The Buffalo Bills have inched to the top of the “most likely to move to L.A.” list, given that AEG now intends not only to host a team in the stadium it wants to build but also to own that team. In light of the widespread belief that the Bills will be sold to the highest bidder once 92-year-old owner Ralph Wilson no longer owns the team (and that’s as delicately as we can put it), the highest bidder could decide that it makes good business sense to then move the team from Buffalo to the nation’s second-largest market.
Team CEO Russ Brandon joined Howard Simon and Joe Buscaglia of WGR on Thursday, primarily to promote Friday night’s uniform unveiling event. Inevitably, Brandon was asked about the team’s future.
As to the succession plan, if any, for ownership of the team, Brandon declined to talk, deferring any comment on the subject to Mr. Wilson. But Brandon dropped a few hints as to the manner in which Mr. Wilson could be trying to engineer the future of the franchise.
The folks at Buffalo Rumblings wisely locked on to Brandon’s acknowledgement that the team already is talking to Erie County officials regarding an extension to the stadium lease. Obviously, a new lease could include terms that would make it harder for the next owner of the Bills to move the team.
That said, Tim Leiweke of AEG has said that AEG would write any necessary checks to escape any applicable leases. (As to the question of whether AEG has contacted the Bills, Brandon offered up the always-ominous “not that I’m aware of.”)
Brandon also emphasized, in response to concerns about the impact of the next CBA on small-market teams, the concept of regionalization. Which in our assessment means that, in order to keep the team in Buffalo, more games in the future will have to be played in Toronto, and greater efforts will be needed to draw fans into Buffalo from Toronto and other areas of Western New York and Ontario.
Thus, even though Bills fans may want all 10 annual games to be played in Ralph Wilson Stadium, they need to realize that sacrificing some games to Toronto (possibly, in time, as much as a 50-50 schedule split) could be the best alternative to sacrificing all of them to California.
Bottom line? The next owner of the team will need to be able to conclude that it makes good business sense to stay in Buffalo. Between extending the lease in Buffalo and expanding the team’s footprint in its region, the Bills appear to have a plan in place for nudging the needle toward not moving.