Recent reports have stated that the Bills wish to play one preseason game and one regular season game at Toronto’s Rogers Centre beginning next season in 2008 running up through 2012.

Not coincidentally, the Bills lease with the county expires at the end of the 2012 season. With that in mind, I believe that the Bills time in Buffalo will expire at that moment. With the recent annoucement the Bills have finally come the conclusion that they will not be able to survive in the Buffalo/upstate NY region for the long term.

My thoughts on that: No kidding,(heavy sarcasm).

Harsh reality here folks, our region is dying, growing smaller while other metro areas continue to grow and surpass Buffalo in population and economic power. If past history is any indication this trend will continue.

So the Bills have followed the money by going up north, and maybe they should. They’ll be able to charge higher ticket prices to Joe Fan and make Giant Multinational Corporation shell out plenty more for the comfortable suites than they can at the Ralph.

You can also thank the mentality of the new guard of NFL owner for this as well. The gap between the large(New York, Dallas, Washington, New England, etc) and small markets(Buffalo, Jacksonville, Indianapolis) is getting larger concerning abilities to bring in revenue. Any big market owner who is seeing some of their money disappear through league wide revenue sharing is going to want to see to it that the smaller clubs do everything they can to bring in new revenue streams to help lighten their load.

So for them the idea of the Bills playing in forty year old stadium in a depressed economic area in which fortunes are only bound to get worse isn’t one they’re too fond of, to be certain.

Which is why I can only see one following options occuring:

1. Bills head north to Toronto for good. Although Rogers Centre cannot be a permanent home for them as the 50k or so capacity is way too small for NFL standards. However, considering the corporate base up North, and also reports that have Argo ownership already contemplating avenues to build an NFL venue I think something will be in place for such a possibilty by 2012.

Personally, of course this would stink. But I believe I could handle the loss of the team there. It only makes my attempt to see a Bills game:

a. A helluva lot more expensive.
b. A drive not unlike a Bills fan living in Rochester’s eastern suburbs already makes.

The name Toronto Bills would be hard to swallow, but in time nowhere near as devastating as…..

2. Bills answer the siren that is Los Angeles. The NFL wants a team in LA, maybe two. Maybe after close to twenty years after the Raiders/Rams left town the good folks out there will FINALLY get a stadium plan in place and the Bills will be the franchise to be the tenant.

Honestly, I still don’t see this as being very likely, take a look around all of California and notice that all three(SF, Oak, SD) venues were built in the sixties. Despite the Niners and Chargers longtime struggle for new venues there are no shovels in the ground for replacements coming anytime soon.

3. Buffalo builds new venue. Sorry, but I agree with Andrew that this is the only way that a long term solution for the Bills to remain here is viable. Retractable roof needed to draw fans in cold weather especially.

Who would pay for it? Who knows? A new place would probably cost over a half billion dollars and who in the private sector or what branch of government is going to shell that kind of dough for a venue only to be used ten times a season. Your guess is as good as mine.

Yes, I omitted the whole thing about “what happens when Ralph dies?/who will be the new owner?” because quite frankly that doesn’t look promising either. Any new owner is going to have to shell out close to 1 Billion $ for the Bills and if they have to build a new yard on their own will have to shell out hundreds of millions more. Any new owner(of local ties or otherwise) is going to have to think about how the hell this market with the lowest ticket prices in the NFL and reasonably priced premium seating is going to get them the return on their investment necessary so that they don’t take a financial bloodbath.

Hmmm….a place like Toronto or Los Angeles would certainly soften the blow of the purchase price/potential stadium costs, wouldn’t it? And of course then there would also be the Jerry Jones’ and Daniel Snyders of the NFL quietly persuading them to go where the money is for the sake of the league’s coffers.

I’m sorry but as much as I(as well as everyone else out there) don’t want it to happen, the endgame has begun. We have five more seasons of NFL football here in Buffalo, so go out and buy your tickets to the Ralph and cheer on the Bills.

While you still can.

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