Jon Bon Jovi something something pun involving the title of one of his songs.
The aging rocker who tried to buy the Buffalo Bills says, contrary to a report from CBS, that he’s not interested in buying the Tennessee Titans. It’s not the denial but the forcefulness of it that may cause some to think he’s merely playing nice while a non-compliant ownership structure potentially results in the placement of a “for sale” sign in the front yard.
“Let me dispel the rumors right now,” Bon Jovi told the Associated Press. “I wake up to these headlines with my name on them and they’re just not true. I want to make it perfectly clear that the team is not for sale, nor has it ever been, and I respect and admire Bud Adams’ legacy. End of story, I wish them all the success in the world. . . . You wake up to that and you’re, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t want to upset anybody. I didn’t do anything.’”
If he doesn’t want to buy the Titans, that’s fine. The effort to be “perfectly clear” that the team is not for sale and never has been seems to be a little gratuitous. If, as he says “he’s in the music business,” how or why does he know with perfect clarity that the Titans aren’t and never were for sale?
I’m in the NFL information business, and I can’t say anything about the team’s ownership situation with “perfect clarity,” apart from the fact that the team stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that the lingering ownership issue could eventually force an involuntary sale of the team.
If Bon Jovi wants to be in position to buy the team, it makes sense for him to go out of his way to support the “not for sale” party line unless and until the team is for sale. If/when that happens, Bon Jovi’s effort to buy the team could be viewed more favorably.
Conversely, if he’s seen as someone who was agitating in an effort to make a sale happen at a time when they’re trying their best to avoid that outcome, the single-D Adams family will go out of their way to ensure that the team will be sold to anyone on the planet other than him.
Put more simply, his effort to vouch for the franchise’s position that the team isn’t for sale makes his claim that he doesn’t want to buy it less credible. Especially since he’s done it before.
“The Bills are not for sale, and he has too much respect for Mr. [Ralph] Wilson to engage in any discussions of buying the team,” a Bon Jovi publicist said in November 2013.
So, yeah, if/when the Titans ever are for sale, something something pun involving the title of one of his songs.