UticaBill Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 The NFL couldn't put a franchise in Toronto without the Bills permission. Buffalo controls that territory. The only reason the Faders and 69ers franchises are so close is they were in different leagues before the merger. They would have to pay the Bills a huge fee to be allowed to be put there. I don't know what %age of the Bills fan base comes from Toronto on game days. That would be the determining factor in the Bills agreeing to such a move. IIRC, Toronto doesn't have a stadium that meets NFL requirements. Ah! Herein lies the trap the NFL has been laying for the fans.... They wait till the Bills must be SOLD and then convince the new owner to move to greener pastures and THEN the Toronto market is FREE to take up an NFL team... this way the NFL grows by two new cities with greater revenues....of course you can expand by only one team and so the Jaxksonville failure is moved to LA at the same time..... again increasing league revenues. What I really want to know is why the owner of the team cannot sell it to the public? I would think the fact that the Packers are publicly owned would be all the precedent he would need..... Of course if RCW really wanted it to stay Wilson Stadium and Wilson Fieldhouse for life, he would Will the Bills to the City of Buffalo, or rather its fans..... With the agreement that those naming rights may not be sold. Ah, if only the world was really so philanthropical! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebug Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 I'm just wondering, if I spam him should I take it out of the can first? Go Bills! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steely Dan Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 Ah! Herein lies the trap the NFL has been laying for the fans.... They wait till the Bills must be SOLD and then convince the new owner to move to greener pastures and THEN the Toronto market is FREE to take up an NFL team... this way the NFL grows by two new cities with greater revenues....of course you can expand by only one team and so the Jaxksonville failure is moved to LA at the same time..... again increasing league revenues. What I really want to know is why the owner of the team cannot sell it to the public? I would think the fact that the Packers are publicly owned would be all the precedent he would need..... Of course if RCW really wanted it to stay Wilson Stadium and Wilson Fieldhouse for life, he would Will the Bills to the City of Buffalo, or rather its fans..... With the agreement that those naming rights may not be sold. Ah, if only the world was really so philanthropical! The Packers were already a public franchise when the NFL merged with AFL to make the current NFL. No other teams are allowed to be community owned. It's an issue I'm sure the NFL could win if they were taken to court on it. Also, IIRC Toronto doesn't have an NFL approved stadium. They would have to build a different stadium or make a lot of changes to the current one. Also, Jacksonville is going to go somewhere first. There isn't anywhere available now that would support an NFL franchise than Buffalo. I really don't see the NFL moving Buffalo anywhere. If NYS steps up to bat and builds a state of the art stadium for Buffalo they won't leave. NYS needs to make a contract like the last one but with much greater penalties for leaving. If they leave the town within 5 years they are charged 1 1/2 times the cost of the stadium. If they leave in 5-10 years they owe the cost of the stadium. If they leave 10-15 years half the cost of the stadium. 15-20 years can be negotiated for stadium upgrades or a new stadium before leaving. I honestly believe that the Bills are merely trying to lure Toronto Business to Buffalo for luxury suites. I don't think they'll move. One Canadian politician is talking about passing a law that would block the NFL from coming into Canada because it will severely hurt the CFL if they do. I hope they pass it so all of this talk will stop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sisyphean Bills Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 The owners voted unanimously to throw out the current agreement. Poor Tags and Roger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobillsinytown Posted May 22, 2008 Share Posted May 22, 2008 Clayton's one of the least obnoxious talking heads IMO. He is dead wrong here and I think being right is it's own reward. I wouldn't be surprised when the NFL votes to void the deal in November a lot of the talking heads will be lauding him for his foresight. IIRC, I heard Mike Greenburg on Mike and Mike say that Wilson was ahead of the curve on this and that he thought Wilson was nuts back then but he was wrong. This was a couple of months ago when the agreement was being talked about in the media more. That's interesting, because I clearly remember Mike and Mike engaging in some pretty juvenile Ralph bashing right after the CBA was voted on. In fact I emailed them on a couple of different occasions about it. I'm guessing lots of other Bills fans did too, because they mentioned the huge volume of emails they got from Bills fans. I see they're backtracking now. I agree that Clayton is the least offensive. The idiot that Bills' fans should be slamming is Mortensen, who clearly allows his personal friendship with Donahoe to affect his reporting. At one point last year, the guy was actually shilling for Donahoe on his blog. But Mort, why is it that Donahoe is still not only unemployed in the NFL, but in the broadcast booth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts