Big Turk Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Huh, more tax breaks for the rich ... awesome. And for a slightly different spin ... new ownership cannot borrow half of the purchase price so their debt payment won't be as extreme as the OP suggested. So now if you assume a 30% tax rate for the owners, you get roughly $20 million in tax savings per year. And over 15 years that amounts to $300 million. That puts a big dent in the lease buyout, but it is spread out over a long period of time. Of course my math can be way off seeing as how I can be a moron as well. They are not selling the team to someone who wants to move them, period. Why is this so hard to understand? You don't put all that stuff in the lease to just sell it to anyone... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Jackson Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 They are not selling the team to someone who wants to move them, period. Why is this so hard to understand? You don't put all that stuff in the lease to just sell it to anyone... Truth Ralph wouldn't have put Mary Wilson or Mary Owen on the committee if he was moving the team. He is not going to make villains out of his family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegas55 Posted May 22, 2014 Author Share Posted May 22, 2014 As has been documented numerous times here, first by Lori our ex-resident scribe, the idea for the name was ENTIRELY George Pataki's idea and he urged both the county and RW's family to talk him into accepting it as a way of honoring his contribution to football in general and to WNY in particular. He was very resistent and it took a certain amount of cajoling by family to get him to agree. As I've said, this is a tired argument. And if you need to believe that Mr. Wilson was just on a power trip due to his out of control ego, have at it all you want. You know what you know, and I know what I know. I'm content with leaving it at that. GO BILLS!!! Well the documentation that I see is the article posted in this thread, where Ralph claims that Pataki talked him into it. But what is crystal clear from that article is that the Bills negotiated hard to gain the naming rights, which cost the county a lot of money to give up. So if the Bills negotiated for this, and the principled Ralph was against selling the naming rights to a corporate sponsor, what exactly was the Bills plan in terms of naming the stadium? I mean they badly wanted the naming rights, so what was the plan? Why did they want the naming rights so badly if they were not going to sell them? I know the version that the Wilson camp is selling, and which you are buying, is that it never occurred to Ralph to name it after himself, that he was "talked into it". Well maybe, and maybe Ralph was going to name the stadium after a war hero; but Pataki talked him out of that, and convinced him instead to name it after himself. Must have been a tough sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXBILLSFAN Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 (edited) Don Esmonde column in Buffalo News illustrates just how clueless folks can be about the economics of the NFL as it pertains to keeping the Bills in Buffalo. There's no excuse though, for a columnist who has the time and has the obligation to at least research the subject matter he writes about to be so off base. He writes that we need an owner who won't chase the dollar, who will be happy with the 35 million dollar profit the team produces. Well Don, you are right about Buffalo needing an owner who won't be obsessed with maximizing profit. But the "35 million" profit? Well Mr Osmonde, because this team has been thrown out there to highest bidder, a new owner will pay close to one billion dollars for the Bills. And even if he puts up half of that amount in cash, the financing cost will reach at least 40 million annually, a cost that the Bills don't currently have, but a cost that will demolish the 35 million dollar "profit". And that's all thanks to good old Ralph Wilson, who despite the ridiculous hero worship he has received by many on this board (and elsewhere) made no provisions at all in his will, or even expressed a preference in his will, that the team be kept in Buffalo. But why should he have? . The fans/taxpayers of WNY only built and paid for the stadium that bears his name, and the franchise that he so "generously" kept in WNY only produced a billion dollar windfall for him and his heirs. So why should Ralph have even lifted a finger, or expressed even a simple non binding wish, that Bills be sold to an owner committed to keeping the team in WNY. Time will tell exactly how much Ralph did to keep the team in Buffalo, entirely premature to cast such a harsh vote. At this point, we have the lease, which clearly prevents short term movement and a ton of speculation on the trust and what it says or doesn't say about limitations --- having the Mary's on the voting trust is a sign Ralph wanted folks he trusted to make final call, I think that was his way of making sure team stayed here -- I also think he had some potential owners pre-vetted by NFL -- as for the implication of selling the team at market (say $1billion) vs. at a "hometown" discount, say $700M --- I think it's irrelevant to the operating philosophy of the new owner --- I suspect the new owner is buying the team to join the club and for love of football and Buffalo --- not to make money ---- BTW, I can never use return and create spacing in my posts, either -- not sure why ? Edited May 22, 2014 by TXBILLSFAN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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