Why It’s Good the Bills Lost All Those Superbowls

Chuck Klosterman recently wrote about how it would be better, in a bid for mythmaking immortality, if the Patriots lost the Superbowl. And perhaps within this is a way to make the best of the four straight Superbowl losses the Bills endured in the early 1990’s. For many Bills fans who came of age around that time, our fandom was forged out of these back-to-back losses. Victories would certainly have been sweet and welcomed. Nonetheless, recognizing our Bills as a tragically flawed hero deepened our devotion to the team and drilled those memories into our minds.

So to all those fans who take every win for granted, we Bills fans can say that the losses have made us more aware of fallibility, and perhaps even made us a bit more human. Because, in extending the hyperbole a bit more, football at its best strives to be a microcosm of all of life, played on a small grassy theater-in-the-round.

NFL Rules, Number of Owners, and Golisano

CitySportsBuffalo notes, in my other blog, the following great point:

I wish you the best of luck. I am huge fan of Buffalo AND the Bills and would contribute funds as a shareholder. However, I would like to point out one issue with the shareholder approach:

“Green Bay is the only team with this form of ownership structure in the NFL; such ownership is technically in direct violation of league rules, which stipulate a limit of 32 owners of one team and one of those owners having a minimum 30% stake. However, the Packers corporation was grandfathered when the NFL’s current ownership policy was established, and are thus exempt.”

Many of us would be curious to know how you hope to get around that significant detail. (Perhaps getting Washington involved ~ Anti-trust laws, etc.).

This is a very good point and one we must contend with. One possibility is, one we have developed a coherent strategy and plan, petition the league. I do not think the Washington approach is the best one. Doing things within the NFL is better and going around them should only be a last resort.

Of course, CitySportsBuffalo recognizes that this entire plan might not even be necessary due to the following possibility:

Also, according to this website, there is a rumor going around just today that Tom Golisano is in talks to buy the Bills from Ralph Wilson – check it out!

http://www.kffl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223065

Anyhow, good luck and Go Bills!

Thanks CitySportsBuffalo and, everyone, please keep the information and advice coming!

The People’s Players?

This article by Josh Levin in Friday’s edition of Slate highlights Randy Newsom, a minor-league pitcher in the Cleveland Indians’ system who is allowing people to buy shares in his future earnings. Buffalonians who buy shares might have a shot at watching their investment this summer!

But is this good for fandom? Fantasy football has already led to conflict when your star fantasy-leaguer goes up against your favorite team. What happens when your team’s star player–who you’ve invested a mint in–is up for free agency with the chance to earn you the big bucks by leaving?

And what if you’re part-owner of a community-owned team looking to resign that player? The People’s Bills might need some new bylaws…

NFL To Move All 32 Teams To Los Angeles

Courtesy of the Onion, I have learned that the NFL is planning to remedy LA’s lack of a football team by moving all 32 teams to the Los Angeles area.

Madden Can Make You Smarter, Football-wise

Part of the assumption behind the People’s Bills is that sports fans are wise enough, in the aggregate at least, to make good football management decisions. This is no doubt a controversial claim (one of my friends has stated to me that sports fans make very poor decisions and are profoundly fickle), and will be examined further in this blog.

However, one article in the Washington Post might provides hope that football fans, even individually, are becoming more sports-savvy: A Virtual Chalkboard for Budding NFL Fans discusses how playing Madden (the football video game) is making people better at understanding football strategy. Of course, listening to John Madden’s canned comments might very well cancel out any benefit the game-playing has, but future Bills owners can take note: play Madden if you want to help lead the team to victory.

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