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Decision on future home next up for new owners

With relocation worries erased thanks to Terry Pegula, Buffalo Bills fans now can daydream about whether a new owner means a new venue for one of the NFL’s smallest markets, even with a $130 million renovation to 41-year-old Ralph Wilson Stadium just completed.

The recent facelift added personality and fan amenities to a facility that didn’t have many by current standards. Eight entrance gates were reduced to six and the new gates are nearly double in size. The gates also were moved away from the stadium, allowing an additional 100,000 feet of fan space and giving a feeling of a “concourse” outside the stadium.

It might be One Buffalo, but fans are divided on whether they want a new stadium to replace the team’s longtime home in Orchard Park.
Photo by: TERRY LEFTON / STAFF
There are new video display boards, additional LED signage, and a new team store that will be open year-round and, at 8,000 square feet, is four times as large as its predecessor.

Inside, crowd flow has improved and there are more bathrooms and an improved mix of food and beverages, including a huge Coors Light sports bar. Local flavor was added in the form of regional food offerings. Concessions now sell local hits like beef on weck and bear the names of Buffalo favorites like La Nova

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Pizzeria, Tim Hortons and Duff’s Famous Wings.

“You couldn’t buy a chicken wing in here until a year ago,” mused Bills President Russ Brandon. “That was crazy.”

Erie County helped fund the improvements, along with the team and New York state, and packaged with that agreement was a new 10-year lease.

“There was a lot of nervous energy in the area about our lease coming up and the actuarial clock on Ralph [Wilson],” Brandon acknowledged. “The [new] lease gave us some certainty.”

The Bills are in the second year of that 10-year lease with Erie County, but talk of a new venue is an underlying theme around all conversations of the team’s future. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in May that the team needed a new stadium, calling the renovations and the associated lease a short-term solution.

Pegula has been careful to say little about prospects for a new stadium other than he believes there will be one. Brandon’s view is that the team now has the time it needs.

“What we have now is the beauty of time to make a very informed decision on what the best stadium solution is down the road on a new, renovated or retrofitted facility,” Brandon said.

With the new lease, an advisory stadium working group was formed to explore the possibilities of a new facility in Erie County or a full-scale renovation of Ralph Wilson Stadium.

“It’s something that needs to be looked at,” Brandon said. “Over the years, we have called ourselves serial renovators — going back to 1998 and 1999, when we first put in club seats.”

The committee includes seven members each from New York state, the county and the Bills. Pegula has now joined the group, which has met once, in May. The state has hired California architectural and planning firm AECOM to suggest potential sites. A report from AECOM originally was due in July, but it has not been completed.

Since Pegula is developing a $172 million mixed-use complex downtown, there are those who consider a stadium there automatic and appealing as a central, urban sports and entertainment hub. But Brandon and others caution that Orchard Park, home to the current stadium, will remain an option for some time, as downtown football facilities can be challenging because of the footprint required and the relatively few dates necessary to host an NFL team.

“There’s very divided feelings up here as far as a new stadium,” said John Cimperman, principal of Cenergy Marketing in East Aurora, N.Y., and a former marketing executive for Adelphia Communications and the Sabres. “The neighborhood around Ralph Wilson has one of the most active tailgating scenes in the NFL [Brandon calls it “a religious experience”], so there’s fear from fans about what would happen there. Still, Buffalo’s Convention Center is antiquated and if you look at what Indianapolis, a similar-sized city, has done by integrating a football stadium with a convention center, downtown could make sense.”

It’s doubtful a new stadium can be built without public money, so others feel that a downtown site would be more likely to attract that sort of funding.

Beyond the glitter of downtown development, Orchard Park remains of interest because the team already outperforms its market size in sponsorship revenue. While Buffalo is one of the league’s smallest markets, it is often in or near the third quartile in the league of sponsorship revenue.

Bruce Popko, the Bills’ chief revenue officer, anticipates a double-digit sponsorship revenue increase from the most recent renovation (including low- to mid-six-figure naming rights for each of the new gates) and perhaps as much as a 30 percent to 40 percent sales increase from the new team store. There’s also a thought that new advertising signage will allow the team to be more aggressive on pricing after this season.

“Obviously, we’re a long way from even a site selection,” Popko cautioned. “Weighing it now, there’s a lot to be said for building in an environment close to other things going on [downtown] and being part of a new wave of development. You’ve seen that work with stadiums in other cities. But I will say the yield we get out of this space is strong relative to market size, and it probably always will be.”

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