Amazon’s Thursday Night Football booth saw history made when Al Michaels called the Bills’ home opener, his 10th regular-season game from a new stadium. Yet, the 81-year-old icon celebrated the milestone in totally unexpected fashion. As cameras panned over Buffalo’s $2.2 billion Highmark Stadium, Michaels took a second on-air swipe at the President of the United States in three weeks. Michaels suddenly resurrected the wild, forgotten 2014 bidding war for the franchise, dropping a prime-time jab that instantly went viral.

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 knew he wouldn’t be able to outbid the musician and his Toronto-based partners, and moreover, he made it publicly clear that he wouldn’t overbid for the Bills.

“I have a track record that’s pretty much unparalleled,” Trump said to Buffalo News in 2014, “but that doesn’t mean that I pay stupid prices. Somebody could come out and bid through the roof for the Bills, something crazy. In which case, I’m sorry I can’t do anything about that. You have to be sane.”

However, he didn’t sit with his hands folded either. Trump 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.

By then, Jon Bon Jovi had quietly parted ways with his Toronto-based partners. The group believed they stood a better chance without the New Jersey rock icon front and center. Why? NFL rules required Bon Jovi, as principal owner, to personally pony up at least 30% of the final purchase price. But with a net worth hovering around $300 million, his presence effectively handcuffed the group, capping their maximum offer at roughly $1.1 billion. To stay in the race, the bid needed more muscle.

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 amusing how quickly the Bills shut down Trump’s cash pitch to partner with Terry and Kim Pegula, and financially speaking, it was the safest bet the franchise could have made. The Pegulas brought deep local roots, serious capital, and a proven commitment to Western New York. After making his fortune in oil and gas and selling the bulk of East Resources for $4.7 billion in 2010, Terry Pegula purchased the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres for $189 million in 2011, followed by the Bills in 2014. That investment paid off immensely.

Today, both franchises have seen their valuations skyrocket, with the Sabres reaching $750 million and the Bills holding 25th spot in NFL valuations at an astounding $5.95 billion. Yet, for Michaels, bringing up that high-stakes 2014 bidding war wasn’t just a random trip down memory lane.

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.