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Buffalo Bills pushing to expand brand north (and east)


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15 minutes ago, BringBackFergy said:

If Roger Goodell schedules games in London, Mexico City and Budapest Hungary, you can damn well predict Toronto will be in his sights within a few years....the only difference this time around will be other teams around the Great Lakes and North East will have to go up and play games (Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, NE, maybe even NY Jets and Giants).  It won't be a purely Buffalo Bills designated game.

 

 

Goodell doesn't schedule overseas games.  If teams play there, it's because Terry and Jerry and Bobby want them to.

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I've seen a trend over the last 10 years of Bills fans taking over upstate (north of Syracuse). 

A few potential causes: 

1) The kids of the Super Bowl years now have children that are old enough to be interested and care.
2) The Jets and  Giants moved their training camp from Albany and Cortland to NJ

3) Bills Mafia - In a world of "social media and influencers" the tailgate experience has become as much about being a Bills fan as the game itself (for better or worse).
 

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1 hour ago, sir andrew said:

I gotta say, I was surprised how much Bills gear I saw when I was out in Albany last month.  Of course, having the Jets and Giants both be terrible probably helps matters.

About time...I’m from Albany and for years all they sold was jets and giants gear...ridiculous!

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3 minutes ago, DasNootz said:

I've seen a trend over the last 10 years of Bills fans taking over upstate (north of Syracuse). 

A few potential causes: 

1) The kids of the Super Bowl years now have children that are old enough to be interested and care.
2) The Jets and  Giants moved their training camp from Albany and Cortland to NJ

3) Bills Mafia - In a world of "social media and influencers" the tailgate experience has become as much about being a Bills fan as the game itself (for better or worse).
 

  I don't know about Bills Mafia but your other points are salient.  The Jets in Cortland was always about another drop in the bucket for their marketing but yet it put a stain on the Bills' ambitions.  Area media talked about the Jets because they had nothing else to fill the time in the news/sports cast and now the Jets are treated as outsiders if mentioned at all.

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15 minutes ago, SlimShady'sGhost said:

I was joking ...  but crap...  

 

maybe I should send that in to the Bills FO and ask for some sort of kick back 

 

 

Let's say you sit where STs are $400. If someone buys 8 regular season games at $49 they are playing less that STHers.

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The one thing in the video that the guy got wrong:  It is much easier for someone in Albany to go to MetLife stadium than to New Era stadium.  The drive is about half the distance and even the ticket prices aren't much different.  I went to the Bills 1st 2 games in NJ.  I'm going to the Eagles game this Sunday.  Because of the demand, the game in Buffalo will cost me more than either of the 2 games I went to in NJ & those were both teams' home openers.  

8 minutes ago, JaCrispy said:

About time...I’m from Albany and for years all they sold was jets and giants gear...ridiculous!

You've been going to the wrong stores.  Yes the big chains like Dick's (properly named) don't sell Bills stuff, but the smaller ones do.  Last year I went to Crossgates & couldn't get a Josh Allen jersey at Dick's, but there was a smaller store in the mall that had the Allen jersey that I bought.  

Edited by Albany,n.y.
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That's all fine, as long as we remain the Buffalo Bills. 

 

So tired of suffering all the "hanger on" NE fans who are from some amorphous area known as New England., but nowhere near Boston.  Maine comes to mind.   Remember a saying that if the USA was colonized from W to E, NE would be unoccupied wilderness.

 

Lived in Seattle for 20 years and they were always trying to attract fans from BC and Alaska.  By the time you buy game tickets, travel, eat, stay etc.,  that's some serious $$ to attend a game that's often televised at home. 

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you dont need to win over Toronto fans, in order to have a good following in Canada.  Toronto is a crappy football city imo, the last Argos game had like 10K at BMO field  (which is a nice cozy stadium, easy to get to etc)...yeah the Argos suck this year but still

 

There's a LOT of football fans in the rest of southern Ontario and Quebec

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2 minutes ago, SlimShady'sGhost said:

 

I was in Rachacha last month and I gagged when I saw Patriots gear in Wegmans (I can only assume the Bills gear sold out) 

  That's for the Anti-Bills fans who habituate Rochester.  Back in the 1980's and 1990's these same people were wearing Dolphins gear.  

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28 minutes ago, Formerly Allan in MD said:

You want to expand your brand to places like Albany, play a preseason game there.  Perhaps the following year as well to enhance familiarity and solidify the brand.

There's no place to play one.  The college stadiums are all way too small.  

 

In the 1990s there was a train that went across the state for some Bills home games (The Bills Express), starting in Rensselaer and stopping in Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, & Rochester.   It would arrive in Depew & fans would be bused to Orchard Park.  There was even talk of adding a train station in OP for game day fans to arrive by train.  As the Bills stopped making the playoffs, the train attendance went down to the point it was not economically feasible to continue operating it.  I remember being on one of the last train rides.  The train only had 2 cars.  When I arrived at the Schenectady station to wait for the train nobody else was there.  Eventually a few more people showed up before the train arrived, but it was pretty obvious that the Bills bandwagon had slowed quite a bit in the Capital District.  

 

We still have the 3rd biggest following behind the Giants (clearly #1) and the Jets.  The good news is no matter how successful they are, the Patriots have never been able to pass the Bills in popularity in our area.  That's probably because NE is in a different state so there aren't any state employee transfers from Massachusetts to Albany as there are from parts of WNY & because of SUNY & other colleges the odds are a lot better that some WNY students came here to go to school & stayed in our area while others went to college in WNY before ending up in Albany.  

 

 

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     Around 2005, I was working in Brockville, Ont.  One of the guys I was working with was a big Bills fan.  He said every year they get a bus together and go to a Bills home game.  I have lost touch with the guy, so I don't know if they still do that, but Brockville to Buffalo is one long haul.

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13 minutes ago, Albany,n.y. said:

There's no place to play one.  The college stadiums are all way too small.  

 

In the 1990s there was a train that went across the state for some Bills home games (The Bills Express), starting in Rensselaer and stopping in Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, & Rochester.   It would arrive in Depew & fans would be bused to Orchard Park.  There was even talk of adding a train station in OP for game day fans to arrive by train.  As the Bills stopped making the playoffs, the train attendance went down to the point it was not economically feasible to continue operating it.  I remember being on one of the last train rides.  The train only had 2 cars.  When I arrived at the Schenectady station to wait for the train nobody else was there.  Eventually a few more people showed up before the train arrived, but it was pretty obvious that the Bills bandwagon had slowed quite a bit in the Capital District.  

 

We still have the 3rd biggest following behind the Giants (clearly #1) and the Jets.  The good news is no matter how successful they are, the Patriots have never been able to pass the Bills in popularity in our area.  That's probably because NE is in a different state so there aren't any state employee transfers from Massachusetts to Albany as there are from parts of WNY & because of SUNY & other colleges the odds are a lot better that some WNY students came here to go to school & stayed in our area while others went to college in WNY before ending up in Albany.  

 

 

That's cool.  Was it still through Amtrak or was it a private organization?  I wonder if they would consider starting that up again, especially if the new stadium goes downtown, closer to the station. 

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13 minutes ago, sir andrew said:

That's cool.  Was it still through Amtrak or was it a private organization?  I wonder if they would consider starting that up again, especially if the new stadium goes downtown, closer to the station. 

It was Amtrak.  Here's something from 1997 (It failed to mention the stops in Schenectady & Utica).  The trains ended in the early 2000s.   On one trip some guys who got on in Albany (Actually Rensselaer)  created so much trouble they got kicked off in Utica on the return ride & got arrested with the cops waiting for them as we pulled into Utica.,  https://buffalonews.com/1997/06/28/bills-schedule-five-amtrak-express-games/

 

The Buffalo Bills have announced five home games for "The Buffalo Bills Express," an Amtrak train bringing fans from Eastern New York into Buffalo for Bills' home games in 1997.

The games are: Aug. 31 vs. the Minnesota Vikings; Oct. 5 vs. the Detroit Lions; Oct. 26 vs. the Denver Broncos; Nov. 2 vs. the Miami Dolphins and Dec. 14 vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars.

All are Sunday afternoon games beginning at 1 p.m.

The train, which begins its round-trip journey in Albany at 6 a.m., will depart from Syracuse at 8:30, and Rochester at 9:50 before arriving in Amtrak's Depew station at 11. From Depew, the registered passengers will board 22 buses that will transport them directly to Rich Stadium in Orchard Park. Buses will depart from the stadium 40 minutes after the game ends. Upon arrival in Depew, the train will begin boarding for immediate departure.

The cost of the round-trip tickets, as well as one game ticket in Section A-Club Level is $75. A train ticket only will cost $38.

Edited by Albany,n.y.
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“Pegula Sports entertainment “ it’s what they do, they have invested a sheite load of money in this endeavor, and they want to grow it, so there is an appropriate amount of return on the dollar. And where the hell else are they going to push their products???  To say it’s obvious is a huge understatement to say the least.

 

Go Bills!!!

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