With the dust cleared and the Buffalo Bills franchise awarded to Terry and Kim Pegula, details have surfaced on all submitted bids for the team, including the losing bid from the Pegulas biggest competition. The so-called ‘Toronto Group’ led by Jon Bon Jovi — long suspected of aiming to move the Bills out of Buffalo — had in fact reportedly signed a waiver that promised they wouldn’t move the team to Toronto or anywhere else.
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The Buffalo News writes that the group bid a hair more than $1 billion, with the flexibility to bid more. They also met the Ralph Wilson Estate’s other big demand that many suspected this group had not been prepared to meet.
"The source added that Bon Jovi and his group signed a waiver during negotiations that they would not move the team to Toronto or any other city and that the group was engaged in talks with unidentified entities to build a new stadium in Western New York."
This runs contrary to popular opinion in Western New York that the Toronto Group was focused on the NFL in Ontario, not Buffalo. Bon Jovi’s music had been banned in Buffalo among other forms of protest against his bidding group.
Bon Jovi was gracious in losing the bid, releasing a statement that said, “On behalf of Myself, Larry Tanenbaum and Edward Rogers, we wish Terry and Kim Pegula all the best as they continue the legacy and tradition of the Buffalo Bills and the Wilson family.”