The Buffalo Bills have announced plans to play both regular season and exhibition games in Toronto starting in the upcoming '08 season. This is the beginning of the end of the Buffalo Bills, a charter member of the American Footbal League in 1960. When the Bills were created, Western New York was a whole different kind of place, full of plentiful well - paying manufacturing and distribution jobs that were the foundation of the local and regional Buffalo and western New York economy and community. Over 50 years later, that Buffalo is all but gone. The region is in a steep decline economically, the overall standard of living has decline for many, the area has seen an exodus of its young adults, and there is an ongoing decline in population that has been ongoing for nearly two decades. Ralph Wilson has owned the team since its inception, and with his days numbered as he approaches his 90th birthday, there is a looming ownership change that will likely be the trigger mechanism eventually and inevitably resulting in the Bills becoming the NFL's first Canadian based franchise, likely by 2013 when they are no longer legally obligated to play in their suburban Buffalo Orchard Park, NY, stadium.This news and forecast is sad and tragic, but I see nothing that will stop it from happening, The Buffalo market clearly is at or past the point of being able to support an NFL club to the extent that it takes to compete with larger and wealthier demographics in virtually all the other NFL cities around the league. The one possible salvation would be to make the Buffalo Bills like the Green Bay Packers; a community owned team with community citizens as stockholders of the organization with an elected community board of directors who manage the budget and make the major personnel decisions. I very much would like to see this happen, but it is not going to. The egos and greed of the National Football League will not allow for the creation of another Packers. These owners want another billionaire magnate to join their club to help create additional wealth and prestige for themselves at almost any cost. And having another club like the Green Bay Packers is not going to do that no matter how much powerfully positive PR that would create.
http://www.tsn.ca/cfl/news_story/?ID=229005&hubname=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_C._Wilson_Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bills
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