While speaking to reporters ahead of Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles on Wednesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he's encouraged by the progress that's been made on a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills. However, he made it clear that the team has to have a new stadium soon.
"Well, I’m encouraged by the progress that’s being made both at the state level and county level and with the club," Goodell said. "We have been involved in a lot of those discussions. The governor has stepped into a very difficult challenge because when she came into office not only is the lease up in another year, but the stadium has been studied by experts and it’s reaching the useful life of that stadium. It probably has no more than five years, according to many of those studies. The bottom line on it is, we have to get a new stadium in Buffalo. The governor has recognized that."
The team, county, and state have been in negotiations for several months about a new stadium. The Bills have said they will not continue to play at their current home of Highmark Stadium after the current lease expires, unless there is a deal in place and the team needs to play there until the new stadium is built.
The Bills have proposed building a new open-air stadium directly across the street from Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said back in December that the state is agreeable to the team's preference for an Orchard Park location.
Goodell did not elaborate on those negotiations, nor specifically how a stadium will be funded.
"It’s got to be a public-private partnership," he said. "All parties are going to have to work together. That means the state, the county, the team, and the NFL to be able to achieve that. She’s shown great leadership in bringing the parties together, looking how to do that. We have shared as much as we can with all parties. But there’s a lot to negotiate here, not just how this is done but also the lease. So I’m not disappointed in the timing, necessarily. I’m more interested in making sure that we balance everything fairly and we put ourselves in the best position of really giving the fans what they deserve in Western New York, which is a stadium that’s new and that can serve the purposes of that community for several decades.
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