I’ve gotten used to wading through a lot of weird and badly reported stadium news, but this headline yesterday from Buffalo’s soft-rock WTSS-FM straight-up baffled me:
Buffalo Bills Fans Can Own a Piece of New Stadium
Umm, what? The new Bills stadium will be owned by the state of New York, will be paid for overwhelmingly by state and county taxpayers, and will have pretty much all of its revenue streams (including naming rights) go to Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula. Something is off here — there’s a link to a Buffalo News story, that’s not too promising, but maybe it’ll at least shed a little light:
For one day only, the Erie County Comptroller’s Office will make “Bills bonds” available for Western New Yorkers, Bills fans and other “small investors” to purchase on the retail market.
Okay, so in fact Bills fans cannot own any part of the new stadium — but they will be able to, for a minimum of $5,000, buy a piece of the stadium’s debt. Then they’ll get the money repaid, with interest, by the county, which will use tax money that otherwise would belong to them, Erie County residents. It’s like an isoceles triangle!
This doesn’t really do anything to help the Bills stadium get built: If small investors didn’t buy the bonds, big ones would. So it’s really just a marketing gimmick to make fans feel like they’re a part of the team, even though when they invest in the regular bond market they don’t feel like part owners of, say, the New York State Thruway. Hopefully they’ll at least get a nice certificate, suitable for framing, ideally with this image of giant mega-bison on it.
I once owned a deed to a square inch of land in Yukon country. Quaker Oats was giving them away in cereal boxes as a promotion for a show they sponsored, “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.”
At least that didn’t cost me anything other than the cost of the cereal, and as I was ten years old.
And that did me more good than this purchase would…even if the deed was invalidated when the company stopped paying taxes on it.