The Bills yesterday debuted the $130M renovations to Ralph Wilson Stadium, with "more room to walk, more natural light, more places to buy beer, [and] bigger better scoreboards," to the point where the venue "didn't feel like the same old place," according to Michelle Kearns of the BUFFALO NEWS. Fans at yesterday's home game against the Dolphins "talked about the good 'flow' from the new gates to the widened staircases and more open hallways" (BUFFALO NEWS, 9/15). In Rochester, Leo Roth writes the renovation "has the old girl shining like a new penny," and has given prospective team Owner Terry Pegula "a lot to think about in terms of moving into a new billion-dollar playground" (ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE, 9/15). Roth writes yesterday's home opener "holds a special place in history all its own." It marked the "first time we are witness to a Bills front office, coaching staff and roster playing for their futures outside of Year 3 of the usual failed rebuilding process" (ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE, 9/15).
REASONS TO CELEBRATE: In Buffalo, Mark Gaughan notes the Bills before the game unveiled late Owner Ralph Wilson Jr.’s name "in gold letters on their Wall of Fame." The sellout crowd also "showed its love" for Pro Football HOFer Jim Kelly in "an emotional ceremony." All other names on the Wall of Fame "remain in black" (BUFFALO NEWS, 9/15). Also in Buffalo, Jerry Sullivan notes yesterday's game was the first regular-season home game since Wilson’s death, and the team "gave his widow, Mary, a Wall of Fame ring." Kelly, "cancer-free and full of his old vigor, addressed the crowd in the ceremony." But for fans, the knowledge that the Pegulas "had won the bid and would keep their treasured NFL franchise in Buffalo took things to a new level." It was an "emotional cyclone, one that began gathering steam ... last Tuesday and kept building right up until kickoff and beyond." Bills President & CEO Russ Brandon said, "It was a different vibe, a different feel." Sullivan: "You couldn’t have asked for a better end to an amazing week. The community was at an emotional peak because the team isn’t leaving town." Whatever happens, people "will remember this game, and this week, for years to come" (BUFFALO NEWS, 9/15). Meanwhile, NBC's Luke Russert in a special for THE MMQB wrote he "cried" when he heard last week Pegula was selected to buy the Bills "because I finally knew something that I loved so much, cared about so deeply, could never be taken away." Russert: "In recent years, Buffalo hasn't had much to believe in. ... For Buffalo, the Bills are the reason to believe" (MMQB.SI.com, 9/12).
DETAILS BEHIND THE BIDDING: CBSSPORTS.com's Jason La Canfora reported there were "at least four, and possibly, five groups who submitted bids to purchase the Bills from the Wilson trust, but with the process being fast-tracked and the Pegula family the clear favorites, that bid won out quickly." Pegula "is in the process of divesting himself" from Five-Star Athlete Management. That is a transaction that "is set to be completed before the NFL's finance committee reviews the sale in advance of it being presented to the owners" (CBSSPORTS.com, 9/14). QMI AGENCY's John Kryk cited a source as saying that in "formal written submissions, rocker Jon Bon Jovi and his bid partners always stopped short of promising the Ralph Wilson trust they would not move" the Bills to Toronto. The source said of whether Bon Jovi signed a waiver pledging to keep the team in Western New York, "Absolutely not. At most, he would have only signed a pledge that he would not move the team until 2020 or 2023, when the lease terms are up." Kryk wrote the pledge "might seem to suffice" if the goal was to keep the team in Buffalo, but "parse it out and you see the clever, subtly evasive language." The Bills trust, Morgan Stanley, and Proskauer Rose, "immediately deduced as much, and demanded a more clearly expressed long-term commitment" (QMI AGENCY, 9/13). The N.Y. POST reported Pabst Brewing Company Owner C. Dean Metropoulos "was the mystery bidder" for the Bills. A source said that he "made a serious run at the Bills and a few weeks before final bids were due was confident of winning" (N.Y. POST, 9/14).
