The Toronto game will be sold out and televised as usual (yes, it will be very “Miami-Esque” with many tickets being bought up by Rogers Communications, thought far less of that occured last year)… that leaves 3 games to be concerned about… unfortunately they are all against garbage teams (Jax, St. Louis, Jets) and in freezing December. The NY Jets game will most likely sell out soon… that leaves two possible black-out games… we’ll see what happens.

I’m a season ticket holder stationed at Little Rock AFB. I don’t have to worry about the Blackout rule. Not to mention, I’ll be at the KC, Miami Thursday nighter, and the week 17 game against the Jets. However, my family members have to worry about it, and I think it’s unfair that they have to pay taxes to fund a stadium for a team that they might not have the right to watch should it not reach 85%, which is BS.

“You fans are unable to buy enough overpriced tickets? Fine, NONE of you can watch the game then!!!!”

No other business in the world denies their customers service just because not enough product is bought.

The parking is operated by ProPark not the Bills.

Besides, the real money is in the TV rights. Even if the stadiums were empty and the croud was digitally imposed, the NFL would still make a fortune off of the TV deals alone. I think the teams should now charge more for those TV rights in exchange for a guarantee that a blackout will be avoided at the teams expense.

Since the Bills are in negotiations with the County for increased funding, condition public funding based on accepting the 85% blackout rule. Seems perfectly reasonable. But then that means Erie County has to actually step up to the plate, and understand the costs to the team and the community.

Gene Warner, in an article at Buffalo News, did a rough calculation that it could cost the team about $90k per game–but his calculation fails to consider concession sales, parking, etc. So that’s a potential gross understatement cause those additional lost sales are probably even more significant (since the $90k included “shared losses”, if I’m not mistaken, while the losses in concessions and parking may be totally absorbed by the home team depending on the revenue sharing rules). I would argue total losses could be $250k or more per game, for the home team. Let’s assume the new policy results in 50% of the games not being sold out (the economic incentives change–thus we should expect fewer 100% capacity games). That could be as much as $1M per season–and frankly, that may be an understatement due to a lot of ancillary factors I’m probably not even considering. But this is the type of analysis that needs to be done! This simplistic view that this is a “good thing” for Buffalo (and other small markets) is just downright naive.

I don’t know the teams operating profit, but that lost revenue likely goes straight to the bottom line. Strange as it may sound–even though $1M may not seem like much for an NFL team, it’s possible it takes a huge chunk out of the team’s annual operating profits–especially for a team with tighter margins to begin with. I’m a financial consultant to a number of large companies. And a change like that (however small it may seem) can change the entire financial model one designs its business plan around.

Mark my words. This change will impact the negotiations. And what looks like a “good thing” now to Erie County’s resident’s, won’t look so good when the team asks for more concessions and all of a sudden a lease that looked like a fait accompli, doesn’t happen. Bye bye Buffalo!

Unintended consequences of poorly thought out policy. Or maybe this is the desired consequence. I wouldn’t put it past the NFL to create a policy to get teams out of small markets. Los Angeles Bills!