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Buffalo politician: Why wouldn’t you renovate New Era Field


wppete

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1 hour ago, Seasons1992 said:

 

The Pegula's can simply grab the train horn from KeyBank Center and re-purpose it if they're going to keep it...........it's not like the Sabres are utilizing this currently.

 

1 hour ago, Mike in Horseheads said:

It's gently used

 

During a 10 game stretch in 2018 only... 

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3 hours ago, Captain Hindsight said:

More expensive tickets wont help that. 

 

I was on the fence of renewing this year because of cost. If PSL was required, id be out without a second thought

 

Don't take this the wrong way but if people think Bills tickets are too expensive now, can we even support an NFL team? 

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3 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Don't take this the wrong way but if people think Bills tickets are too expensive now, can we even support an NFL team? 

Nope, and the NFL isnt going to give any sympathy, because if that's their excuse why they cant do it, the NFL will just have them relocate the franchise to somewhere that can afford the average ticket price....

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54 minutes ago, simpleman said:

I remember someone here giving us the real reason the Pegula's want a new stadium. It is not about the stadium suitability,  the suitability of the stadium for the players or the game of football,  the fans,  or a better fan experience. It is all about profit. It is much, much harder psychologically to convince fans to pay a lot more to attend a game at a renovated stadium than it is to with a brand new one in a different location. If it is renovated one, it is easier for the fan to compare it to what they had in the old stadium.  The new stadium in a new location makes it easier to distract and confuse the fan about what is honestly a fair and reasonable cost to them to attend the game.

If our government stopped paying welfare to billionaires so they could make more money, there would be no conversation. We would get the best stadium for the best bang for the buck. A business would make the decision based on logic, not just say it really does not matter what the cost is. As the owner I get all the benefits, and someone else pays the costs. It is a win, win for the billionaires.

Of course it’s about profit. The NFL is a business, not a game. There is no distraction or confusion involved as far as fans go, though. It is about value or perceived value. The most important things in a potential new stadium are fewer seats ( limited supply creates demand) and climate control. That’s where the value is , real or perceived. Larger concourses or better bathrooms doesn’t mean much when the goal is to get the ticket prices up to around the league average instead of the basement. There is money that is staying home rather than go to a game in miserable weather. That’s the untapped market the Bills would like to tap into. They can’t really charge too much more than they currently are for the same seat in a modestly improved facility. There is really no mystery to this. They want to sell a better, more upscale and more expensive gameday experience. 

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13 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Don't take this the wrong way but if people think Bills tickets are too expensive now, can we even support an NFL team? 

Tickets are at welfare levels right now, and some current ticket holders are bound to be upset . Yes, the market can afford higher prices. A few slapdash renovations won’t give the Pegulas much pricing power to charge closer to average prices, though. 

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Whether we agree with the politicians, or not, as long as they hold the bonds, they hold most all of the cards.  Nothing much will happen till those bonds are more fully amortized.   While it's good to plan ahead on stadium options, it still seems a way off.

 

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8 minutes ago, Boatdrinks said:

Tickets are at welfare levels right now, and some current ticket holders are bound to be upset . Yes, the market can afford higher prices. A few slapdash renovations won’t give the Pegulas much pricing power to charge closer to average prices, though. 

 

@Kirby Jackson explained it clearly why owners want new venues. It's to jack prices. Kirby said you can't go to STH'er in the lower bowl 50 yard line and triple their price. But you could build a new stadium with a completely different seating configuration with huge price tags.

 

I live in NH and know several Patriots season ticket holders. When I told them what my seasons cost, they assumed that was per game.

Edited by PromoTheRobot
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28 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Don't take this the wrong way but if people think Bills tickets are too expensive now, can we even support an NFL team? 

Well I guess I should qualify that is for my own financial situation. Bought a house this year so it was a debate as to whether it was worth it.

 

Also have to factor in the time, parking, food ect when deciding if its worth it 

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2 minutes ago, Captain Hindsight said:

Well I guess I should qualify that is for my own financial situation. Bought a house this year so it was a debate as to whether it was worth it.

 

Also have to factor in the time, parking, food ect when deciding if its worth it 

 

It wasn't directed at you, I meant Bills fans in general. 

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I think Erie County officials are worried that sure, we have this brand new facility in downtown Buffalo but now we've got a massive white elephant of a stadium in Orchard Park that we'll have to likely spend money to demolish.  

 

I think a big factor in the decision is if you're going to spend nearly 1 billion dollars to build something, do you build *just* a football stadium or do you build a facility that can do more than that?

 

I think for the economics to work for everyone (owners and taxpayers) you are going to need to build a facility that generates revenue all year long and that's likely a fieldhouse of some sort with a lot less seats than the current stadium provides.  

 

Probably from the Erie County perspective, despite all the positives of a downtown Buffalo location, they'd probably like a new facility built next door to the old stadium and demolish the old stadium for parking so they don't have to foot that bill in the future.  

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9 minutes ago, dpberr said:

 

I think for the economics to work for everyone (owners and taxpayers) you are going to need to build a facility that generates revenue all year long and that's likely a fieldhouse of some sort with a lot less seats than the current stadium provides. 

We have discussed this at length here at TBD for many years. The fact is that there is no historic or future design plan that would ever justify itself economically as a revenue generator in WNY. There has never been a Football stadium built anywhere in the USA in modern history that has ever returned the taxpayers their investment in revenue or economic development returns. The economics will never work for the taxpayers no matter what design you use. Trickle down  economic benefits have always been and will be a purely political fantasy.

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5 minutes ago, simpleman said:

We have discussed this at length here at TBD for many years. The fact is that there is no historic or future design plan that would ever justify itself economically as a revenue generator in WNY. There has never been a Football stadium built anywhere in the USA in modern history that has ever returned the taxpayers their investment in revenue or economic development returns. The economics will never work for the taxpayers no matter what design you use. Trickle down  economic benefits have always been and will be a purely political fantasy.

That’s right. Pegs and Watkins could care less about the little people. 

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34 minutes ago, simpleman said:

We have discussed this at length here at TBD for many years. The fact is that there is no historic or future design plan that would ever justify itself economically as a revenue generator in WNY. There has never been a Football stadium built anywhere in the USA in modern history that has ever returned the taxpayers their investment in revenue or economic development returns. The economics will never work for the taxpayers no matter what design you use. Trickle down  economic benefits have always been and will be a purely political fantasy.

Everyone knows that. At least anyone who spends any time researching it.

 

It dose not mean this new stadium or renovation is not going to happen. It 100% will happen.

Then this stadium can join the long list of public projects and expenditures that do not return well on the investment. Like roads civic centers schools walmart supercenters etc etc...

 

selling bonds to fund large projects and sometimes very small ones also is a colossal waste of taxpayer money that only bankers appreciate as they make virtually no risk guaranteed profit from interest.

 

If only the founding fathers knew how mucked up this kind of spending was to become they would have enacted some language in our constitution either fed or state that require all spending to be not borrowed.

 

Make the gov't's save money and invest it in money making accounts and then can only spend that for the big projects. This would have made surplus budgets the absolute norm since this country started and fixed a lot of our financial problems.

 

EX: in my area a permanent 1% county sales tax hike was enacted to build a massive new jail and court rooms. Approx cost 50 million. Tax took in 12 mill a year. They then immediately sold 50 million in bonds that will take 30 years or so to pay off if they do not extend them like they usually do.

 

all they had to do was wait 3 years(probably less) or so until the tax had accumulated many millions and then hey guess what. No taxpayer money sucking bonds would have needed to be issued. They would have had plenty of money to pay cash for start of construction at about 2 or 3 years from sales tax start.

Edited by cba fan
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6 hours ago, Jpsredemption said:

No you must let the nfl strong arm you into building a multi billion dollar facility even though you sell out all your games, have a recently updated stadium, and have great sight lines from every angle. 

 

I'm with you, but they still need to add some heated areas for the non-club seat people to go warm up.    The snow game vs Indy was a crisis situation with literally nowhere to warm up the kids.  We had to leave early, and saw some high school kids in serious trouble with frostbite/hypothermia.  Even the bathrooms don't have heaters.

 

I know this is nitpicky, and I love New Era the way it is, just needs a few little add-ons.   I will say I love that Minny stadium though with all that glass it's like a greenhouse.

 

I think the idea is a downtown stadium would fill up the hotels and have other uses that would draw crowds and money to the area. 

I don't think Pegula would put many corporate suites in, knowing it's a lame way to watch a game and they're way overpriced.

 

 

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