Prime Video’s Week 2 Thursday Night Football not only marked the Buffalo Bills’ 41-31 win over the Detroit Lions, but also had an unexpected moment involving legendary play-by-play announcer Al Michaels taking a second swipe at President Donald Trump in less than three weeks.

It was the Bills’ first game at their brand-new home, Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, and Michaels was calling the first game from a new stadium for the 10th time in his career. According to a clip posted by MLFootball on X on September 17, Michaels brought up the story of Terry Pegula buying the Bills in 2014, and how the two parties up against the billionaire were Donald Trump and musician Jon Bon Jovi.

“The team was put up for sale,” said Michaels. “There were basically three bidders: Pegula, who won in a billion four, a Toronto group; Jon Bon Jovi was in it; Bon Jovi said, ‘We’d keep the team in Buffalo,’ and the other bidder, Donald J. Trump, who said publicly, ‘I’m going to write a cashier’s check for a billion dollars.’ Team said, ‘Stop, we’re good. We’ll take Pegula.’”

After the Bills’ founding owner, Ralph Wilson, passed away at age 95 earlier that year, the estate put the Buffalo-based NFL team up for sale. Per GQ, after learning of Bon Jovi’s interest, Trump, who knew he wouldn’t be able to outbid the musician and his Toronto-based partners, reportedly hired Republican operative Michael Caputo to launch a grassroots campaign against Bon Jovi.

The campaign reportedly took effect, with theories being floated around among locals that Bon Jovi and his partners would relocate the Bills to Toronto, which the musician later denied. But by then, the bid was already lost.

Trump tried to leverage the situation, offering a billion dollars upfront to buy the team. In April 2014, he even told WBEN radio in Buffalo that he wanted to ensure that the Bills remained in Buffalo where they belonged.

“If it were me, I’d keep the team in Buffalo,” Trump told WBEN (as quoted by ESPN). “I think it’s something that’s really vital to the area — it would be catastrophic, in my opinion, if Buffalo lost the Buffalo Bills.”

Al Michaels found it hilarious how quickly the team shut down Trump’s offer, choosing to go with Terry and Kim Pegula, who had already bought the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres in 2011, and were probably the safest bet to take.

This isn’t the first time Michaels has made an on-air joke about the president either. During the New England Patriots vs. Cleveland Browns preseason game on August 27, when the camera showed Cleveland’s Lake Erie in the background, Michaels made a joke about President Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario.

“That is Lake Erie. We think it is still called Lake Erie … We’re not quite sure at this point,” Michaels said. “But we’ll be by Lake something like Ontario or whatever it’s going to be called by the time we get to Buffalo. Anyway, you know what I’m talking about … Read the news.”

But while Michaels’ “Lake Erie” joke was based on the absurdity of such a name change, there was more to the Wilson estate’s refusal to consider Trump’s offer for the Bills. 

Why the Wilson estate didn’t sell the Bills to Donald Trump

According to a 2023 report by the Associated Press, even if Donald Trump had outbid Terry Pegula’s $1.4 billion offer, it was unlikely that the league would have agreed to the sale. 

“Trump has little chance of being approved by the NFL,” then-Morgan Stanley executive K. Don Cornwell wrote in 2014, per Associated Press. 

Trump, a former owner of the New Jersey Generals football team, had been a prominent supporter of the United States Football League’s (USFL) 1984 antitrust lawsuit against the NFL to force a change in the NFL’s annual schedule. However, the lawsuit proved disastrous for the USFL, who were awarded just $1 in damages.

Trump also claimed in court that then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle had to placate the former by suggesting he own a franchise in the league, according to a 2023 report by The Sydney Morning Herald. 

With that as the backdrop, it was less of a surprise that the Bills were sold to bidders who already had stakes in the community and received unanimous approval from NFL owners while buying the Bills. 

The sale was lucky for Bills fans too, as franchise quarterback Josh Allen also joined the team under the Pegulas’ ownership, although this partnership has yet to yield a Super Bowl win.