Rams pull out of London games

good

I'm not a fan of making teams travel that far and/or trying to expand the game into other countries

 

No team is going to want to send their best players overseas to play a full-contact meaningless game right before the start of the season.

 

Sounds to me like the Rams are laying the groundwork for a plan to get out of their lease so they can move to LA.

 

They're still committed to sending *someone* for five years. Glad it won't be the Rams.

The games in London are brilliant and should continue until they stop being so popular. Having a franchise here would be silly though.

 

I also like the games being held at Wembley. Really, for East Coast teams, it's not that different from a West Coast road trip. NY to London is 7 hours, NY to LA is nearly 6.

It wouldn't be feasible to have a full-time team in GB, but I like the overseas games so long as there's a fair rotation (since each NFL team has only 8 home games a year, and losing one is a disadvantage).

 

My wife and I attended the Patriots/Tampa Bay game at Wembley in 2009 and my son and I will be going this season to watch the Patriots/Rams game. London is a fantastic city to spend some time touring and then spending an early Sunday evening (the game starts at 6m GMT) seeing your team play in Wembley Stadium. Although it tends to be abit on the expensive side, unless you have hotel points and flight miles as we did in 2009 and flight miles this year, I wouldn't be going back unless I felt it was worth every $ spent. Even without the points/miles, a trip for a week to London for 2 will only cost approximately (depending on flights and hotel) $4-$6K.

 

That stadium was built in 1995, what's wrong with it

And what was the point of moving a football team back to St. Louis anyway? They were generally disinterested in the Cardinals and were lucky with the greatest show on turf early on, as soon as that faded a bit all the fans vanished. St. Louis is a baseball town. Move the Rams back to LA

 

I'm on the fence about overseas games. I like the idea of it but the actual practice itself I'm not so sure of. I guess as long as the Jets aren't going I could care less since it wouldn't affect my team directly.

 

Well there are plenty of US transplants as well as real football loving brits that could never get to see a live NFL game...so this gives them a little something at least.

 

Perhaps every single team should play overseas once a year? 16 games at Wembley Stadium, all 32 teams.

Either all or none.

 

I get that, sure, plus it grows the game. I'm from Toronto so a lot of people here go to the Bills games and then the Bills starting playing the odd game in Toronto which a lot of NFL fans were excited for. I haven't gone to a Toronto one yet, maybe this year since they dropped the ticket prices.

It's also good for the teams that go, I'm sure. Again on Toronto a lot of people here are Bills fans because it's the only NFL team that they can ever really see live (well, consistently, they can obviously see whoever the Bills play). There could be people in London or elsewhere in Europe that are interested in the NFL but don't have a team, well maybe they'll see the Rams or the Pats or whoever and become a fan of that team for good.

Regardless, I couldn't really care less if they stop or continue to do the overseas games unless the Jets are going...then I might be interested in how it was going to impact their season as a whole with the travel and whatnot.

 

the bills will eventually be in toronto full time. Or do a 4/4 split. If Toronto ever builds a 1st class football stadium buffalo is as good as gone. It's a dying city...just a complete mess. Half of the cities population has bailed since 1960

 

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8...play-multiple-home-games-london-starting-2013

I'm not totally convinced that the Jaguars doing the London thing in place of the Rams isn't a cheap ploy to move that team to London in the future. Kinda give them a trial run and see if the fans can get behind that team.

 

You base this opinion on what? This won't happen.

Yeah, Buffalo is a small market, and that's whey they try to regionalize, which is why they have a game in Toronto. People drive in from Rochester, Toronto, and other cities every home game too.

There are smaller markets than Buffalo. Buffalo itself has 250% of the population of Green Bay. The area immediately surrounding Buffalo (including 3 counties) has over 1.2 million people.

The Bills are woven into the fabric of the community. Besides that, I don't think Toronto is even thinking about "adopting" a football team. L.A. is actively jockeying to steal somebody's team, but it will be a different team than the Bills in all likelihood.

 

LOL, London is too far away to have an NFL team IMO. Talk about jet-lag. Think about the travel time involved. Also, there is an 8-hour time difference between London and the West Coast. If the London Jaguars played in San Francisco at 1 o'clock San Francisco time (which is 4 PM to you and me), we're talking about 5 AM London time.

The logistics don't work. Nobody in London is going to tune in to away games at all at 5 AM. The players would be sleep-walking through most away games.

 

That entire area, including Rochester, is experiencing severe population flight, people are leaving, business is leaving, money is leaving...and the bills will be gone within 10 years.

Green Bay is a different story all together, they go back generations before the Bills even took the field. They are woven into the fabric of the upper midwest, Packers fans are everywhere, easily a top 5 NFL fanbase. The Bills don't have that deeply rooted tradition and loyalty.

The Bills will go where the money is, and it won't be in that dying city.

 

LOL, you are trying to give me a Bills lesson? I'm FROM Buffalo. If you are going to question the loyalty of Bills fans, you lose all credibility in this conversation.

I don't care if somebody's dead great-grandfather (or whatever) was a Packers fan. The Bills have been around for 52 years. They are a tradition to everyone that is ALIVE, pretty much. Exactly how long does it take for a team to become entrenched into the fabric of a community, do you think? What's the formula for that? I guess personal computers aren't entrenched into the fabric of our culture, cuz they haven't been around that long...not as long as the Bills by a longshot.

And guess what? When people leave Buffalo, they don't stop being Bills fans. They are everywhere at this point. Bills-backers are everywhere. I know...I've been around the country.

 

I agree that the Bills probably won't be the ones moving to L.A. but the original post about Toronto is a pretty accurate hypothesis of their future.

I've gotten into this argument before but:

If I'm a Bills fan I would be praying nightly that the Bills, Erie County and the City of Buffalo comes up with something to build you guys a brand new stadium downtown. But IDK Ralph Wilson isn't doing you guys any favors at the moment by refusing to let go of the team, refusing to plan for their future and even the little things like not selling the naming rights to your stadium. On the flipside there is so much petty politics in the area they have trouble building or advancing anything...no wonder people leave.

The OP said if Toronto ever builds a football stadium the Bills are as good as gone. You can debate on whether Toronto cares enough to do so, but they certainly have the where-with-all to do so, and if they do he is right - its bye bye Buffalo Bills, and it could be anyway even if they dont.

If I'm a businessman and I buy a team that plays in an older, suburban stadium that has a hard time getting filled in an area that is on the decline and has been so for many years I am obviously going to at least think about how I can better my investment. I look around and see an hour or so up the road is a major metropolitan city, which is thriving with an untapped market, yet already has a strong contigent population that already values my franchise (Southern Ontario just eclipsed Rochester, NY with more Bills fans) .. . Are you kidding me? Where do I sign up? If they build a first class stadium – get me a passport I’m on the VERY first plane up.

The "fabric of the community" argument doesn't mean shit honestly, and I see people hanging onto that argument way too much in WNY and its dangerous to do so. You think that matters one freakin bit to a businessman who will invest millions into the franchise?? The Browns were a fabric to Cleveland's community - did that matter to Art Modell? You could go on and on about teams that were "fabrics to the community" that packed up and left for better opportunity - that is what it is about. Opportunity. What do you offer RIGHT now. Especially when you are a new purchase.

IF their people and politicians of WNY really want to keep their Bills they need to be way more proactive. Build a beautiful, new 60,000 ish seat stadium (shouldn’t have trouble filling that) DOWNTOWN. IF you have to get a large loan /lease with the city to do so, do it. Lock the team in. I know Ralph Wilson is being a miser but if he sees the city and or county is willing to put up a large amount, he’ll probably throw some in to build something great. Now is the perfect time for the government of the area to do something since their lease is up very soon.

Schumer’s plan of adjusting the NFL matching program, was obvious fluff – it could be a good idea, but its not because its unrealistic with Wilson. He’s not going to throw up himself half of the price for a brand new downtown stadium for the NFL to match. He’s is more likely in this scenario to throw up a smaller amount himself, he’ll get the NFL match but the only thing they’d be able to do is renovate the Ralph right now. A new owner will come in and pay close to a Billion to buy the team, you think he’s going to have a hard time paying off that chump loan? No. And He’s still got an older, suburban stadium. He will still move.

The government of WNY needs to do something to keep their team. Right now I’m not seeing it and I see many people like you who aren’t helping the matter by comparing yourself to Green Bay – which you are a much weaker organization and thinking just because the Bills are a fabric of the community is enough to keep the team.

 

I disagree with some of this and feel misrepresented in parts, but you make some good points.

The gist of the major danger is that we don't know who is going to buy the team when Ralph Wilson dies. Ralph Wilson is 93-freakin' years old. He'll be 94 freakin' years old in October. That's the whole issue in a nutshell. The Bills are feasible enough in Buffalo, but the trick is having the right person buy the team...a person (or people) that cares enough to keep the team there. There are billionaire candidates that fit that description.

IMO, you don't really buy a football team to make money. Go into real estate or something if you want to do that these days. What I mean is a football team is going to cost in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. Anybody with that amount of green already has more money than a person could ever spend. There has to be some kind of different motivation, like passion for the game for example. Passion for Buffalo could play in (yes, such a thing exists). Perhaps a HUGE ego...

Currently, they are pushing hard for a new lease, and want to put about $200 million in renovations for our stadium...there are older stadiums, you know. Lambeau Field is 16 years older than the Ralph...and no, I'm not directly comparing the Bills to the Packers, who are the only organization allowed to be owned by the population. They made renovations, and I don't hear anybody crying for the need of a new stadium there.

Politicians ARE getting involved. Who knows if Ralph has something working in the background that we don't know about? The ancient man (not old, but ancient) should set something up before he dies IMO. He should just sell the team and ensure a future in Buffalo. If somebody buys the team and moves it, his whole legacy is fcked, at least in millions of people's book. I did not claim that fan loyalty would keep the team in Buffalo...I just said that it exists.

At this point, winning sure would not hurt this organization or it's future in Buffalo. Win some damn football games...or maybe even do something outlandish like making the playoffs.