At-Risk Sports Teams: Buffalo Bills

By Mike Schuster Jul 14, 2009 8:50 am

Bills' future looks as dismal as the Buffalo weather.

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Which of the following tasks would you least trust to a 90-year-old: (a) serve as president pro tempore of the US Senate, (b) deliver offbeat opinions on 60 Minutes or (c) own and manage an NFL team?

Buffalo Bills owner and founder Ralph Wilson has a stranglehold on the franchise and refuses to give up the captain's chair even though he's 10 years shy of a personalized greeting from Willard Scott. While his dedication is to be commended, many of his management decisions have cost the team dearly.

Fifteen years after their fourth consecutive Super Bowl loss -- cementing their reputation as the bridesmaids of the NFL -- the Bills find themselves struggling in the small Buffalo market. Despite sellout crowds for every game last season, ticket prices at the 36-year-old Ralph Wilson Stadium remain among the lowest of any NFL team. If they were more expensive, management would lose the only excuse it has left for not updating the rundown arena.

And Wilson is known for his excuses.

He's long lamented the dire financial situation of the team, even going so far as to threaten to move the franchise to Seattle in the early '70s if the city didn't pony up cash for a new stadium. It did.

In 1988, he argued he wouldn't "get enough money to buy enough seats"

if he sold naming rights to the stadium -- and that the venue ought to bear his name instead. It does.

He complained that last year's bargaining agreement prevented smaller teams like the Bills from making a profit, and demanded the NFL commissioner give him a seat on the NFL committee. He did.

But where has all of this left the Bills?

Forbes has questioned Wilson's stubborn refusal to sell the stadium's naming rights -- a move that senior business writer Michael Ozanian claims would generate $2 million to $4 million per year.

In September 2008, the magazine ranked the Bills the twenty-seventh most valuable of the NFL's 32 teams. Revenue last year stood at $206 million, just $11 million higher than the Minnesota Vikings, who are dead last.

But it was Wilson's alternative plan for driving new revenue that had players and fans scratching their heads.

In 2007, Wilson struck a deal with Canadian media mogul Ted Rogers -- founder and CEO of Rogers Communications (RCI) -- to lease the Buffalo Bills for 8 games over a 5-year period to Toronto's Rogers Centre for $78 million.

The downside: It was in Canadian dollars.

The deal -- which was disclosed last year during Rogers' first-quarter report -- was the first of its kind for the league, and may pave the way for similar agreements in the future. Although the average ticket price in Toronto is roughly triple that of a Buffalo ticket (at the current rate of exchange), with only 2 games played so far, it's unclear whether the deal will be a lucrative one.

With Wilson refusing to give up the Bills until after his death, it ought to be interesting what money-making schemes are in store for the troubled team once he reaches senility.