Man, Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula really doesn’t want to talk about building a new stadium, no matter how many times NFL commissioner Roger Goodell encourages him to, does he? Pegula was asked about it again yesterday on WGR radio, and here’s the sum total of his responses, as reported by ESPN:
“We’ll look into that,” Pegula told WGR 550. “We’re a different market than [Los Angeles], right?”…
“I think they think we need a new stadium, that’s where they’re coming from,” Pegula said Wednesday of the owners’ comments. “You listen to that and you make your own judgment. Our stadium is one of the older venues in the league, if not the oldest.”…
“We’re not going to make any hasty decisions,” Pegula stressed Wednesday. “We’re evaluating.”
That’s a whole lot of “we’ll get to it when we get to it.” Either Pegula has an admirable distaste for demanding new stadiums for no better reason than because he can (yes, Ralph Wilson Stadium is among the oldest in the NFL, but it just got more than $200 million in renovations, funded by New York state taxpayers), or he’s just biding his time and waiting for the right moment to ask for new-stadium cash. Either way, it’s really unusual behavior for a pro sports team owner, and we should probably cherish it while it lasts.
Not all renovated stadiums are created equal, I guess. If the league wants to leave Buffalo, why not just say so?
Miami can renovate their stadium, and everything is fine and dandy. Kansas City renovates their hopelessly outmoded stadium, and that is just fine and dandy.
Buffalo does the same thing, and they threaten to move the team anyway. Move them to where? Toronto? Please.
“Move them to where? Toronto? Please.”
London. Los Angeles. Las Vegas. San Antonio. A new stadium in Buffalo.
“If the league wants to leave Buffalo, why not just say so?”
Pretty sure the paying Bills customers & ticket holders would not appreciate that.
There’s always going to be a “worst stadium in the league” even if the worst stadium is pretty damn good. Even the “horrible no good atrocity of the Edward Jones Dome” had great sight lines, a solid roof, two large video screens, heating/AC, comfy seats and plenty of restrooms. It just lacked Hollywood glitz, a problem it shares with Buffalo.
Pegula is fiercely loyal to the City of Buffalo.
So never say never, but I don’t see him moving the team – at least in the short term.
Just ask Sabres fans what they think of him – he’s reached godlike status.
True, even after signing Erhoff the fans still love him…