Ralph Wilson didn't ask for another new stadium or government subsidy during last Friday's news conference, which the Buffalo Bills owner called to discuss the future of the franchise he's owned since it first took the field in 1960.
At least such a request would have had an easy answer.
Wilson said he's worried that under the new collective bargaining agreement between National Football League owners and players, escalating revenues raked in by large market teams will force the less prosperous -- and make no mistake, no NFL owner is going to lose money any time soon -- to spend more and more of their profits.
The main concern is the as-yet-undefined revenue-sharing system. Team officials fear that, due to Buffalo's low ticket prices, the team wouldn't qualify for an adequate cut under one proposed system.
If that does happen, profits could dwindle and eventually disappear completely as the league's salary cap steadily escalates, even if every ticket to every game is purchased.
In the modern NFL, market size has little to do with an area's population of everyday fans. Teams like Dallas, Washington and New England don't top the revenue charts because they sell more tickets, but because the areas are flooded with large corporations that gobble up expensive luxury suites and jockey to spend millions more on sponsorships.
Under the new deal with the players, those extra dollars go into the revenue pool. Sixty percent of the total goes to the players. Divide that amount by 32 teams and you have the salary cap.
While the Bills also sell high-end seating and sponsorships, they do so at a fraction of the price fetched by their peers in wealthier areas. Unable to keep up with the revenue growth of the large markets, the Bills would fall further behind, even if they sell every seat at Ralph Wilson Stadium for every game.
Even more damaging to Western New York's football future is a proposed provision that would exclude new owners from revenue sharing.
That prospect is particularly ominous for the Bills, given that Wilson is 87 years old.
Such a measure doesn't make sense for any team, regardless of market size, since it would markedly reduce the value of a franchise to potential buyers. And if one team's worth falls, it serves as an anchor on the rest.
The problem Wilson laid out is pretty simple. A solution isn't nearly so easy to come by.
Buffalo has been able to keep its football team, even as its home region lost hundreds of companies and hundreds of thousands of jobs over the last few decades, because of the NFL's remarkably just revenue-sharing philosophy. Equal distribution of the league's television contracts and a simple split of ticket sales have long guaranteed each team a profit before the first ticket is sold.
While the setup kept old-guard owners like Wilson quite content, new corporate sharks like Jerry Jones of Dallas and Washington's Dan Snyder found loopholes in the old system, converting suite sales and corporate sponsorships into massive war chests that enable them to afford immense signing bonuses for players and above-market salaries for coaches that the Bills and Bengals of the world can't match and remain profitable. One of the most notorious examples came after the 2003 season, when Gregg Williams was fired as head coach by Buffalo, then hired as Washington's defensive coordinator at roughly double the salary.
It's worth noting that all that spending hasn't meant much in the standings. Washington has reached the playoffs only twice since Snyder bought the team in 1997. The three Cowboys teams that won Super Bowls since Jones bought the team were all built before the salary cap was instituted in 1994.
Meanwhile, four of the last five championships have been claimed by New England and Pittsburgh, two teams that have refused to participate in bidding for high-priced free agents. The Patriots and Steelers, though, each play their home games in stadiums flush with luxury suites and corporate logos.
The cap's growth from $34.6 million in its first year to $102 million 12 years later reflects the increasing pressure on markets like Buffalo.
Such numbers were unthinkable when Wilson entered the sports world in 1959, paying $25,000 for one of eight available memberships in what became known as "The Foolish Club," a cabal of wealthy young men denied entry to the NFL.
They formed the American Football League to compete with the established circuit, bringing the television-ready sport to hungry markets. Wilson and his colleagues understood the importance of a healthy league. He even floated a loan to keep the Oakland Raiders alive long before their national cult of followers developed, even as his own team was still losing money.
Both the NFL and AFL were made up of owners smart enough to see the long-term value of sharing. According to "Forbes" magazine's annual ranking of franchise values, Wilson's $25,000 investment in the franchise fee -- and the hundreds of thousands he lost in the early 1960s -- grew into a business with an estimated worth of $708 million as of September 2005.
That number, though, left the Bills as the 25th-most valuable franchise in the league. If Wilson's fears about the details of revenue sharing are borne out, they'll fall even further.
The region's economic decline cost Buffalo its National Basketball Association team way back in 1978, even before things got really bad. The realities of doing business in the modern sports world scuttled Bob Rich Jr.'s bid to bring major-league baseball to the area. And the Adelphia scandal, coupled with a continuously contracting corporate base, had the Sabres in danger of moving before Tom Golisano came along to buy the local National Hockey League entry.
Throughout the nearly 47 years since Wilson plunked down that $25,000, local and state officials have found ways to keep the Bills here. Taxpayer dollars expanded War Memorial Stadium in the 1960s, built what would be known as Rich Stadium in the early 1970s, and rebuilt it in the late '90s in order to secure a new lease with Wilson. The last deal also provides the team with millions in state money for operating expenses.
Wilson didn't ask for more, instead urging local and state politicians to lobby the National Football League for an equitable revenue-sharing system. Barring an unforeseen influx of large corporations suddenly sprouting in Western New York or moving their headquarters here, such sporting socialism represents the only real hope for the Bills' long-term viability here.
Would-be saviors from Golisano to Hall-of-Fame quarterback Jim Kelly pledged to do whatever it takes to keep the Bills in Buffalo if Wilson decides to sell, or when he dies. But even the wealthiest investor would have to secure financing to buy the team, a daunting prospect if the numbers don't add up.
Being in places like Buffalo, where rabid fans and wicked weather add to the color and passion of the sport, has been good for the National Football League. Maybe better than being in the NFL has been for Buffalo.
The real question underlying Wilson's plea is almost as difficult to contemplate as to answer.
Can Buffalo still afford the Bills?
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 11 2006 |