Kirby Jackson

Your options are “have an NFL team” and “do business as NFL teams do” or “not have an NFL team.” Those are the options. Cursing the system isn’t going to solve this issue. The demand, ratings and revenue that the NFL is getting now makes it more expensive to play. That’s what it IS. No one wants to pay an additional $40k to buy 2 seats that they have now. To some people it is worth it to continue attending Bills games. It’s not up to anyone else to tell someone what to do with their money. This is the system. You either get on board or your team ends up in LA or Vegas. They will.

I really don’t understand how the finances of this actually worked.

Welp, I’m shocked

Yep, that’s fair. Anyone paying attention could see this coming a decade ago. The reason that the Bills needed a new stadium instead of a refurb is that they couldn’t have the best locations paying a fraction of what others around the league pay for those same locations. I think that they went with the $15k PSLs there to not force everyone out. It will force a lot of them out but not the same way that $50k would have in that area. They split the baby a little there.

The club areas, all that we know right now, will be more corporate than it is now. Between the 40’s in the lower level will be a totally different demographic than is currently there. The rest of the stadium will be more regular fans.

Another factor that we really haven’t gone too deep on is the total club seat universe in the new stadium. @Rochesterfan correctly mentioned it. By my estimation, the current stadium has roughly 10,000 club seats. There are 19 sections of sideline clubs. I think that all sections are 15 rows and most have 30 seats. That’s roughly 8500. There is probably another 1500ish with indoor clubs (this number I’m less confident in but think it’s directionally accurate). If the clubs shrink at the same rate as the rest of the stadium, you’ll have a total of 1400ish less club seats. We have NO IDEA if this is the case or not. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds, more data points that the team, and Legends are using to gauge success beyond that 75% of 1.6% of the stadium. 😂😂 If it makes people sleep at night to say, “in a vacuum it’s predictable,” go for it. That’s not what the analytics folks at Legends and the Bills are doing. They’re analyzing all of the trends and data available to understand how it’s going and adjustments that need to be made (both up and down). As an example, seniority is the leading indicator of “likelihood to renew” in sports. It is a more important factor than team record. This stadium will almost certainly go against that. That’s not going to be surprising for the Bills. It was a goal of the Bills!! The pricing model was designed to “gentrify” the top locations. At what cost? We have no idea. We don’t have the information nor do we have a sense of what they want that number to be. No matter how many times one person comes here, pounding his fist on the table, saying definitively, that it isn’t going well, that doesn’t make it true. We won’t know for months / maybe even a year+ how this is going. The Bills and Legends have a WAY better idea than the general public because they can look at all of those other trends and factors that are a part of their model. The sample size though is far too small to have any concretes projections. They certainly don’t expect all pricing levels to sell at the same rate. Because the other levels haven’t been released, they won’t know if they were on or off the mark. Right now, they probably have a sense for the success/failure of the club seat rollout. We do not know that answer though. We MAY know more as they get through the other 85%-90% of club seat holders that still need to go. That’ll be up to the Bills and Legends as to how much information they’ll share and the manner in which they share it. Will they use fearmongering to sell more? That’s what we did when rumors of a move was out there. It felt dirty. It worked. Will they say that it exceeded their expectations to inflate a sense of scarcity? This might drive some people on the fence to commit to avoid missing out. So, so, so, so many factors at play here.

They don’t want to lose 25% of their season ticket base. Of course they don’t!! Who said that they do? What was said is that 75% of 1.6% of the stadium, in the most expensive areas, is not predictive of anything. The Bills may want those 500 seats (or whatever we are calling it) to leverage for way more. I think that the Senecas get 1,000 tickets per game and 100 to every Super Bowl (or something like that). The Bills can get all kinds of extra money creating other assets to attach to those. They’ll create their own scarcity. Those sponsorship deals will ALL be redone in the new stadium. You’re correct in saying that they exist now. You’re incorrect if you believe that the Bills are just going to roll forward their tickets without getting new assets sold.

Just to be clear, they don’t want to sell 100% of their available inventory to the public. There is a percentage (that we don’t know) of the premium tickets that the Bills will use as leverage to sell soft assets in the new stadium (ie signage, commercials, naming rights of clubs, etc).

Again, I don’t have anything to prove here. I feel an obligation to educate and stop misinformation. If I didn’t receive PMs and texts asking me to comment on the subject, I would’ve bowed out a long time ago and just let the hand-wringing continue. There’s a long track record on here of things that I said would happen, happening. Sometimes we get people that think that they know and understand WAY more than they actually do. They come in these threads spreading 1/2 truths without any real idea of the scope of the objectives. They take minimal information and form conclusions that aren’t accurate or without base. They then double down and triple down instead of quietly walking away. It’s okay to not understand. It’s not okay to parlay that lack of understanding into fearmongering. It’ll all play out in due time. At that point, you can come back here and tell everyone that “you were wrong” and that “you’ll do better next time.”

Because we have no idea what the Bills want out of that part (for starters). They may have wanted less than that. They also, almost certainly know, how many of those seats that they could sell new if they had the inventory. The % of the stadium is way too small to tell anything. Again, I’m not trying to be that guy but I’ve done this at that level. I have a master’s degree in sports management. I’m not trying to be condescending. I’m trying to tell you the reality of the situation and why sports business is different than other business. I work in insurance now. People aren’t emotionally attached to their insurance policies. Sports numbers do not trend like other businesses for that reason. They also have different objectives than to sell every seat as soon as you can. There’s strategy and leverage at play that is being disregarded (or ignorance).

The numbers that we have on the new stadium, at this point, don’t tell us anything. The numbers that we have at the current stadium, on the road, and on the secondary market say that the demand is off the charts. People can keep digging in to not be wrong but that’s reality. The Bills have ZERO concerns at this point. They almost certainly have a target that they want to hold back. We don’t know that number.

The average account holder is like 2.3 seats (at least it was). The point remains.

That’s the info that we have. We have massive demand currently. You are anticipating that changing based on gut feeling. The data that we have says massive demand for the Bills.

1.6% of 62,000 is 1,000 seats (992 to be exact). Again, with all due respect, you’re trying to educate the wrong guy on how this works. 75% of 992 is 744. That’s what they are saying here. It may be time to bow out of this conversation. A change in screen name is probably in order as well. Lol, this has been going on WAY longer than that. This isn’t new 😂😂

So less than 1,000 seats at this point. People are creating narratives over 250 seats that haven’t been accounted for (yet). Lol, the chicken little aren’t going to like that. The Bills can move those in 3 phone calls. With all due respect, it’s not rare. I’ve done it. Price out the people and roll it into sponsorship packages. That’s VERY common. They shook free 250 seats in the most expensive areas. The Senecas sponsorship deal will be significantly higher when those get offered to them. I’ll elaborate in hopes of this making sense to people. Say the Bills have 100 $50K PSLs that they need to sell. They can sell those and collect $5M. They can leverage those seats to raise the pricing on advertising and other intangible assets. Let’s say that the Senecas spend $2M in advertising. The Bills can say, we will throw in 100 prime PSLs and the whole package will be $10M. The Bills now made an extra $3M by leveraging their demand.

Lol, it’s not significant if it’s 1,000 seats. I’m a club seat holder with 20-30 years of seniority (not sure the exact number but think it’s like 28 years). I am not going until next Tuesday. We have no idea what percentage they expected of what has been shown. They may not want it higher than that. They can then roll those locations into sponsorship packages and get significantly more than the PSL prices. That’s not uncommon at all. Again, you’re making assumptions without any info but a rumored 75% of some number have been accepted. That’s been going on for WAY longer than that. That’s probably a 30 year relationship. ALL professional sports teams have relationships with resellers in 2024. They probably account for 5-10% of all season tickets.

No, I’m not conflating it. The Bills CURRENTLY have a waiting list. That is the data that we have to go off of. They haven’t started selling to most of the people yet. 75% of how many? If you don’t know that answer, it’s meaningless. What % of club seat holders have been called? How many club seats in the new stadium compared to current stadium? If we do not know those answers, which we don’t, we don’t have new stadium data that is meaningful.

We have no idea if that’s a good thing or bad thing. We have no idea what the Bills thought they’d sell in this first wave. They haven’t gotten through the club seat holders yet. I’m next Tuesday. We also have no idea if that’s an actual number. We also don’t know 75% of what? There are a lot of people here connecting dots as to what they think will happen. This is all despite the fact that the actual data that we have to go off supports MASSIVE demand for the Bills. It’ll play out but if we are reading tea leaves, demand is higher than it’s ever been.

When there are no primary seats available (again demand) there is ONLY secondary demand. We can judge demand by primary (waiting list), secondary (high priced tickets on the secondary market), and the Bills on the road (travel as well as any fan base). I’m not sure what you’re trying to dispute? The demand for the Bills is through the roof and ALL metrics support that. When you have a waiting list, you couldn’t have more primary demand. People are forced to the secondary market to consume the product. They value it enough to pay inflated prices. You’re grasping at straws to jam through the narrative that you’re trying to create. Right now, people aren’t picking Miami or season tickets. They are either doing both or picking Miami BECAUSE they can’t get season tickets. The demand is enormous. I think that the default angle is certainly possible. The Bills won’t care so much on the lower priced ones. If someone’s PSL is $2500 and they default after $1500 it doesn’t move the needle. There won’t be enough of those situations to move the needle. If people start defaulting on the $50k ones the Bills will be after them. FWIW, the Bills used to sue people for defaulting on their club seat contracts. That stopped about 15-20 years ago because the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.

With the 15th pick, the Indianapolis Colts select Quinyon Mitchell, CB, Toledo @CNYfan is on the clock. The Colts have a big need in the secondary and they pick up the draft’s top CB. They considered a pass rusher here but Mitchell’s performance at the Senior Bowl stuck in our minds. With so many great WRs entering the league you need high end CBs that can play in multiple schemes. The Colts were near the bottom of the league in turnovers. His ball skills are appealing.

Well sure, but it absolutely correlates to demand. The same goes for the Bills fans that travel to games. Many people spend the entire cost of a season on away games. The market has shown that people are willing to spend on the Bills. There’s a waiting list for season tickets, resale pricing through the roof and a fan base that travels as well as any fan base in sports. I’m not sure why we should think PSLs will change all of this? The demand is at an all-time high. The timing is PERFECT for the Bills. Yeah, it’s next Tuesday. I’m hopeful that we will be able to get something comparable to where we are now but who knows.

Thank you!! Covered and heated are important to me but a total dealbreaker for her. I’ll be looking at the East Club as well it sounds like. I was hoping that those were the ones that were $15k. I like the 3 year interest free option. I thought it was going to be shorter so feel like that’s a small win.

That’s correct

We have been saying the same thing pretty much the whole time. We just expect a different outcome. We absolutely agree that they are going to adjust the pricing depending on how these club seats sell. The Bills have a revenue target of $200M from PSLs (at least I think that’s what it is). The sale of the club seats will leave a “new target” and then the sale of lower bowl seats will leave another new target. Where we disagree is that they’ll struggle with the sale of the less expensive areas. Bills fans have ALWAYS found the money to support the Bills (at least when they are good). The average household income in Erie County is $84k and the median is $67k. Those are not big numbers. The cheapest ticket to Bills games was $168 last year, top 5 in the league. The lower priced seats have never been a problem. It is the clubs and suites that are tougher. I understand that it goes against some general economic trends but that is just how it has been for them. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2023/09/06/nfl-ticket-prices-2023-cheapest-most-expensive-prices/70722888007/

If you are lower level, between the 20’s, you were going to be the people most impacted by the new stadium. I work with a guy that has 1960 seniority and he’s at the 46 yard line, 30 rows up. He’s terrified of what’s coming for him (and rightfully so). Of all of the people in the stadium, that’s where the most “turnover” will happen. That sucks for you and others in that situation.