The odds of the Buffalo Bills being sold to a Toronto group -- or any group intent on relocating the NFL franchise -- appear remote.

An overlooked clause in the Bills' restrictive non-relocation agreement with Erie County and the state of New York expressly prohibits the sale of the NFL franchise to anyone who intends to relocate the team -- at least before that agreement expires in July 2023.

This proviso might even supersede the one-time out clause in February 2020 that allows the Bills to break their 10-year lease at Ralph Wilson Stadium for a $28.4-million penalty.

The sale clause all along has been in the non-relocation agreement, signed early last year as a sister legal document to the Bills' 10-year lease extension at Ralph Wilson Stadium.

But, much as the last-resort, $400-million punitive-damages penalty in the non-relocation agreement had been grossly misunderstood and misreported until QMI Agency set the record straight last month, so the prohibition of selling the team to a carpet-bagger of sorts has been disregarded until now.

Clause 3(b) in the non-relocation agreement states, in part, that without approval of both the state-appointed public corporation that owns the Ralph and the county in which the stadium sits, the club shall not "sell, assign or otherwise transfer the team to any person who, to the Bills' knowledge, has an intention to relocate, transfer or otherwise move the team ..."

The clause also prevents the team from so much as entertaining, soliciting or negotiating any offer or proposal to relocate the team.

To do otherwise would be in breach of this novel non-relocation agreement between the Bills, the NFL, the state of New York and Erie County.

A prominent sports-franchise consultant on the Atlantic seaboard is familiar with the sale clause in question.

Reached by QMI Agency on Monday, this expert adviser on team acquisitions and stadium development said the clause is "a big problem" for anyone wanting to buy the Bills franchise with the intention of relocating it.

"I think the language is very direct. It's not cute. It's very in-your-face. I think people did not focus in on the sale part of the agreement; just on the non-relocation part."

The one known Toronto group to this point aiming to bid on the Bills -- fronted by by rocker Jon Bon Jovi and Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment chairman Larry Tanenbaum -- would relocate the team to Toronto, it has been assumed.

QMI Agency has been reliably informed that that is the plan.

"But to buy the team, they'd have to get up and say that they have no intent to move it," the expert said.

Could they get away with that now? Really, could the Toronto-based chairman of a powerful Toronto-based sports conglomerate that owns four other Toronto sports teams be believed if he said he wants to keep the Bills in Buffalo? Or at least disavow any intention to move the Bills to Toronto by early next decade?

More to the point, could he and his bid group convince the Bills, the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell of this?

"People have done it," the expert said. "But the commissioner is not their biggest problem. The biggest problem would be whether the public sector believes them."

Indeed. Even if, for the sake of argument, the estate of founding owner Ralph Wilson (who died last month) should agree in principle to sell the team to that or any other Toronto group, the league may never get the chance to approve the sale, the expert said.

"That's because under the non-relocation agreement, the public sector could run to court to try to get an injunction to block the owners' vote."

In the lease, the Bills and the NFL specifically signed off on the state's and county's right to seek such "injunctive relief" in court at the first whiff of relocation intention. Among all the various whiffs listed in the non-relocation agreement is the above-described sale scenario.

"It would not make it impossible to buy the Bills and move it," the expert said. "Who knows, maybe the new owner would win in court. It's just not likely."

The expert said no one should ever buy a major pro sports franchise with the intention to relocate it. Yet if a prospective ownership group covets the Bills for the sole purpose of eventually moving it to Toronto?

"Then I would suggest never saying that publicly," the expert said. "There will be some legal challenges if you are talking about it publicly. And then on top of it, you've got to get approval at the league level. There's nothing that says the NFL will ever give you the right to move it, irrespective of whatever the lease says."

Finally, there's this reality.

Even if a Toronto group somehow winds up buying the Bills -- with the estate's backing, the league's approval and the state and county waiving their right to injunctive relief -- the following unavoidable end result would make the 1995 Cleveland Browns debacle appear smooth by comparison.

That is, from next year through the end of the decade, or perhaps even through the 2022 season, "you won't have a soul going to the games in Buffalo," the expert said.

That's just about right. As we have surmised previously, embittered, suspicious Bills fans would abandon the team en masse.

Instead of having to weather just three more home games -- as owner Art Modell and the Browns did in 1995 after announcing the team's relocation to Baltimore, effective at season's end -- the Toronto-bound Bills would have to endure at least five more seasons of transitional lame-duck hell.

It's practically inconceivable the NFL and its commissioner from Western New York would allow that ever to happen.

Which, all told, is why it's hard to believe the NFL would approve the Bills franchise being sold to any group intent on moving it, to Toronto or anywhere else.

john.kryk@sunmedia.ca

@JohnKryk

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