JDG

There's some, but not a lot. And given the past 10 years or so now of regional marketing by the Bills, I seriously doubt that that presence is "untapped" at this point.... In the 2004 Fortune 500, there were ZERO Fortune 500 companies in Buffalo. Indeed, the only Fortunate 500 company in all of Upstate New York was Eastman Kodak - which isn't exactly rolling in dough these days. By comparison: Pittsburgh - 7 Cincinnati - 7 Cleveland - 7 Milwaukee - 7 Memphis - 4 Columbus - 4 Jacksonville - 3 Toledo - 3 Oklahoma City - 3 Louisville - 3 Birmingham - 2 Little Rock - 2 Green Bay - 1 Gosh this is depressing..... JDG

As I've noted before, even the combined Buffalo-Rochester metro area ain't that big, and its even less-so if you let other cities form combined metro areas. (i.e. Buffalo-Rochester may be bigger than Cincinnati, but is smaller than Cincinnati-Dayton.) The loonie also doesn't go as far as the US dollar, and in any case, Toronto is a long ways away. Toronto helps, but again, Buffalo is hardly the only market that would benefit from including everything in a 90 minute radius. This is where it gets ugly. Population Change from 1990 - 2000 Cleveland-Akron metro area: +3.0% Green Bay metro area: +16.5% Milwaukee metro area: +5.1% Jacksonville metro area: +21.4% Buffalo metro area: -1.6% - the worst performance of the Top 50 metro areas So actually, compared to Buffalo, all of those other areas *are* hotbeds of growth. Cleveland, by the way, has more than twice as many people as Buffalo. Combine Buffalo and Rochester and Cleveland is still 22% larger! Sure, Jacksonville may be smaller, but they're going to pass Buffalo almost any year now. JDG

Of course, how many World Series have the Indians and A's won recently? Is that the best that can be hoped for - to occasionally make the playoffs? JDG

Sure, it helps a little bit.... but at the end of the day, the Buffalo pie is *shrinking*, and increased ticket prices aren't going to offset the inexorable effects of overall decline in the Metro Area..... JDG

Just having a little fun! But seriously.... if Ralph wanted to move the team, he would have done so a long time ago. There's no way that at his age he is angling to move to Los Angeles. Especially after voting against previous franchise moves. You are just being a wee bit paranoid on this one.....

Bat!

Would *you* buy a luxury box if the Bills hired a maruqee HC and LeCharles Bentley? General admission tickets and merchandise revenues are all shared..... JDG

As opposed to Buffalo? Does Buffalo have anything remotely similar to Central Park West or the Village? Median Household Income: Buffalo City: $28,500 Buffalo MSA: $41,200 New York City: $41,500 New York MSA: $44,800 Mean Household Income: Buffalo City: $38,500 Buffalo MSA: $53,100 New York City: $62,813 New York MSA: $68,500 So, New York may have more poor people than Buffalo does, but they also have a lot more rich people too.... JDG Buffalo MSA = Erie and Niagara Counties New York MSA = Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Kings, Putnam, Rockland, Richland, and Westchester Counties

And the people who have incomes to buy million dollar homes on Long Island obviously aren't paying any income tax.....

Yeah, I'm sure all those million-dollar houses in Long Island are just completely sucking up WNY's tax dollars, not the other way around..... JDG

I'm sure you love tailgating as much as the next Bills fan, but they ain't building a new Stadium downtown with the thought of catering to tailgaters, and leaving vast acres of empty parking lots downtown for the other 357 days a year that there aren't Bills games. JDG

Nah, a new stadium is like new deck chairs on the Titanic. In 1990 Buffalo was the the 34th largest Metro Area in the US. After a decade of losing 1.6% of its population (the Top 50 metro areas average growth rate was 17.6% during this time), Buffalo was down to 43. Sure people can talk about Rochester, but even then Buffalo only moves up to 24 - and that number is lower if you give other cities comparable treatment (like giving Cincinnati the Dayton metro area.) In 1960, Buffalo was the 20th largest Metro Area. If every Metro Area were to grow at the same rate in this decade as it did in the last decade, then by 2010 Buffalo will only be 48th largest Metro Area in the country - behind places like San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Austin, Norfolk-VA Beach, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Memphis, Greensboro-Salem, Providence, and Oklahoma City. That's a pretty grim list. How do you justify a franchise in Buffalo-Rochester over San Antonio-Austin or Raleigh-Greensboro, let alone Los Angeles? And heck, Okalahoma City-Tulsa and Sacramento-Fresno will be right on our heels, if not ahead of us, at that point. For the Bills to stay in Buffalo, they need a new economy. Everything else, be it a new stadium, be it Golisano, be it more government handouts is just rearranging deck chairs on a very slowly sinking ship. JDG

Uh, why exactly should Long Island taxpayers have to pay one cent towards keeping the Bills in Buffalo? JDG

Because he doesn't care *that* much about what happens to his business once he dies, because once he sells the team he will have to pay huge capital gains taxes, and because if he sells the team, what's he going to do with the rest of his life? JDG

I've followed this situation closely, and have never seen Tagliabue say such a thing. In fact, he's always been very careful to say that all options are open. Unfortunately, while an expansion team in LA would be better for all existing NFL fans, and produce expansion fee revenue, it would completely upset the League's competitive balance. JDG

He'd find a way to say it a little less bluntly and definitively. See, for example, Tom Benson's comments during the fall regarding the Saints. JDG

"I'm not moving to Los Angeles, o.k." - Wayne Weaver, owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, earlier this week. So, it looks like the Jags are not an option. They've struggled at the gate, but Jacksonville is a very small market. The difference, however, is that Jacksonville is a *growing* market, and the NFL is in there as a long-term investment. The most likely franchises to move to Los Angles, in order, are: New Orleans - It was always a small market, and now it isn't even the largest city in the State of Louisianna anymore. San Diego - No stadium deal Oakland - The San Francisco Bay market really doesn't need two teams, and they've struggled at the gate. Buffalo Long-term thinking is exactly right. The problem is that Buffalo, and all of WNY, is growing *smaller*. Ultimately, the future of the Bills lies not in the hands of Ralph Wilson, Tom Golisano, or any other businessman - but in the hands of the elected officials of the City of Buffalo, Erie County, and New York State in keeping the Buffalo-Rochester metro area among the nation's 30 largest metro areas. At some point, on current trends, keeping a franchise in Buffalo will be simply unsustainable. Sure, the NFL Owners could do more to prop up small markets - after all, not every market can have as much corporate money as Washington, DC in it - but there's a limit to that. They aren't going to prop up a franchise in the 60th largest market, not when there is a market like Los Angeles sitting wide open, or even a growing market like San Antonio, Portland, Louisville, or any other number of comparably-sized cities that at least have a future of growth ahead of them. When the Browns moved to Baltimore, the Mayor of Cleveland got the NFL to agree to keep the Browns name, logo, colors, and records in the City of Cleveland, and to provide Cleveland with an expansion franchise within a few years. Mayor White of Cleveland essentially accomplished this with the threat of some good anti-trust lawyers and capitalizing on the collective national outrage against the Browns moving. Houston tried a similar thing when the Oilers left, to no avail. Quite simply, Cleveland got lucky. And given the size of the Buffalo market, I have a hard time seeing us pulling off the trick. The NFL has passed a rule against any other team than the Packers having such an ownership structure. If you are interested in putting together such a grass roots effort, you'll have to first hire some really good antitrust lawyers. Actually, the NFL really, truly, does want a team in LA. And once LA is filled, then there will always be San Antonio, Portland, Louisville, or whatever other city of the week to play that role..... JDG

Well, New York is even bigger, and seems to do just fine with not one, but two teams.

I presume that the June 1st rule will be the same as in previous years, only that the cap went way up, so there is less need to make cuts. Your friends are referring to a provision of the old CBA, in that since 2007 was an uncapped year the June 1st rule was a moot point, since the NFL naturally wouldn't let you push cap hits onto an uncapped year. JDG

The problem was the Stadium. The Los Angeles metro area has about about five people for every man, woman, and child in the combined Buffalo-Rochester area. Even if you toss in Southern Ontario, the Los Angeles area is more than twice our size. With a decent Stadium situation, a team in the Los Angeles market would simply be a cash cow. Think of it this way - Buffalo will never be one of the "high revenue" franchises; a team in Los Angeles with a modern stadium almost certainly would be. JDG

Actually, I think you could make a strong case that the Texans are more of a contender for next year than the Bills are.....

Harv, You forgot the fact that if Moulds - no less than our best offensive player - is on the roster in 2006 then the cap space isn't "dead." JDG

If it was about 2007, we could have kept Moulds for 2006 and then cut him after the season, for a lot less dead cap space..... Suffice to say, trading him *now* doesn't make a ton of "cap sense."

Huh????? For a guy who gets 10.1 ypc and is on the downside of his career?????

Well, it apparently commanded about $6 million for this year - only about $1mil less than the Bills were due to pay him.....