I was out of town for a few days, but reading online the local media response to out of town reports on who is going to buy the Buffalo Bills continues to make me laugh. I know better than most what it takes to program daily radio call-in shows and come up with copy for nightly sportscasts, but to watch some of the locals chase their own tails makes me shake my head. To steal the line Joe Pesci used in the 1991 movie JFK, some media reports have so confused the Bills ownership picture that they have turned it into “a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma.”

Many of the wrong leads have come out of Toronto and specifically around Jon Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi has received more press without uttering one single word about his pursuit of the Bills because of the local and national reaction. Many of the stories have no credible sources nor can the reporters even hint at one. The result is a miss-mash of information that in the end will have little to do with who ends up owning the team.

Some of the stories on the other hand have come right out of Buffalo. I know of two particular “big” Bills ownership stories over the past two months that were completely fabricated by agents of the billionaires mentioned and yet never vetted by local electronic media outlets who led their six o’clock news with the rumors.

One of those stories involved Howard Milstein who never, ever had any interest in pursuing the Buffalo Bills let alone moving them to Niagara Falls. Still, that story was all over the local news without one shred of credibility. One local sportscaster actually said he had confirmed the story and yet Milstein himself came out days later and refuted without a doubt that the story was false.

I know where the Milstein story originated from and know that it was floated just to see how far it would go and boy did it go far! In this day of online news an social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, news travels fast, whether it’s accurate or not.

All of the speculation will eventually have to come to an end now that the deadline has arrived for bidders to make their interest known. No one and I mean no one, in the media will know who the front runner will be until the final announcement is made.

If I had to bet today, my money would still be on Terry Pegula. Then again what do I know? I’m just another local media guy….

 

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