Hamilton businessman David Braley bought the team on February 24, 1989, and he would eventually sell the team to a community-based group in 1992 due to continued poor attendance figures (Braley would later buy the B.C. Lions in 1997 and the Toronto Argonauts in 2010). Hamilton returned to the Grey Cup in 1989 (making their fifth appearance in the Grey Cup game in the 1980s), but were on the losing end of a 43–40 thriller to Saskatchewan. The 1990s began on a sour note for the team, missing the playoffs for the first time in back-to-back years under the Tiger-Cats banner. By 1994, the team was in grave jeopardy; with the Buffalo Bills then in the midst of their run of four consecutive Super Bowl appearances and the Toronto Argonauts contending for the Grey Cup, almost all of the football attention in the Hamilton area had been sucked toward those two teams and away from the Tiger-Cats. Fewer than 6,000 season tickets were sold, prompting a threat from the CFL Commissioner Larry Smith to revoke the franchise if they did not both double the ticket sales for 1995 and raise million in corporate sponsorship. Both thresholds were met and exceeded.