Bills Owner Ralph Wilson twice this season agreed to purchase the remaining tickets for a home game to avoid a local TV blackout, but there "apparently will be no such holiday gift" for Sunday’s Dolphins-Bills game, according to Gene Warner of the BUFFALO NEWS. Bills President & CEO Russ Brandon yesterday in an e-mail wrote, "The game will be blacked out." Sunday’s blackout will be "only the second of the season" among all NFL teams, "unless there are others this weekend." The only other blackout was for Bengals-Chargers on Dec. 1. Brandon wrote in the e-mail that the Bills have "some 16,000 tickets remaining for the Dolphins game, a tough sell in late December with the Bills already out of the playoff hunt." Teams have the option "to buy up any remaining tickets, at 34 cents on the dollar, enough to pay the visiting team’s share of the gate receipts," which is "exactly what Wilson did" for the Bengals game on Oct. 13 (BUFFALO NEWS, 12/17). Meanwhile, a Chargers spokesperson said that the team has "about 3,000 general tickets" available for Sunday's game against the Raiders. In San Diego, Michael Gehlken noted the season finale against the Chiefs "is in more danger of going unseen on local television, as nearly 8,000 general tickets are unsold" (UTSANDIEGO.com, 12/14).
