With an eye on the obits, Toronto keeps its NFL dream current.

In what seems to be a common theme of late, the forces for bringing an NFL franchise to Toronto are keeping their ear to the ground when it comes to potential opportunities.

Stephen Brunt, has provided an excellent examination of the current interest in the Buffalo Bills as perhaps Toronto's team to be named later. Spurred on by recent talk by owner Ralph Wilson about his inheritance plans, the main proponents of the NFL for Toronto no doubt will be watching with interest how Mr. Wilson works out the details for his eventual departure from the planet.

It's a tad ghoulish that Toronto is waiting for someone to pass on, but it's the nature of the business we guess. The Bills will prove to be a very hot property, once Mr. Wilson hs gone to his reward, while they don't want to seem like they're loading up on daisies and chasing the hearse, the Toronto groups are not going to be caught unprepared for the possibility of the Bills coming into play one day.

Brunt: Toronto will act fast, aggressively if Bills are put on auction block
STEPHEN BRUNT
From Friday's Globe and Mail

And now, a word from the grim reaper.

It's not so often that he gets directly involved in a sports story — though, of course, he gets involved in everything, eventually, when all is said and done. But earlier this week, the long-running saga of the National Football League and its possible future in Canada steered directly into the path of the good old angel of death.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Buffalo News, Ralph Wilson, the only owner the Buffalo Bills have known, spelled out explicitly what has been suggested for quite some time.
He bought the original franchise in the American Football League for $25,000 in 1959. Its open-market value now as one of the 32 members of the NFL, the only truly bullet-proof sports property in North America, is three quarters of a billion dollars, perhaps more.
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Wilson is 88 years old.

If he chose to, he could sell the team before he goes to his great reward and do his best to find a buyer who might keep it in Western New York.

But he says he's not going to do that.

He could arrange things so that the team is left to his wife, Mary, but he says that won't happen. He could leave it to his children, who might share his fierce loyalty to Buffalo.

Wilson says he isn't going to do that, either. The 45-per-cent inheritance taxes assessed on the team's market value would make that prohibitive.

Instead, when Ralph Wilson is called home, the Bills will go to auction and be sold to the highest bidder, maximizing the return to his heirs. And at that moment, whenever it might come, some cruel realities will dawn on the loyal, long-suffering football fans of the Niagara Frontier.

The Bills are worth a king's ransom anywhere, but they're worth a whole lot more somewhere other than Buffalo. No prospective owner could pay the going rate for the franchise and then hope to finance, let alone recoup, his investment in that city.

It is true that the NFL's great, collectivist revenue-sharing policy, especially when it comes to television, allows small-market franchises such as Green Bay to survive next to giants such as the ones in New York.

But in order to justify that kind of purchase price, an owner is going to have to max out on other, unshared revenue as well. That's simply not possible in a small, shrinking, economically challenged city, with a stadium that is a relic of a bygone time.

Barring the appearance of a true philanthropist, someone who is willing to outbid all competition and then underwrite the franchise for years to come just to keep it in Buffalo (Sabres owner Tom Golisano's name is the one that keeps popping up), it seems certain that the Bills will be sold, at a price that provides the maximum return to Wilson's estate, and inevitably moved.
Which brings us, of course, to Toronto.

Ted Rogers is 74 years old. Paul Godfrey is a youthful 68. Larry Tanenbaum will turn 62 next month.

All of them are up to their necks in the pursuit of an NFL franchise (Godfrey has been for eons now). All of them are operating as individuals and not for the benefit of a corporate entity that might reap benefits long after they're gone.

So it's pretty safe to assume that, given their own ages, none of them believe that this is a 20-year project.

When the time comes, they are going to move, aggressively. They're going to be right in the thick of the bidding for the Bills.

There will be other bidders as well. But for the NFL, for the other owners and for commissioner Roger Goodell — who seems far more open to the possibility of a team in Canada than did his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue — Toronto has to be an attractive proposition.

They could shift a historic franchise while pretending it hadn't really shifted (it's a relatively short drive down the Queen Elizabeth Way, and the Bills already draw considerable support from across the border). And they could drop into a market that, according to the most recent census, houses eight million souls, by far the largest in North America, outside Los Angeles, without an NFL team. An owner there, ready to build a new stadium and exploit a big, wealthy urban area, might at least dream of being able to justify his investment.

Could be five years from now. Could be 10 or more, depending on the timetable of the guy in the black hood. Could be tomorrow.

But when the day arrives, it's going to happen fast.

To all will come death and taxes and maybe relocation.

While it's not about the CFL, there is always the underlying belief that the Buffalo Bills will be migrating North upon the demise of owner Ralph Wilson. Not that the always anxious Toronto based NFL seekers wish Mr. Wilson ill, it's just that when it comes to NFL expansion or relocation north of the 49th, the Bills always seem to be the team that fits the bill.

With that in mind, here's an interesting story from Saturday's Globe and Mail, a look at Mr. Wilson and his estate planning concerns for the Bills. With a declaration that he has no plans to sell the team while he walks among us on our mortal coil, he holds no guarantees that the team will remain in Buffalo upon his passing.

Wilson has transformed a 25 thousand dollar investment in 1959 into a franchise valued at a reported 627 million dollars last year, a nice bit of asset appreciation in anyone's books. But with that outrageous amount comes trouble perhaps for football fans in Buffalo and maybe for the CFL as well.

With estate taxes that will make the team all but a burden for his family, it's expected that upon his death the team will be sold, whether the new owners at that time see Buffalo in their future remains to be seen.

Original owner of the Buffalo Bills isn't selling in his lifetime
Associated Press

The Globe and Mail

Saturday, June 16, 2007

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The first and only owner of the Buffalo Bills has no plans to sell the team in his lifetime.

Ralph Wilson told The Buffalo News that the team will be sold after he dies and that he does not plan to leave the Bills to his wife, Mary.

"I think she's capable and she could do it, but it would be tough," the 88-year-old said. "My daughters are interested in the game, but they're not going to own the team."
Wilson knows the future of the Bills is a concern for fans, who don't want an outsider to buy the team and move it to another city.

"It is the situation as it always has been [the team] will be sold," Wilson said. "It hasn't changed. I know the people are jumpy there. But I get jumpy the more I hear about it."

If Wilson did leave the team to his daughters they would likely struggle to pay estate taxes — 45 percent of the value of the franchise — on the team valued at about $600 million.

Wilson said it's possible that the next owner could be someone who would want to keep the Bills in Buffalo, but he's not willing to speculate beyond that.

"There's so much liquidity that's floating around the country now," Wilson said. "Look at the stock market, it's gone up, up, up. It's not on dividends. Somebody hopes they'll buy a stock and somebody will come along and pay them a little more for it. So they'll sell it. You don't know.

There may be somebody who will come along in Buffalo and buy it. You can't tell. I can't guess the future and nobody can."

He bought the franchise for $25,000 in 1959. It was valued at $627 million last year in Forbes magazine.

The Bills' lease with Erie County runs through the 2012 season, but it would be easy to break if bought out under the terms of the agreement.

If the team was sold, a relocation would be subject to the approval of the other NFL owners.
Wilson said he would not consider selling part of the team to someone in Western New York while he's still alive to give that person the chance to eventually take over the club.

"That's absolutely out," he said.

Wilson spent the past year fighting for revenue sharing to protect the rights of small-market NFL teams.

He has said it's unfair for small-market teams to back new stadium projects because they don't equally share in the revenues the facilities generate. Wilson said it's doubly unfair to small-market teams because new facilities increase the salary cap, and the Bills are a team that can't keep up with escalating salaries.

The Bills, also by comparison, can't generate much more revenue in an economically troubled region such as Western New York.

Wilson spent the past year fighting for revenue sharing to protect the rights of small-market NFL teams.

He has said it's unfair for small-market teams to back new stadium projects because they don't equally share in the revenues the facilities generate. Wilson said it's doubly unfair to small-market teams because new facilities increase the salary cap, and the Bills are a team that can't keep up with escalating salaries.

The Bills, also by comparison, can't generate much more revenue in an economically troubled region such as western New York.

Wilson has a lot invested in his team. He spent the first two weeks of the offseason spring workouts on the sidelines, watching the team practice from a golf cart.

"Football keeps me going," Wilson said. "At my stage in the game, you've got to have something."