With a 93-year-old owner whose family has no plan to keep owning the team once the current owner takes a meeting with the Great Owner in the Sky, a new owner of the Buffalo Bills eventually will emerge.
Ed Kilgore of WGRZ-TV reports that multiple groups already are working behind the scenes to get in position to make a play for the team whenever Ralph Wilson’s tenure as the only owner in team history ends.
Wilson, who according to John Eisenberg’s excellent Ten-Gallon War (which tells the story of the rise of the AFL from the perspective of the two pro teams that landed in Dallas) initially was going to enter the league as owner of the “Miami Seahawks,” won’t sell during his lifetime. When his lifetime concludes, the groups preparing to make a bid include multiple groups that would keep the team in Buffalo.
"[T]here are at least two or three groups who not only have the financial portfolio to buy the Bills, but who want to keep the team in Buffalo for many years to come,” Kilgore writes.
Whether that happens may depend on getting a new facility to replace Ralph Wilson Stadium, which was opened in 1973.
Still, this should be regarded as good news by Bills fans who fear that, once Ralph Wilson passes, L.A. interests will swoop-and-scoop the franchise that has resided in Buffalo since the AFL launched in 1960.