PlayoffsPlease Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Russ has recently held the job of getting 1/32 of the NFL TV Money without lifting a finger, and selling 7 games in Buffalo, and 1 game in Toronto. He was a miserably failure in Toronto. In Buffalo, a combination of threatening fans with the team moving, the leagues lowest ticket prices, and the NFL black out rule allowed him to sell probably the same number of tickets anyone else following that strategy would have. The challenge to sell 41 games of NHL is a much bigger challenge. It will be interesting to see how he does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Jackson Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 (edited) The two worst trades in Bills history took place AFTER Russ was promoted to GM. He was responsible for the Peters trade. He botched that whole situation and got taken to the cleaners. And his hand picked successor was responsible for the Lynch-for-beans trade. Which was the worst of those two is debatable. That they are 1 and 2 is not. Lamonica was a good player at a time when QB's weren't nearly as important as they are today and he had a nice run but those two are both on track to finish as HOF'ers and are still at the top of their game. Russ was just promoted above his competency by a very old owner who was more concerned about hiring someone he trusted than hiring someone who could build a high quality football operation. The Pegula family wisely and swiftly put an end to his influence on football ops. He is right where he belongs now. If you think either Brandon or Levy made ANY football decisions as the "GM" I've got a bridge for sale. Neither of those two made a single football decision. They were GM in title only for different reasons. Marv was about the nostalgia and community aspect. Russ was the guy that Ralph trusted to oversee his business. He basically was a de facto owner back then (working hand and hand with Littman). He was the guy on the ground. Much in the same way that owners defer to the football people Russ did the same. Now, if you take issue with the guys that he had underneath him running it go for it (I sound like a broken record). They were not good and RB certainly had the juice with RW to get rid of them. That probably took a year too long. I always chuckle when I hear people complaining about the player decisions that Russ or Marv made. Marv literally slept through draft meetings!!!! He wasn't the guy pulling the trigger!! Let's try hard to not confuse title with responsibilities. Russ has recently held the job of getting 1/32 of the NFL TV Money without lifting a finger, and selling 7 games in Buffalo, and 1 game in Toronto. He was a miserably failure in Toronto. In Buffalo, a combination of threatening fans with the team moving, the leagues lowest ticket prices, and the NFL black out rule allowed him to sell probably the same number of tickets anyone else following that strategy would have. The challenge to sell 41 games of NHL is a much bigger challenge. It will be interesting to see how he does. It has almost ZERO to do with ticket sales. They are what they are. It's all about corporate dollars. Edited July 28, 2015 by Kirby Jackson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlayoffsPlease Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 If you think either Brandon or Levy made ANY football decisions as the "GM" I've got a bridge for sale. Neither of those two made a single football decision. They were GM in title only for different reasons. Marv was about the nostalgia and community aspect. Russ was the guy that Ralph trusted to oversee his business. He basically was a de facto owner back then (working hand and hand with Littman). He was the guy on the ground. Much in the same way that owners defer to the football people Russ did the same. Now, if you take issue with the guys that he had underneath him running it go for it (I sound like a broken record). They were not good and RB certainly had the juice with RW to get rid of them. That probably took a year too long. I always chuckle when I hear people complaining about the player decisions that Russ or Marv made. Marv literally slept through draft meetings!!!! He wasn't the guy pulling the trigger!! Let's try hard to not confuse title with responsibilities. It has almost ZERO to do with ticket sales. They are what they are. It's all about corporate dollars. This is wrong. After TV revenue, the Bills largest revenue source by far are ticket sales. Ticket sales excluding box sales, are the sabres largest revenue source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Jackson Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 (edited) If you think either Brandon or Levy made ANY football decisions as the "GM" I've got a bridge for sale. Neither of those two made a single football decision. They were GM in title only for different reasons. Marv was about the nostalgia and community aspect. Russ was the guy that Ralph trusted to oversee his business. He basically was a de facto owner back then (working hand and hand with Littman). He was the guy on the ground. Much in the same way that owners defer to the football people Russ did the same. Now, if you take issue with the guys that he had underneath him running it go for it (I sound like a broken record). They were not good and RB certainly had the juice with RW to get rid of them. That probably took a year too long. I always chuckle when I hear people complaining about the player decisions that Russ or Marv made. Marv literally slept through draft meetings!!!! He wasn't the guy pulling the trigger!! Let's try hard to not confuse title with responsibilities. It has almost ZERO to do with ticket sales. They are what they are. It's all about corporate dollars. This is wrong. After TV revenue, the Bills largest revenue source by far are ticket sales. Ticket sales excluding box sales, are the sabres largest revenue source. I am talking from a work focus. Teams put their top assets on the corporate and premium side. That's where the talent goes (and this is coming from someone that was a director of ticket sales). The sponsorship and corporate dollars are the sign of a great business operation. In addition it is more insulated from team performance. You can't rely on record for revenue. In addition, ticket share revenue in the NFL is shared (think 60/40). With their pricing the Bills probably make more on the road from ticket sales than at home. Edited July 28, 2015 by Kirby Jackson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 (edited) The challenge to sell 41 games of NHL is a much bigger challenge. It will be interesting to see how he does. Considering the Sabres capped season ticket sales and have a 3,500 waiting list, I'd say ticket sales will be fine. Seriously, read an article now and then. Edited July 28, 2015 by PromoTheRobot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Brandon is all about publicity stunts to sell tickets and jerseys like when he signed TO. Dude cares about the bottom line, not about whether a team wins or loses. That is a bad thing. Man, I hate these threads from a 'Manage Ignore Prefs' perspective... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BADOLBILZ Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 If you think either Brandon or Levy made ANY football decisions as the "GM" I've got a bridge for sale. Neither of those two made a single football decision. They were GM in title only for different reasons. Marv was about the nostalgia and community aspect. Russ was the guy that Ralph trusted to oversee his business. He basically was a de facto owner back then (working hand and hand with Littman). He was the guy on the ground. Much in the same way that owners defer to the football people Russ did the same. Now, if you take issue with the guys that he had underneath him running it go for it (I sound like a broken record). They were not good and RB certainly had the juice with RW to get rid of them. That probably took a year too long. I always chuckle when I hear people complaining about the player decisions that Russ or Marv made. Marv literally slept through draft meetings!!!! He wasn't the guy pulling the trigger!! Let's try hard to not confuse title with responsibilities. It has almost ZERO to do with ticket sales. They are what they are. It's all about corporate dollars. I always chuckle when people act like Russ wasn't responsible for anything because he consulted with the owner/HC etc.. when making big decisions. Because.....I guess.......Whaley doesn't EVER do that? You are right he was bad at hiring(or not firing) management the same way that Chan Gailey was bad at hiring DC's. Awful. The final indignity was having the Syracuse crony he went to bat for walk out on their new boss......which I am sure he was not reportedly furious about. Look, I appreciate RB for what he has done well.....off-field biz..........but I also know he was a significant part of the on-field problems over the past decade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Jackson Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 I always chuckle when people act like Russ wasn't responsible for anything because he consulted with the owner/HC etc.. when making big decisions. Because.....I guess.......Whaley doesn't EVER do that? You are right he was bad at hiring(or not firing) management the same way that Chan Gailey was bad at hiring DC's. Awful. The final indignity was having the Syracuse crony he went to bat for walk out on their new boss......which I am sure he was not reportedly furious about. Look, I appreciate RB for what he has done well.....off-field biz..........but I also know he was a significant part of the on-field problems over the past decade. He had some bad people running football ops at different periods - no doubt. That is the only on field area that he was ever responsible for. It did not go well. Was Marrone bad? His team hit, played hard and had a better record than anyone in over a decade. In addition they improved. He was a pretty good football coach and a lousy human being. It has NOTHING to do with consulting with the owner. Consulting and deferring are not the same. RB (and Marv) deferred all football related decisions. Ultimately neither was responsible for any particular player (good or bad). What Russ was responsible for was the people that added those players to the roster. Marv really wasn't responsible for anything. Whaley makes football decisions by consulting the scouting staff. That's the same way that Nix, Modrak (college)/Guy (pro) and Donahoe before them did it. I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at but that's the way that it has worked at OBD for the last 15 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalftimeAdjustment Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 So can I blame Marv for sleeping through meetings and apparently not even trying to improve the situation ? He may have been unqualified as GM but I am assuming he still had a knowledge of football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Jackson Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 So can I blame Marv for sleeping through meetings and apparently not even trying to improve the situation ? He may have been unqualified as GM but I am assuming he still had a knowledge of football.I'll PM you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 (edited) He was responsible for the Peters trade. He botched that whole situation and got taken to the cleaners. We got Eric Woods with that 28th pick for an LT that spent two seasons on IR because he fell off his fat scooter. Did anyone listen to John Murphy tonight? "Josh from Oshawa" called in to say that Russ Brandon sucked because (I'm not making this up) the Toronto series was such a financial catastrophe that Ralph Wilson was forced to sell the Bills! Jeebuz, are there really people that stupid out there? Edited July 28, 2015 by PromoTheRobot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LA Grant Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 One of the reasons this is great is it guarantees that Russ won't have time to meddle with football operations. He'll be too busy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffalo Barbarian Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Russ Brandon right now, probably: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbb Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 I'll PM you PM me too, please. The way I read it Marv wasn't given any football responsibitities (his quote was something like sending letters to community groups). So, he probably just tuned out, since they weren't going to let him decide anything anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Other than TO, what has he done as a pure "publicity stunt" to sell tickets? Come on, surely you remember the promotional Bills game played by midgets -- err, excuse me, "little people" -- on the eve of the "pick your seat" promotion at the Ralph in 2007? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BADOLBILZ Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 Come on, surely you remember the promotional Bills game played by midgets -- err, excuse me, "little people" -- on the eve of the "pick your seat" promotion at the Ralph in 2007? isn't the back end of this thread about "Marv was hired to sell tickets"? Is hiring a GM just for promotion not a big enough example? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 isn't the back end of this thread about "Marv was hired to sell tickets"? Is hiring a GM just for promotion not a big enough example? More revisionism. Marv was hired because Mr. Wilson was reeling after the Donahoe fiasco. He felt betrayed and needed someone he trusted implicitly. It could be argued that EVERYBODY hired by EVERY team is hired with the hope that it will help sell tickets. That's the idea. Especially when lacking the onfield success that generates and sustains a certain amount of sales on its own. I get that people are disappointed when the team sucks, but the idea they were deliberately deceived by some grand scheme to get them to buy tickets is absurd. But in the interest of public service, I will inform everyone that the BILLS are currently engaged in just such a scheme! They are actually trying to get the public to buy tickets! Right now, as we speak! Oh the humanity! GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillsFan-4-Ever Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 They do it in New Orleans & Seattle/Portland to name a few didn't know that thanks Kirby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
May Day 10 Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 I guess we have to see what the position entails to really make judgement. It seems like it may meld sometime into a PS&E Overlord who oversees the new football stadium, possible sports network, Bills, and Sabres. Wouldnt be shocked to see a "president" of each the Bills and Sabres in the next 5 years. I hope as a Sabres fan that they dont lose the engagement with fans. They asked us, we said Kevin Sylvester is awful, and they immediately stopped grooming him for the heir apparent to RJ and took him off the broadcasts. We hated the 3rd jersey, they turfed it. Ted Black met with Season Ticket holders before home games (I was selected this year for one). It was great, we were treated very well, he spoke about the organization and gave insight people dont typically get... he took questions and gave honest answers, Girgensons came in to thank us, gave away auto'd jerseys, they provided snax & beer, gave us visiting team's family tix as upgrades, etc... It has been great. Many people complained about concessions... now they are much more friendly and efficient (while it took me almost a whole quarter to get pizza logs made for me at a Bills game last year with no line). On the flip side, I dont feel nearly as engaged as a Bills fan. Maybe a case of the Pegulas continuing to take over Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 isn't the back end of this thread about "Marv was hired to sell tickets"? Is hiring a GM just for promotion not a big enough example? Ralph called Marv and begged him to come back after the sting of Donahoe. Get your facts straight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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