Buffalo Bills ownership held an open practice on Sunday to show off their new $2.1 billion stadium (public cost: $1 billion and change), and it did not go well:
Other Bills fans pointed out that many of the new stadium’s seats are not obstructed, but that didn’t do much to quell the online furor, especially after Buffalo residents had to both help pay to build the thing with state and county tax dollars and then cough up for personal seat licenses, only to discover that the designers appeared to have paid somewhat less attention to detail than your average Minecraft stadium builder.
After the Sunday evening newscasts were full of photos like the above, Bills president of business operations Pete Guelli told reporters on Monday, “So far, we’ve heard from less than 1 percent of our PSL holders about anything sight line related,” and also that “seats with truly obstructed views have not been sold as a PSL or for any football games,” which would make just under 1% of fans still griping seem pretty bad, actually. Guelli said some of these seats might only be sold for concerts that take place only at one end of the field, but it’s kind of hard to imagine what that bottom-right image would be good for a ticket to, unless it’s a band you desperately don’t want to see.
Guelli went on to say that complaints would be addressed “on a case-by-case basis,” which presumably means if you complain enough, they’ll try to move you to seats where you can actually see the game. Still, it’s hard not to notice that the Bills had a perfectly good stadium right next door that offered 11,000 more seats, significantly fewer of which faced onto concrete, even if it didn’t feature as many ways to sell you food. In the end, enshittification comes for us all.
Just looking at the pictures, it’s sad what $2 billion gets you nowadays.
“Other Bills fans pointed out that many of the new stadium’s seats are not obstructed.”
Well, look, man, you still have MOST of your limbs, what are you complaining about?
You spent $2B+ on a stadium. It should have NO obstructed seats. Those. Aren’t. Seats.
Also, I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. These people and their jumping on tables and insisting they wanted a new stadium and then realizing that they would ACTUALLY have to pay more to watch their team not win a championship….well, again. This makes me happy.
Exactly. They all knew that the new stadium was being built solely to extract more money from each of them every time they walk through the turnstiles.
Be careful what you wish for. And if you really don’t like your new seats, sell them. And don’t go.
Do you wanna protest or do you just wanna whine?
And those fans will pay a surtax every time they buy food, drinks, souvenirs, or team apparel inside this government-funded sportsball palace.
https://www.wkbw.com/sports/buffalo-bills/fans-will-pay-an-extra-6-on-purchases-inside-new-buffalo-bills-stadium
Some of that will come out of the Pegulas’ pockets, since they won’t be able to raise prices as much as they would otherwise. Not all of it, though.
Indeed as an amputee it would be like telling me those new legs will be better than your old existing legs and we guarantee it but give us 30k for your new legs rather than those old ratty ones that you lost because of health issues.
That in essence what this shiny new Bills Stadium is. The had a pretty good stadium that they could have at least massively renovated over 3 to 4 years and improved it for far less than 2.1 billion for the new edifice. But we got to have something new even though the taxpayers get hammered for it. Because its more important to build new NFL Stadiums that get 10 games and 20 concerts a year at most probably than keeping senior citizens and productive members of the community in their homes.
Its another reason why I chose to remain a semi rural America outside of a major hub city like Indianapolis in my state or Louisville in Kentucky or Cincinnati about 100 miles from here. We don’t pay for the crap that these meatheads of the big cities want the taxpayers to give 500 million or 1 billion or more for a stadium payoff to keep a team. I’m happy support my state college teams even though they are expanding their reach as well but then again I am not giving a billionaire owner my money. I just refuse at this point and can always find something else to watch on Sunday afternoons or Monday evenings or even Thursday. I’ve been watching the NFL since 4 years old in the late 1970s with the Dallas Cowboys but anymore I could generally care less about professional sports. My last real holdout is the White Sox as a lifetime fan and never know that might wane too in my 50s and 60s and 70s into 80s if I live thatl ong. Its extremely absurd to give billions to owners or war mongers in a country that is 40 trillion in debt that is owned by the public. Insanity is what it is.
“This stadium has some terrible sight lines. We want billions for a new stadium to be built immediately.”
-The Owners (probably)
What is warranty/exchange policy for a stadium?
I don’t see the problem.
The paying fans don’t matter to the NFL or to the Pegulas specifically.
They didn’t even want a new stadium. The NFL wanted it for them. It was never about anything but the league as a whole extracting more money from taxpayers (primarily) and football fans in Buffalo (very much secondary).
That’s why they built a new stadium that had 11,000 fewer seats than the last one (which sold out on a regular basis). What do you not understand about this relationship, folks?
Fans, when are you going to understand that this is NEVER about you? Just keep lobbing your hard earned dollars over the fence no matter what they do to you.
As KT noted above, these are the same people who do swan dives into burning tables and refer to it as “passion for the team.” Sports fanbases, and specifically NFL fanbases, tend to have huge main character energies. If there was an NFL ranking specifically for that, Bills fans may be runaway winners for the No. 1 spot — yes, even ahead of the Cowboys, the Seahawks, the Eagles etc.
The interesting part of that is that Bills fans are the biggest what they call Bills Mafia while in their region its one of the poorest urban areas in New York in Buffalo region. No slight on the people of Buffalo and Western New York at all. I’ve known some wonderful people from there but the taxpayers there are getting hosed in a place that has increasing numbers of impoverished and unemployed and underemployed residents. I know a college professor in Indiana years ago came out of Buffalo in the 1980s because he knew he had to get an education and move out of the area because Buffalo and Western New York were increasingly deindustrialized and less and less opportunity existed there. This is what I don’t understand about these Bills fans is that they are being hosed over and over the years and now you have the Pegulas making money hand over fist as well as the NFL and getting Kathy Hochul on board because Buffalo needs a new NFL stadium for 10 games a year max and then maybe 15 to 20 concerts and that might be generous for a place with 60,108 seats. The old Rich Stadium/New Era etc at one time had 80,000 seats. Now they move to a stadium that has 60k which is smaller than the old RCA Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis from 1984 to 2007. It had 61,000 seats and a inflatable roof. I also don’t see the NCAA Final Four or other big events heading to Buffalo either because there is no state team that is really a national powerhouse other than Syracuse which is some distance away.
I assume that those seats with 50% less view of the field will come with a 50% reduction in the PSL fee?
(LOL)
Sheesh. That’s pure malpractice to not avoid obstructed views when building a new stadium. Anyone who knows how to use the software that architects and contractors have could have simulated the obstructed views seen in the photos above.