Rooneys Pittsburgh vs Ralph

[Buffaloed in Pa]

Pittsburgh small city ,former steel town . Has same economy . Has new stadium. Not sharing home games with anybody,never will.How can the Rooneys under similar conditions,still make it work ? Winning product year after year. Go figure. Yes the unemployment rate is at 10 percent in my area in pa.

[BillnutinHouston]

One answer is Pittsburgh's superior front office, which has produced a far superior on-field product. Another is Pittsburgh's far stronger demographics/buying power. In a 2009 ranking of US cities' buying power, Pittsburgh ranked 29th while Buffalo plodded along at a distant 55th.

 

My link

[Buffaloed in Pa]

Cmon somebody....I hear crickets chirping.

 

One answer is Pittsburgh's superior front office, which has produced a far superior on-field product. Another is Pittsburgh's far stronger demographics/buying power. In a 2009 ranking of US cities' buying power, Pittsburgh ranked 29th while Buffalo plodded along at a distant 55th.

 

My link

Small and smaller towns around Pitt. Redneck America. I`m living it.

[Best Player Available]

Cmon somebody....I hear crickets chirping.

I have cousins there, and my dad was born near Mckees rocks. I guess your comment on similar economies is a little surprising to me.

I think the urban renewal in Pittsburgh is light years ahead of Buffalo. Unemployment I don't know, but I like going to Pittsburgh occasionally. The Roonies seem to have Lombardi's more ingrained in their mindset, for many decades unlike Ralph. My observation only.

[Charles Romes]

Maybe its because when it came time to build a stadium they did not blow the bank. They built a sensible stadium for $300M with great views and open air so the game would be played where it was meant to be: outside.

[Dr. Fong]

The Rooneys ran their franchise like they wanted to win. Ralph has for the majority of his years run his franchise like a money maker. We got super lucky in the 90s. Take that era away and the Bills NFL is pretty damn abysmal.

[Buffaloed in Pa]

The Rooneys ran their franchise like they wanted to win. Ralph has for the majority of his years run his franchise like a money maker. We got super lucky in the 90s. Take that era away and the Bills NFL is pretty damn abysmal.

It is what it is. I think you nailed it. Toronto ? Put a winning team on the field. Seeya Toronto. Simple.

[BRAWNDO]

Pittsburgh small city ,former steel town . Has same economy . Has new stadium. Not sharing home games with anybody,never will.How can the Rooneys under similar conditions,still make it work ? Winning product year after year. Go figure. Yes the unemployment rate is at 10 percent in my area in pa.

 

 

They do a better job picking coaches, Chan excluded of course. They have sold out every game for the past forty years dating back to Nov 1972. They have not had lost decades of futility like the Bills had during the 1970's and 2000's. Geography does not hamper them as much as it does the Bills. WNY has Canada to the West and North, to the East I would say that the closer you get to Syracuse the more Jets and Giants Fans appear. To the South once you hit the PA border, you are in Steelers Country. PIT pulls fans from Central PA, Northwest PA, Southwest PA, Southeast Ohio, and West Virginia. I realize that the Greater Toronto Area has a population of 6.5 million, and the Bills are working increasing their market share, but they have a ways to go. A tradition of winning, a larger fan base and a more vibrant downtown help contribute to the success of the team in PIT.

[2003Contenders]

One word: stability. Their front office has remained very consistent, and over the course of the last 43 years they have had exactly 3 head coaches: all of whom won Super Bowls.

[BRAWNDO]

Plus when it comes down to choosing who stays, your director of football operations or your head coach it helps to make the right decision.

[JuanGuzman]

Thanks tips. But these type of points are silly to me..... Its like saying that if you get spanked as a kid it would hurt.

 

The Steeler's are a model franchise -- by almost any metric the Steelers are one of the most successful teams in NFL history. If the Bills had as long and as recent of a winning of history as the Steelers I'm sure the franchise would be on sounder financial ground.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

One answer is Pittsburgh's superior front office, which has produced a far superior on-field product. Another is Pittsburgh's far stronger demographics/buying power. In a 2009 ranking of US cities' buying power, Pittsburgh ranked 29th while Buffalo plodded along at a distant 55th.

 

My link

The Pittsburgh area us considerably better off than the Buffalo area… hell even Detroit and Cleveland are better off.

 

The second big factor is winning. The Bills have been a mediocre to poor organization for most of their history.

 

Maybe its because when it came time to build a stadium they did not blow the bank. They built a sensible stadium for $300M with great views and open air so the game would be played where it was meant to be: outside.

And they built it in the city center, where stadiums should be built.

 

 

[KRC]

I talked to Dan Rooney about this before he became ambassador. I specifically brought the issue of small-market cities and their ability to financially compete. His answer was that you need to find other and more creative ways of generating revenue to compete. He had no sympathy for any owner who says that they cannot compete financially. He found ways to do it. There are no excuses.

 

As far as a winning tradition, part of it comes from the attitude in the front office. Ron Wolf mentioned that to me when we were talking about how he changed things in Green Bay when he arrived. They had a culture of losing. His first task was to change the attitude. Don't think of yourself as substandard and not able to compete with the larger cities. You can win and you will win if everyone has the proper attitude. If not, there are plenty of other people who are willing to do your job.

 

I saw that attitude in Pittsburgh when I was there. The first thing you see when you arrive in the offices was a glass-enclosed room that housed the Lombardi Trophies that they won. That is the first thing you see when you arrive and the last thing you see when you leave. It hits you immediately. Success is expected. The walls are lined with team photos and photos of prominent players. History is very important to them.

[Just in Atlanta]

Rooney isn't cheap.

 

[dwight in philly]

The Rooneys ran their franchise like they wanted to win. Ralph has for the majority of his years run his franchise like a money maker. We got super lucky in the 90s. Take that era away and the Bills NFL is pretty damn abysmal.

exactly...

[zonabb]

The Pittsburgh area us considerably better off than the Buffalo area… hell even Detroit and Cleveland are better off.

 

The second big factor is winning. The Bills have been a mediocre to poor organization for most of their history.

 

 

And they built it in the city center, where stadiums should be built.

 

Pittsburgh had an economy that wasn't entirely manufacturing and industrial so when our national economy transitioned to a knowledge and service economy, it had the colleges, foundations (huge asset), and diversification in their local labor market to do OK.

 

As for buffalo being worse off than cleveland and Detroit, that's highly debatable. Cleveland (city) is bleeding residents and regionally like Buffalo they're shedding jobs. Same with Detroit but I would argue its in a more downward trend and no region has been more busted by the last 10 years than Detroit.

 

Also, and this is fundamentally important, all three of those regions have at least double the population as Buffalo. From a supply and demand standpoint, they all have about the same number of available seats in their stadiums (supply) but way more people to make the demand higher. My point is, despite all four struggling in some ways, Buffalo's position with the smallest population is tenuous at best in the long run.

 

As for the team, our owner sucks and Pittsburgh's doesn't. The bills have never one and there is only one common element.... RW. Pittsburgh has multiple Super Bowls And one common element, the Rooneys. To me it's that simple.

[Mr. WEO]

The Pittsburgh area us considerably better off than the Buffalo area… hell even Detroit and Cleveland are better off.

 

The second big factor is winning. The Bills have been a mediocre to poor organization for most of their history.

 

 

And they built it in the city center, where stadiums should be built.

 

Have you been to Detroit? There is no big city in this country that looks like it.

[Lurker]

Pittsburgh small city ,former steel town . Has same economy . Has new stadium. Not sharing home games with anybody,never will.How can the Rooneys under similar conditions,still make it work ? Winning product year after year. Go figure. Yes the unemployment rate is at 10 percent in my area in pa.

Per the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Pittsburgh metro area has more than twice the personal income of the Buffalo area ($100.7 billion vs. $43.4 billion in 2010) and is larger than the Buffalo and Rochester areas combined ($85.5 billion).

 

The Pittsburgh metro area's 2010 population (2,357,951) was more than 167,000 larger than the Buffalo and Rochester metros combined (2,190,016).

 

Somewhat of an advantage in selling tix, wouldn't you say...

Edited May 24, 2012 by Lurker

[JohnC]

Per the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Pittsburgh metro area has more than twice the personal income of the Buffalo area ($100.7 billion vs. $43.4 billion in 2010) and is larger than the Buffalo and Rochester areas combined ($85.5 billion).

 

The Pittsburgh metro area's 2010 population (2,357,951) was more than 167,000 larger than the Buffalo and Rochester metros combined (2,190,016).

 

Somewhat of an advantage in selling tix, wouldn't you say...

 

What does the size and income of the market have to do with making quality football decisions? Hiring the congenial Marv Levy as a GM was very odd. Then replacing him with a marketing specialist was a tad unusual. The owner and the people he personally hired made a lot of bad decisions that resulted in a long term rut of mediocrity.

 

There are a variety of ways in determining a market size. When the canadian market is included with the market east towards Rochester and beyond and the southern tier market the size of the market is more than adequate to handle an NFL franchise.

 

The truth of the matter is that during its more than half century of its existence the franchise has been poorly managed.

There are too many examples that prove that success on the field has little to do with money and the size of the market. It's mostly about the caliber of ownership and the type of quality organization he puts in place.

Edited May 24, 2012 by JohnC

[Buffaloed in Pa]

I talked to Dan Rooney about this before he became ambassador. I specifically brought the issue of small-market cities and their ability to financially compete. His answer was that you need to find other and more creative ways of generating revenue to compete. He had no sympathy for any owner who says that they cannot compete financially. He found ways to do it. There are no excuses.

 

As far as a winning tradition, part of it comes from the attitude in the front office. Ron Wolf mentioned that to me when we were talking about how he changed things in Green Bay when he arrived. They had a culture of losing. His first task was to change the attitude. Don't think of yourself as substandard and not able to compete with the larger cities. You can win and you will win if everyone has the proper attitude. If not, there are plenty of other people who are willing to do your job.

 

I saw that attitude in Pittsburgh when I was there. The first thing you see when you arrive in the offices was a glass-enclosed room that housed the Lombardi Trophies that they won. That is the first thing you see when you arrive and the last thing you see when you leave. It hits you immediately. Success is expected. The walls are lined with team photos and photos of prominent players. History is very important to them.

This