There are many plusses and minuses on Ralph’s long record of ownership. If a player has an exceptionally long career as a starter it usually means he was very, very good. On the other hand, I think owners must have 3 things to last a long time:

1. A lot of money, earned or inherited and
2. the good fortune, genes or healthy lifestyle to live a long time and
3. either really good business sense or the desire and wherewithal to own a sports team, whether or not it makes money

None of those things mean that the football team will be successful on the field. Ralph certainly has the first two. When it comes to #3 I think he certainly has good business sense, and enough of an ego and interest in football to keep the team if it at least breaks even, but I don’t think he’d keep it if it were a consistent money loser. Even rich guys can run out of money if they lose it for long enough.
Ralph has had to make it work in Buffalo, NY. He had for foresight, fortitude and, perhaps, good fortune to have bought in early at a low price. When he started the franchise Buffalo was ranked as the 18th most populous metro area in the U.S. Now it’s number 46 (although we’re fortunate to have Rochester, Hamilton and Toronto nearby.) We all know about the economics of smalll market vs. large market franchises. The NFL is smart enough to share ticket revenues and promote parity to help support the smaller markets, keeping fan interest levels high in many cities, but Buffalo is certainly at a disadvantage due to shinking population and low per capita income. Over time we have been dismayed at some of Ralph’s decisions on personnel, involvement with drafting and apparent penny pinching. It’s easy for a fan to think that the ownership should just pay up when a franchise favorite is holding out or a free agent we really need is up for grabs, because the guy is “worth it.”. The team has to be financially viable, though, and it’s tough when you have to face the reality of Buffalo as your revenue base. We get mad at Ralph if he talks about the possibility of moving the team if he doesn’t get a new stadium or build and buy new private boxes, but the Bills aren’t revenue-competitive without them. Whether we like it or not, communities have to participate in financially supporting sports teams like this or they will lose them to other cities that will.
We all wish Ralph would promise to spend and do whatever it takes to win the Superbowl, and promise to never leave Buffalo or sell the team to anyone who won’t make the same commitment, but it really wouldn’t make much sense for him to do that. He wouldn’t have gotten the stadium in Orchard Park, the stadium upgrades a few years ago or the community effort to get tickets and boxes sold if we and our political “leaders” had no pressure to get those things done. We probably would have had a white elephant dome in Lancaster and Bills might have been gone by the mid 1970s.
I think Ralph has been a clear-thinking business man who has expressed his loyalty to Buffalo by doing the best he can to keep the team financially viable HERE. People thought Ralph was getting senile when he said he didn’t understand why the current labor agreement with the players made sense for the owners, particularly in the small markets, but I think a lot of people have come around to his way of thinking. We can certainly question his judgment about how the on-the-field product has been managed; the mediocre and bad seasons have outweighed the good ones. He has been excessively loyal to some of his less-than-stellar management, at times (I prefer cold-hearted, calculating and shrewd management of my favorite teams, but I don’t prefer it where I work.)
I think Ralph could have made a lot more money on his investment if he would have announced his intention to move the franchise and then auctioned it off to the highest bidder who would offer a fabulous new stadium with naming rights, tax abatements, all the concession and parking revenue, statue of himself made of something that couldn’t be vandalized, etc. There are many larger cities without NFL franchises. Some of them are much larger — L.A. and San Antonio come to mind. Keeping the team in Buffalo has been a financial sacrifice for him (although it has at least one benefit — a very short commute from Detroit as compared to San Antonio). Loyalty is a two-way street. I think the fans have demonstrated it, and so has Ralph (sometimes to our detriment, when it comes to keeping some of his lieutenants too long.) His efforts to help the small market franchises hasn’t been just a selfish thing; it is to the benefit to the whole league to keep all of the teams financially healthy. It makes the product better and promotes a wider fan base. I think Bills fans are fans are fortunate that we have an owner who has been loyal to this fan base. I just wish he had been better at assembling the football management needed to produce success on the field. I am not hopeful that they’ll win a Super Bowl before Ralph goes to meet his Maker, but I hope the BUFFALO Bills win one before I do.
So, what should the criteria be for an owner to get into the football HOF? Should it be based on the owners contributions to the success of the league, the success of the owner’s franchise on the field, or both? It’s easier to measure success on the field than it is to access contributions to success of the league. It is clear that the NFL has been very successful. Many people point to the Giants-Colts title game in 1958 as the beginning of the league’s ascent to its current status, but there have been many decisions on the business side that have contributed. Ralph has been involved in the league since that “Greatest Game” and has been a player in many of the big business decisions the league has made, in some cases where he went against the majority view.
I think Ralph is HOF material when it comes to the business side of promoting the success of the league, and part of that is the league creating a system where each team has the opportunity to assemble the talent to win. If that’s the main criterion, Ralph should be in. On the other hand, if the main criterion is success in taking advantage of that opportunity to assemble to talent to win, Ralph has not distinguished himself.
My personal feeling is that the owner HOF qualification should be based more on the success of the overall business — contributions to the league and the game — rather than the success of the individual franchise. So I think Ralph belongs.
As skeptical as I am about Ralph and the current braintrust assembling a Super Bowl team, I hope Ralph lives as long as I do, and he has about 35 years on me. I think the Bills are gone not long after he dies. As exasperating as they can be, here I am, 45 years after seeing the Bills play for the time, writing a post to a Bills blog.