wmj
April 3, 2024, 1:23pm
6
No, I did not take a position on it one way or another. I did say that my heart wants the team to stay there, but I did not say that I favor spending the money for the new stadium. I did say that if they did not put up the money they did they would have lost the team. That is a fact.
Here is my first post on the subject:
…and the public will pay for most of it. Realistically, that was the only way to keep the team in Western New York, and New York State and Erie County made that decision.
Here is one take from a retired sports writer who covered the Bills for many years. That no doubt affects his opinion.
And, here is a totally different take from another writer. She makes some good points but also goes off on a few irrelevant tangents. I mentioned in another thread that she has an axe to grind.
Here is one snippet from that discussion:
No, I don’t. The stadium will not even be in downtown Buffalo itself but in Orchard Park next to the current one. Nobody seriously believes it will generate any more economic activity in that area.
I gave an earlier link in this thread from the sports writer who covered the Bills and said how he thought it was a win-win deal. Even he did not argue economic benefit but rather all of of the non-economic ways the community benefits from the team. You can read it to see all of his points, and I hear many others say the same thing.
If having the Buffalo Bills as an NFL franchise is important to that community, that community had better be prepared to pony up for a stadium to keep it. If they do not want to pony up, they had better be prepared to lose the franchise. The State of New York and Erie County have made their decision on this.
Like I said, whether that is a wise decision or bad one is open for debate. However, it was not practical to say that no public funds should be spent and that Pegula should pay for the stadium himself. For the reasons I said earlier that was not going to happen.