They recently cut the ribbon at the Bills’ new stadium. Some would like to see the scissors next taken to the ticket prices.
Via Rob Petree of WIVB-TV in Buffalo, fans are complaining about what it will cost to watch Bills games in person.
“Ticket prices are outrageous,” one fan visiting family from Tennessee told WIVB.
“It’s scary when you got a family of four or five and you’ve got to pay these kind of prices for tickets,” another fan said.
And another: “It’s going to be impossible almost to get in here. I probably will never see a game here.”
Currently, the cheapest ticket for the Week 2 home opener against the Lions is $643. But that’s a function of the fact that it’ll be the first regular-season game played there. (It helps that the Lions are a good team, and that the last time the Bills and Lions crossed paths, it was a barnburner.)
The Bills raised more than $263 million through personal-seat licenses. Which is separate from the ticket prices.
The $2.1 billion stadium was constructed with $850 million in public contributions. The Bills picked up the $700 million in cost overruns that pushed the estimated $1.4 billion project 50 percent higher.
The end result is one of the most basic consequences of stadium politics and stadium economics. The taxpayers cover part of the cost. The fans get stuck with the rest of it, one way or another.
The alternatives were to have the team keep playing in an outdated facility — or losing the team to a community that would happily foot the full bill, indirectly through the government and directly through whatever it costs to get inside.
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