Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Monday was a historic day for the Buffalo Bills and for the future of the organization in Western New York.
After months of talks and negotiations, the Bills, New York State, Erie County and the National Football League have all come to terms on a new stadium deal for the team, that also includes a 30-year lease agreement once the stadium is open for business starting with the 2026 season.
The stadium deal for the Bills will see a combined $550 million from the NFL and the team, which was approved on Monday by NFL owners. Meanwhile, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will advance a $600 million proposal in the state budget, while Erie County is set to contribute $250 million.
The overall total share of public financing from taxpayers in this deal adds up to 60.7% of the funding required to build the stadium in Orchard Park across the street from Highmark Stadium on Abbott Road.
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"It's a very reasonable deal for all parties to build a new stadium in Western New York, and have the Buffalo Bills play in that new stadium for, at least, 30 years," said Marc Ganis from Sportscorp Limited based out of Chicago. "This is reasonable proration for the size of the market, of the apportionment of the cost by the public sector and the private sector. It's going to be built on a site that doesn't displace anyone, which is also a benefit - it's where the fans are used to going - and when we get this new stadium built - I guess they're saying for the start of the 2026 season - I think it's going to wow the 'Bills Mafia.'"
As for what to expect for a new Bills stadium, it will be a 60,000-62,000-seat capacity stadium, open-air stadium, with 80% of the seating in the stadium protected from the elements. That element about this new stadium is partially what Ganis believes Bills will love about the new home of the team.
"The temperature and the conditions are still going to remain part of the 'Bills Mafia' lore, and will for generations to come," Ganis said. "It's going to be a fantastic building, and Bills fans are going to be amazed at what they see with lights, sound, the scoreboards and the interactivity for digital, as well as the premium areas for those people who would prefer those. So I think we're looking at something very, very special for Western New York and for Bills fans for generations to come."
Meanwhile, former managing partner of the Buffalo Sabres, Larry Quinn, has some past experience with negotiating a new facility for one of the local sports teams in Buffalo. He was part of talks when KeyBank Center in Downtown Buffalo was in development to eventually replace the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. He says Monday's deal for the Bills was what he thought it was going to be, and he's happy to see it.
"It seems like what seemed apparent this summer is happening, so that's really good news," Quinn said. "I expected the league to use their mechanism for financing. ... The only thing I find surprising is I'm surprised that Erie County is putting in so much money. I guess that would be the thing that could, sort of, surprise me a little bit."
Ganis knows it needed a complete team effort for this stadium deal to get done in the timeframe that it did. From the commitment made by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, to Gov. Hochul, to Erie County Executive Poloncarz and to Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula, all of that was necessary for this to come together.
"People should consider themselves to be very fortunate," Quinn said on the commitment from all four parties. "As I said before, the National Football League is an international operation of a very big size. I think if you started with a clean sheet of paper, I think it would be very difficult for Buffalo to participate in that. So to be able to do this and secure [the team], it's a major thing for the area, a really major thing."
While the new Bills stadium is expected to be an open-air stadium with up to 62,000 seats available, as many fans in Western New York know, it is the experience of a game that makes every Sunday its own unique experience. With plans coming together for the new stadium down the road, Ganis makes a suggestion for Bills fans as to which stadium may be most comparable to what we could see built in Orchard Park.
"Look at some video of the NFL games in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London," Ganis recommended. "I've been there for multiple NFL games, that stadium uses light and sound and the compactness of the stance in ways that really create an excitement that you just can't have an open-air stadium, certainly not a 50-year-old open-air stadium, typically one that's open to the sky and that kind of thing. The sound is going to reverberate, the lighting will be exciting and will be programmed. I think it's going to add tremendously to the Bills games for their current fans and for the younger fans, who are used to having more of that kind of multi-dimensional sights and sounds, and have, as we now have known, shorter attention spans, so you've got to keep their interest. It's going to be really exciting to see that in Buffalo. I think people are going to just love it... you'll see what I think you're going to see in 2026 in Buffalo."
So what's next for the stadium deal now that it has been formally announced and plans are in motion to get construction underway?
First thing's first, the deal still has to get approved by the State and County Legislatures, especially with the state budget due this coming Friday. As Ganis put it in football terms, Gov. Hochul is at the one-yard line and has got to bring the ball over the goal line to score the touchdown.
Once that finally happens, then comes the tremendous amount of paperwork that needs to be finalized.
"This is a Memorandum of Understanding, it's a set of terms. This has to get reduce - it's the absolute wrong word, but it's the term of art - into a development agreement, a financing agreement, and a lease agreement. The long forms are going to take quite a while," Ganis explained. "I believe Populous has been announced as the firm that they're going to use. Populous will get heavily engaged and involved in first what the building will look like and the scope of it. Then, once all that's been decided, there'll be lots of choices for Kim and Terry Pegula to make. Once that gets decided, then they will be creating literally thousands of big pages of blueprints, and and then hundreds of pages of project scope. Everything from the type of scoreboard that will be in there, to the type of grout that will be used for the tile. All of that has to get scoped out, specked out, and then go out for bid to contractors. A general contractor, typically, to get a guaranteed maximum price that can be bonded. And then is when you start construction. It's a lot of work that has to get done, a lot of pre-development work, pre-construction work that is still to go."
And while the team goes to work with getting a design in place and other factors to make its stadium that's "Built for Buffalo," "the fans are likely going to get involved in some way. This could include some fans seeing renderings of a new stadium, while others may be part of focus groups to give the Bills fan input on any ideas.
"Then they'll start to do things like selected marketing to see what pricings for seat licenses, suites, club seats, things of that nature, and then they will start marketing, the PSLs, the seats, the suites and the club seats in the building," Ganis continued. "So there's a lot to happen. This is not a one day story. This is actually the beginning. This is still the first quarter, but it was a necessary first quarter to keep things moving forward and get it done. But it's still in the first quarter of the amount of work that has to be done."