Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/7/84; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!wildbill From: wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer) Newsgroups: net.sport.football,net.flame Subject: Re: Foo on Ralph Wilson! (or) How to Own a 2-14 Football Team Message-ID: <4262@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Sat, 19-Jan-85 05:12:01 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.4262 Posted: Sat Jan 19 05:12:01 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 14:32:14 EST References: <1042@sunybcs.UUCP> Reply-To: wildbill@ucbvax.UUCP (William J. Laubenheimer) Distribution: na Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 92 Summary: >With the events of the past few weeks, I feel that the reason the >Buffalo Bills will never get to the Super Bowl is the owner of the >team, Ralph Wilson. >First of all, he doesn't live in Buffalo, where his franchise is located. >He makes his home in (or around) Detroit, Michigan. (Most of the other >teams are owned by someone in the area; the Pittsburgh Steeler's Art Rooney >comes to mind.) So? Art Modell lives in (4-12) Cleveland. Ed deBartolo lives in Pittsburgh, not (17-1) San Francisco. >Second, he doesn't (or won't) pump any of his money (believe me, he's >loaded) into the local economy. I would love to see a dome put over >Rich Stadium (built with funds from Erie County and Rich Products, Inc.), >but to do so, seven thousand seats would have to be removed. Ralph would >rather keep the seating at 80,000 than reduce it to 72,000 just to have >a dome. With Birdair Structures (the ones who built the cover for the >Metrodome in Minneapolis) located in Cheektowaga -- 15 minutes away >from the stadium -- surely a dome would be feasible. And with our >weather, like all the northern cities, a dome is almost a necessity. That's funny... the Vikings never had any problems selling out Metropolitan Stadium when Bud Grant was producing NFC champions right and left; try to get a ticket in Green Bay sometime -- they haven't even made the playoffs in a fairly long time. >Third, he's cheap with the players and coaches. Why did Tom Cousineau >play for the Montreal Alouettes (in the CFL) and then the Cleveland Browns >when he was Buffalo's #1 draft pick in 1979? Why did Joe Cribbs pack up >and go to Birmingham in 1983? Why is Chuck Knox now coaching the >Seahawks? The bottom line: MONEY. Cousineau and Cribbs (after he got >greedy) felt they can play somewhere else for more money, so they left >Buffalo. And Knox didn't like the way Wilson was doing things. (He >was, in my opinion, too conservative of a coach -- he didn't take any >risks -- but we made the playoffs when he was coaching.) This is the >reason I believe Jim Kelly will stay in the USFL, and Doug Flutie will >not be wearing a Bills uniform -- ever. AHA! Now we're getting somewhere. There are a lot of owners of pro sports franchises who try to run them like ghetto apartments -- they buy 'em cheap, jack the rents, run 'em into the ground, and when they've gotten all the depreciation taken care of, sell 'em off to some other guy who turns right around and does the same thing over again. Meanwhile, they've made a few million and they're happy. You seem to be afflicted with one of those kinds of owners right now. The only good thing that can be said for them is that they usually don't last too long -- football players depreciate almost as fast as Detroit cars in Buffalo. >Lastly, he's wishy-washy. We still don't know who he wants for the >first round pick. And it took him two weeks (or more) to decide that >he wants to retain Kay Stephenson as coach. RETAIN STEPHENSON??? >(I'm still in shock.) Not only is he wishy-washy, he's INEPT!! Don't blame the owner exclusively for these. Who to pick in the first round should be determined by the general manager, if one exists, or else by the coaching staff. (New Orleans Saints owner) John Mecom would be making an absolutely insane decision if he told his draft crew to get Doug Flutie -- unless he was also planning on firing Bum Phillips and introducing a coach who knew something about the passing game. It also does you no good to select a first-round pick who signs a fat contract in the USFL, so you might as well wait and see who's available before opening your big fat mouth to the press, \\especially// when your first-round pick is the second guy to be taken, and if his agent has any brains at all, he will use this fact against you to nail you to the wall at contract-drafting time. The smart coach/GM/front office keeps their collective mouth shut these days. As for taking a couple of weeks to decide on the coach, maybe one of his office buildings burned down. The guy just might have a few other things besides football to worry about. > (More fans would come if they won more games. :-) ) >Jim Poltrone (a/k/a Poltr1, the Last of the Raster Blasters) Now you're at the crux of the matter. The "smiley face" is very much out of place here. You don't necessarily have to win games, but, like it or not, professional football is big-time Entertainment with a capital E, designed in order to give advertisers more time to sell more razor blades to 35 million males each week. If you want to get the fans out to the stadium, you must Entertain them. If you put on an entertaining show, people will come. If you don't they won't. It's no more complicated than that. So you don't like the way things are going? Well, just find about 100,000 people in the area willing to put up $500 each to change things. You now have an organization with $50,000,000 (perhaps more) in capital. Buy the franchise (now you do own it), use the leftover millions to do whatever else you need to do, and have fun! Bill Laubenheimer ----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science ...Killjoy went to SB XIX (go Niners!) ucbvax!wildbill