It's becoming clear to me

[dave mcbride]

It doesn't matter that the TV money will be going-up every year, because so too will the salary cap.  But BEYOND the TV money (and tix and merchandise sales), the cap ALSO increases based on "local" revenue that not all teams share equally.  So that nice $36M profit Ralph made 2 years ago becomes $26.5M this year, based on the $9.5M increase in the salary cap because of a new CBA.  And in the future, the profit probably continues to shrink as more teams generate more local revenue, driving the cap up further.

 

Ralph's best solution is to jack-up ticket, parking, and concessions prices.  But how many fans would that drive away?  It's certainly better than sticking the state/taxpayer's with a $600M stadium in which prices will be jacked-up anyway.

657770[/snapback]

but just because the cap goes up doesn't mean the amount you pay players goes up. the bills often paid money over the cap; now they can pay an amount that is close to 10% below the cap. by the way, the new tv contract represents a *huge* increase in revenues for the teams.

[billsfanone]

If this is true. Ralph could have belted out his feelings with one bold sentence. Not a convoluted diatribe.

[MadBuffaloDisease]

Does anyone KNOW how much money each team is getting in traditionally shared money (i.e. TV, radio, 60% of home and 40% of visiting ticket sales, and merchandising)? It would help if we knew THAT number first.

[JDG]

Does anyone KNOW how much money each team is getting in traditionally shared money (i.e. TV, radio, 60% of home and 40% of visiting ticket sales, and merchandising)?  It would help if we knew THAT number first.

658103[/snapback]

 

In 2006, television money from ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, and DirecTV will be $116.8 million.

 

That's an increase from $81.3 million under the old TV deals.

 

That's good money, but the 2007 Salary Cap is already projected to be nearly $110 million.

 

JDG

[Kelly the Dog]

In 2006, television money from ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, and DirecTV will be $116.8 million.

 

That's an increase from $81.3 million under the old TV deals.

 

That's good money, but the 2007 Salary Cap is already projected to be nearly $110 million.

 

JDG

658151[/snapback]

Those are the figures that I have seen, too. Each team makes 35 mil a season more than they made before, and that is just to start. I think they already decided what the cap is for next year at 109 mil because it was the to-be-uncapped year. So this year, each team starts off with an extra 14 mil or so and next year 7 mil or so before one ticket or beer or parking spot or jersey or luxury box or radio/local TV deal or stadium rights deal is made, and all they pay out is running their team, not paying players. The TV deals were in fact FAR greater than even the wildest estimates because of how NBC got in the game. I believe they are even about to go up even higher, if that was even imaginable because of the The NFL Network and OLN trying to get in the game. That is what I have been saying about it's impossible to lose money now for the first time. The TV deals were a windfall for teams and that is why they werent worried about a lot of these other issues. 35 million more a year for doing nothing.

[Marv Levy]

Hello, this is the JONES, SNYDER & CRAFT Trillionaire Club, asking you to $$donate$$ to our cause....$$$..........$$$........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pyrite Gal]

Those are the figures that I have seen, too. Each team makes 35 mil a season more than they made before, and that is just to start. I think they already decided what the cap is for next year at 109 mil because it was the to-be-uncapped year. So this year, each team starts off with an extra 14 mil or so and next year 7 mil or so before one ticket or beer or parking spot or jersey or luxury box or radio/local TV deal or stadium rights deal is made, and all they pay out is running their team, not paying players. The TV deals were in fact FAR greater than even the wildest estimates because of how NBC got in the game. I believe they are even about to go up even higher, if that was even imaginable because of the The NFL Network and OLN trying to get in the game. That is what I have been saying about it's impossible to lose money now for the first time. The TV deals were a windfall for teams and that is why they werent worried about a lot of these other issues. 35 million more a year for doing nothing.

658175[/snapback]

 

 

Kelly et al-

 

I just reviewed this great thread about the Bills finances after being away for the most part the last couple of days (part of it actually spent Curling for the first time, those Canadians have a pretty neat sport to use as an excuse for drinking).

 

Overall, from my review of this thread, I think Kwlly F & B seems to have the correct cut on how this adds up fiscally. None of us on TSW has a completely correct cut on this as there is simply a lot of info about the individual team deals we cannot know and the amalgamation is so complicated that is why you need a phone book size CBA which is a moving target as both sides of this partnsership find out new things about it an adjust it, but overall I think the bottomline is that any concerns about any NFL team actually being a viable economic concern in absoulute economic concerns are really ill-founded.

 

It is true that there is some potential for a team not being RELATIVELY economically viable compared to the income level of higher revenue teams IF the owner is perturbed about only making money and profits hand over fist while other teams in higher revenue cities are making money both hand over fist and whatever they can also scrape in with their feet and ankles too.

 

However, the money printing press which is an NFL team comes as close as we see in our economic system to being a guaranatee of making huge profits whether you are a small market team or a large market team.

 

What it appears to me Ralph is doing is using this disparity and the fact in out pseudo free market an owner can move where he is allowed by his colleagues to move to extort even more bucks for the Bills.

 

I support this as my football team and likely my City will benefit by getting these dollars from the larger population base of NYS!

[Buftex]

It seems like a lot of people here are still missing the point, as most of the national media types are (John Clayton). Ralph Wilson is not complaining that he does not make enough money.

 

The provisions of the new CBA, in effect, are putting the onus on him, or whoever owns the team in Buffalo after him, to make it a more profitable franchnise, contributing to the other 31 owners. To do that, Wilson would have to raise ticket prices considerably, and lean on WNY businesses for money that they don't have, or just does not exist in WNY. In effect, the new CBA, is trying to force to the light that Buffalo is not a good place for them to do business.

 

It is almost like the new CBA challanges Wilson to show that his franchise, in Buffalo, can hang with the big boys (Dallas, Washington, Denver, etc etc) in providing the leauge with outside sources of income to contribute to the entire leauge. Wilson is admitting, in effect, that it can't. He may be right.

[Pyrite Gal]

It seems like a lot of people here are still missing the point, as most of the national media types are (John Clayton).  Ralph Wilson is not complaining that he does not make enough money. 

 

The provisions of the new CBA, in effect, are putting the onus on him, or whoever owns the team in Buffalo after him, to make it a more profitable franchnise, contributing to the other 31 owners.  To do that, Wilson would have to raise ticket prices considerably, and lean on WNY businesses for money that they don't have, or just does not exist in WNY.  In effect, the new CBA, is trying to force to the light that Buffalo is not a good place for them to do business. 

 

It is almost like the new CBA challanges Wilson to show that his franchise, in Buffalo, can hang with the big boys (Dallas, Washington, Denver, etc etc) in providing the leauge with outside sources of income to contribute to the entire leauge.  Wilson is admitting, in effect, that it can't.  He may be right.

658331[/snapback]

Yep, that's called the free-market syystem. Economic entities compete with pther economic entities and the theory is that all the economic entities do the best they can and overall the eonomy does better.

 

In a pure free-market system, economic entities which are not efficient enough to compete (or in this case the theory says that even if the entity is economically efficient but the revenue provided by the market is not large enough to make the economic entity viable on an absolute basis it goes out of business, or not viable on a relative basis to what could be done in other markets the team moves) simpy go out of business in their marketplace.

 

Forunately for us football fans and for folks who live in the economically hard-presses area of Buffalo (yes we are economically hard-pressed compared to the Sunbelt, though we are rediculously economically well to do compared to the vast vast majority of areas in the world like Baghdad, most of China and India and at least on an economic basis better than much of Europe) the NFL and America really does not run on a pure free market system.

 

Due to the collaborative rather than pure capitalistic approach taken by the NFL where there has always been revenue sharing regardless of the size of your marketplace and economic competence of teams, smaller markets like Buffalo have received a chunk of resources from economically more successful teams.

 

Under the new CBA, this payoff by the those who make a really rediculous amount of profit to teams like the Bills that merely make only a rediculous amount of profit has increased.

 

This payoff from the more well-to-do teams to the simply well-to-do teams like Buffalo is not sufficient based on Ralph's calculations. Personally, I think he and future owners can make up this amount from the still significant profits the Bills will make under the new CBA. However, as a Bills rooter and a Buffaloanian, I am quite happy to support him in instead getting an even larger payment from the high revenue teams to the Bills and even support the Bills private business with government payments or advantages (such as givernment can borrow money to build a new stadium at a far cheaper rate that could be secured in the private market and government as a business partner for the Bills will not need to make a profit like a business like a bank would).

 

Payments by the government to the Bills strikes me as corporate welfare payments to a profitable entity like the Bills, but these welfare payments would benefit the sport I love and my City of Buffalo if a new stadium is funded and built downtown and the income is generated from the larger economic base of the state. Sp its certainly unfair, but I and Bills fans will benefit from ripping off NYS so I will support this even though it is not right. I guess I will just hide my morals behind the scant figleaf that actually the relatively poor economy of Buffalo could use the boost of the welfare payments to revitalize the waterfront economically and actually the costs of building a stadium which the Bills would really gain de facto ownership of are small compared to the other real costs on the state budget like the inefficient economic methods we use to provide health care amd the corporate ripoffs which benefit others in the state budget.

 

I grew up in Chicago where Mike Royko once said the greek in the Chicago motto did not actually translate as City in a Garden, but really was Where's Mine!

[TDRupp]

You can cry and B word about it all you want, it's not going to do any good.

 

I don't know why Ralph is doing what he's doing...it's not going to change a thing.

656495[/snapback]

 

Come on. Be serious.

 

He and others can't change anything. They can't educate everybody about how this CBA will make it very difficult for small and even mid market teams to compete?

 

People fight for change all the time and when they argue intelligently and forcefully things Do change? Right?

 

Of course they, we can change things that matter in the CBA. It won't be easy but it can happen.

[ChasBB]

Hey, here's a thought -- how 'bout the local politicians stop sucking the life blood out of the people in the form of misguided taxes and corruption and thus making Buffalo economically attractive to businesses and individuals, thus changing our small-market status to perhaps at least a mid-market status because people will actually want to live here! Oh sorry -- too logical.

[Pyrite Gal]

Hey, here's a thought -- how 'bout the local politicians stop sucking the life blood out of the people in the form of misguided taxes and corruption and thus making Buffalo economically attractive to businesses and individuals, thus changing our small-market status to perhaps at least a mid-market status because people will actually want to live here!  Oh sorry -- too logical.

658530[/snapback]

 

The ironic thing to me is that if Buffalo's population today were at its 1950s peak of 600,000+ today instead of the 275,000 then I think this would be a horrible place to live.

 

The buy one get one free aspects of housing prices here, the perceived economic problems (if one thinks that WNY is poor then I invite you to move to virtually any other country on the planet and experience true poverty) which hold down prices for a careful shopper, and the rush 15 minutes of traffic we experience twice a day compared to the 1-1/2 hour average commutes experienced by most Americans cities, Buffalo ironically can be a pretty nice place to live.

 

There certainly are large issues here such as the impacts of the legacy of pollutants left by those who took a bunch of profit out of the area in its go-go days. The high taxes do buy some amenities that sunbelt areas do not provide, but overall, home rule seems to make for a redundant bunch of local politicos to inefficiently run our system of government to benefit them and their own and really make local taxes too high here.

 

Hpwever, in total, Buffalo is in many ways the smallest bigtown in America and as long as this small market can hang on to big City amenities like the Bills because of our historic ties and entities like the NFL throwing aside free-market approaches because they can make more money from collaboration and cooperation rather than competition, Buffalo ain't a bad deal for folks who find a way to take advantage of the middle than can be gained through living in this lower cost area but in the modern telecom world it is quite possible to command a national salary.

 

Its not easy to do, but is actually quite doable.

[alg]

Ultimately, yes.  This is the root of the problem, after all.

 

Regardless of what motives any of us attribute to Ralph, one thing is certain.  In this matter, what's good for Ralph is good for Buffalo, NY.  He knows which trees to shake, and he's been shaking them.  What comes from it, who knows.

657791[/snapback]

Right on...