Bon Jovi Wants to Buy the Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills fans have grown accustomed to livin' on a prayer over the last couple of decades, so perhaps it's only fitting that Jon Bon Jovi has entered the bidding race for new ownership of the team.
Multiple sources are reporting that Bon Jovi, who was first rumored to be interested in buying the club back in November, has joined a group of investors working to bring an American football team to Toronto. Although the Bon Jovi frontman's publicist declined to discuss specifics, he's quoted as saying, "Jon remains passionate in his pursuit of an NFL franchise."
As many fans are already aware, Bon Jovi has dabbled in franchise ownership before; he was one of the original majority owners in the Philadelphia Soul, an Arena Football League team that started operations in 2004. The Soul -- and the AFL as a whole -- suspended operations in 2009, and when the team returned in 2011, Bon Jovi no longer held a stake, thus freeing him up to try and lure the Bills up north.
While the Bills have been proudly headquartered in New York since 1960, there's history between the team and Toronto. They enjoy a dedicated fanbase in the city, and since 2008, they've participated in the Bills Toronto Series, an agreement that's found them playing occasional games in Toronto's Rogers Centre -- and although the team's dismal 1-5 record at Rogers has prevented them from establishing the "second home stadium" atmosphere the Bills were looking for, the series is currently set to continue through 2017.
It's worth noting that regardless of the Bills' recent woes, whoever buys the team will have some awfully big shoes to fill: previous owner Ralph Wilson, who died in March at the age of 95, not only founded the Bills, but was one of the founding owners of the American Football League, and was honored with induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009. The idea of rock's most successful steel horse rider owning an NFL franchise is a little funny, but we know football runs in the Bon Jovi family, so maybe this idea's just crazy enough to work.