs then you have your answer.

Are you serious in that playing Merriman would hinder the development of our outstanding rush LBs like Danny Batten and Arthur Moats? They have created such a tremendous pass rush that it is obviously the biggest problem on this team. We have nobody behind Merriman and he is already under contract at a reasonable value so it would be dumb to cut him if he is healthy.