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I generally hate this guy cuz hes a Pats fan, but this is a great read on why a new-fangled stadium, such as the one some fans think we need here, would simply continue the trend that is killing the camaraderie that is an NFL game experience.
for those of you who dont want to read the whole thing, here's the Bills-related part:
"That brewing disenfranchisement keeps popping up at these home games. You can not hear it, if that makes sense. And not just in New England. Thirteen teams have built SOTAS (state-of-the-art stadiums) since 1999; 14 if you include Daniel Snyder's overhauling of FedEx Field in 2004. Each stadium follows a similar let's-rake-in-the-cash blueprint. The first section of seats hug the field. At the top of those sections, the club seats start. That's followed by a phalanx of premium luxury suites. More luxury suites dominate the second section. And the majority of blue-collar fans are crammed into the upper decks. Fundamentally, it's a flawed way to cultivate a home-field advantage; beyond the emotional compromises and festering resentment of the blue-collar fans, the newer stadiums don't reverberate noise the same. Look at Lambeau or Ralph Wilson Stadium -- just rows and rows of fans, one after the other, rising for something like 75 rows before you hit your first luxury box. Watching the Browns-Bills game Monday night, I found myself enjoying the fans as much as the contest itself. Now this was football!
Of course, Buffalo "needs" to build a new stadium to bank that suite money and "compete" with bigger teams. That's what owner Ralph Wilson says. He snookered outsiders like me with that argument until I made a few Toronto jokes and Buffalo fans graciously educated me on what was really happening. They want to purchase the team in a public trust and keep the stadium as is, like how the good people of Wisconsin own the Packers, but the NFL passed rules years ago preventing that from ever happening again. Why? So its owners could sell their franchises for the highest dollar, and so they could bilk their fans for new stadiums without them saying, "Wait, why can't we just keep the old one?" It's Economics 101 and one of the reasons that the fan/team dynamic can be so indefensibly one-sided and discouraging. We care about them; they don't care about us. In a perfect world, Wilson would sell the Bills to the locals and everyone would be happy. In the real world, the Bills will probably move to Toronto some day and play in -- you guessed it! -- a SOTAS that looks like every other SOTAS."
for those of you who dont want to read the whole thing, here's the Bills-related part:
"That brewing disenfranchisement keeps popping up at these home games. You can not hear it, if that makes sense. And not just in New England. Thirteen teams have built SOTAS (state-of-the-art stadiums) since 1999; 14 if you include Daniel Snyder's overhauling of FedEx Field in 2004. Each stadium follows a similar let's-rake-in-the-cash blueprint. The first section of seats hug the field. At the top of those sections, the club seats start. That's followed by a phalanx of premium luxury suites. More luxury suites dominate the second section. And the majority of blue-collar fans are crammed into the upper decks. Fundamentally, it's a flawed way to cultivate a home-field advantage; beyond the emotional compromises and festering resentment of the blue-collar fans, the newer stadiums don't reverberate noise the same. Look at Lambeau or Ralph Wilson Stadium -- just rows and rows of fans, one after the other, rising for something like 75 rows before you hit your first luxury box. Watching the Browns-Bills game Monday night, I found myself enjoying the fans as much as the contest itself. Now this was football!
Of course, Buffalo "needs" to build a new stadium to bank that suite money and "compete" with bigger teams. That's what owner Ralph Wilson says. He snookered outsiders like me with that argument until I made a few Toronto jokes and Buffalo fans graciously educated me on what was really happening. They want to purchase the team in a public trust and keep the stadium as is, like how the good people of Wisconsin own the Packers, but the NFL passed rules years ago preventing that from ever happening again. Why? So its owners could sell their franchises for the highest dollar, and so they could bilk their fans for new stadiums without them saying, "Wait, why can't we just keep the old one?" It's Economics 101 and one of the reasons that the fan/team dynamic can be so indefensibly one-sided and discouraging. We care about them; they don't care about us. In a perfect world, Wilson would sell the Bills to the locals and everyone would be happy. In the real world, the Bills will probably move to Toronto some day and play in -- you guessed it! -- a SOTAS that looks like every other SOTAS."
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