“If [Buffalo Bills owner Ralph] Wilson passes away and this club is sold, whoever buys it won’t be subject to any revenue sharing.”
 The Buffalo News

It is the above sentence that should keep Bills fans awake at night full of dread. After seeing the April 13 Buffalo News headline “Bills expected to lose – money” Bills fans should trade their blue cheese dressing for some of Homer Simpson’s home-made Prozac ice cream.

This month has seen an avalanche of activity at One Bills Drive in Orchard Park. Wilson joked – accurately – that he’s held more press conferences this year than the Bills won games last year. While the initial press conferences were about the immediate future – a new coach and an old coach now a new general manager – the conferences this month focused on the Bills future in Western New York.

In an early April press conference, Wilson called local and national sports media to Bills HQ to criticize the revenue sharing agreement found in the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Owners voted approval of the agreement last month. Only Wilson and Cincinnati Bengals owner Paul Brown voted against the agreement.

The agreement is so egregious, so injurious to the franchise from Wilson’s point of view, that he raised the specter of moving the team, a rhetorical arrow that had remained untouched in his quiver since the late 1990s.

"I have always said, always, that I would never move the team from Buffalo," the Buffalo News quoted Wilson. "Now, with this new collective bargaining agreement, I'm hopeful I can steadfastly adhere to what I've said. But I am making no promises.”

Bills fans just want to hide too after hearing Wilson’s comments.

The revenue sharing agreement, which won’t be finalized until this fall, includes numerous penalties that would harm the Bills. As reported by the Buffalo News, proposed language to the CBA would penalize teams whose ticket revenue does not meet 80 percent of the NFL average; teams like Buffalo. Also, any funds received by teams like Buffalo from state and local governments would be classified as revenue. That was not the case before the new CBA.

And don’t forget the quote at the beginning of this piece. That portion of the new agreement – repeatedly reported in media – makes no sense. Unless, of course, the NFL realizes that language would force small market teams to move to larger and sunnier (figuratively and literally) environments.

In an incredible admission (if true), the Bills claimed to make a profit of less than $10 million in 2005 with an expected loss in 2006. For comparison’s sake, the playoff-bound Buffalo Sabres in the radically pared down NHL will bank between $500,000 and $1.5 million this season. Buffalo also had an NBA franchise (the Braves), but they didn’t survive beyond the 1970’s (they ended up in Los Angeles). Outside of throwback night at Clippers’ games and the odd Bill Simmons’ reference to Bob McAdoo, the Buffalo Braves exist nowhere except in memory and grainy archival footage watched by no one.

Will the Bills join them as relics of the past?

According to the Buffalo News’ Bucky Gleason, the Bills will receive approximately $100 million of league television deal money to meet an estimated $102 million salary cap. As a native of Western New York, I’m confident that stadium beer sales for an aggregate of hundreds of thousands of Buffaloians eight Sundays a year can make up that $2 million difference.

Assuming Wilson doesn’t spend money on ivory backscratchers like Mr. Burns, how is it possible that a team in the most profitable sports league in American history, as the height of popularity, lose money in the future?

The crux of the problem is this: under the old agreement, local revenue stayed local revenue. If Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones decided to sell the naming rights to Texas Stadium to BigFatTexasAssedCars.com, the profit would be his to keep. It was not counted towards the salary cap. What happened in Dallas stayed in Dallas. The new labor deal counts that profit towards the salary cap.

Costs will rise beyond Buffalo’s ability to afford them. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said players’ cost will increase approximately $850 to $900 million over the life of the new six year labor deal.

While the Bills will receive the same cut of the shared revenue (TV, visitors’ cut of the gate, etc.) it remains their responsibility to generate local revenue. Most other teams can open more luxury boxes or increase ticket prices or steal kids’ lunch money (*cough* Dan Snyder *cough*). Economies like New York, Washington, D.C., the San Francisco Bay area and others can afford that. Western New York cannot.

It’s a double-edged sword. While the Bills will receive the additional funds to stay competitive in theory, the escalating growing of players’ costs will prove a burden on the franchise.

In a manner of speaking, it’s the same problem facing Social Security, Medicare and other federal entitlement programs. The amount of available revenue stream (taxable workers) is outpaced by the growth of costs (old geezers).

Wilson is an old geezer himself. At 87, he was born before women were allowed to vote. He will be dead soon. Federal estate taxes make passing the team to his daughters too costly. When the team is sold, the new owner will face massive interest payments. Bob McNair paid $700 million for the Houston Texans in 1999; the same value of the Bills franchise, according to Forbes magazine. McNair’s debt is 36 percent. That interest load will further cut into his profit margins. And you thought subsidized interest payments on your student loan was bad.

A new Bills owner would likely face similar debt And if that new owner loses revenue sharing by taking ownership of the team, how can they survive in Buffalo and make profit?

It’s difficult to believe Wilson would move the team in his lifetime and join Art Modell and Bob Irsay on the list of NFL infamy.

It would be possible to face this situation with greater courage if the on-field product sold by the team was quality. As anybody in any bar stretching from southern Ontario to the Pennsylvania border will tell you, quality is not a word associated with the Buffalo Bills these days.

Their cream puff schedule (home against Green Bay, Tennessee, NY Jets, on the road against Detroit, Baltimore and the Jets) might provide a lift. But no fan realistically expects them to rise much above last year’s 5-11. At a time when on the field success can best translate into stability for the franchise ($$$$), now is the least likely time to have it.

Part of the reason for the sound and fury signifying terror from Wilson Stadium is to alert the local, state and federal political class in New York to the danger of the Bills leaving town. The idea was to leverage political pressure in favor of altering the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Wilson has already put in time with lame-duck Republicans Gov. George Pataki and Erie County Executive Joel Giambra. Spurred by Wilson’s public appeals, New York’s senior senator and world-class media hound Charles Schumer (D) passed up the chance to appear on a Sunday morning talk show and appeared on April 9 in Orchard Park in a show of solidarity.

“I hope the NFL hasn’t lost its way,” Schumer said, as reported by Buffalo Business First. “I hope it sticks with the original model … where smaller teams are viable.”

“The Bills are a very integral part of this community’s fabric, socially, emotionally and economically,” Giambra told the Associated Press. It’s good “economically” comes last in that litany. According to a 1999 Buffalo Niagara Partnership study, the Bills’ presence annually contributes $33 million to the local economy. That a significant amount of money for Western New York, but reasonably competent local political and civic leadership could plan to generate that. Just let the Senecas open another casino.

But the Bills are to Buffalo what the Steelers are to Pittsburgh – the ultimate expression of civic pride. The Bills – at their best – is what Western New York strives to be. We want to formidable, relevant, important. We want Buffalo to be synonymous with the best. We want our affection for Western New York conveyed to the nation through their success.

My most vivid childhood memories involve the Bills. In my idealized world, the snow falls gently outside my house on Grand Island and on the field in Orchard Park. In my perfect world, my total enthusiasm of youth is matched by the Buffalo red, white and blue against the white snow. They are winning. They are champions. We matter.

It’s not surprising in 1994 Tim Russert put his Bills-colors clad father on Meet the Press to encourage a victory in Super Bowl XXVIII against Dallas. He wanted to connect his feelings with his past and everyone’s present. The Bills are the vehicle for that.

The Buffalo Braves are no more than a historical relic for me, like the Viet Cong or stagflation. I can not identify their logo from memory.

It saddens me to no end at the thought that my future son might only know about the Bills in the same way.

Questions, comments, press conference? E-mail me at mlucinski@yahoo.com

Michael Lucinski lives, loves and works in the Washington, D.C. area. He’s a graduate of the University at Buffalo and George Washington University. The Bills will always make him want to shout. Kick his heels up and shout. Throw head his head back and shout. Yeah, yeah, yeah.