ORCHARD PARK — As he prepared to break ground on the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium, owner Terry Pegula looked to the sky to deliver a message to his late predecessor and franchise founder, Ralph Wilson.
“Ralph, let’s go across the street,” Pegula said to an eruption of laughter from a large gathering that included Wilson’s wife, Mary.
“And how about that, Mary?” said Pegula. “And don’t start crying because you’ll make me cry.”
Using the Bills’ current home as a backdrop, Pegula, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul broke ground Monday on a small plot of land across the street to begin building the new stadium planned for the 2026 season, and projected to cost $1.54 billion, with taxpayers picking up $850 million from the tab.
The hour-long ceremony was a celebration of the team’s future, which is essentially secured with a new stadium that includes a 30-year lease, as well as its past. It was held amid construction crews in what served as a former stadium parking lot already being prepared as the site of the Bills’ new, 60,000-plus-seat home.
“I love what Terry said,” Mary Wilson told The Associated Press afterward. “All of their leadership to make this happen, I think Buffalo, they have no idea how big it’s going to be.”
Wilson first met Terry and his wife, Kim Pegula, when he helped sell the Bills to them in 2014 for an NFL-record $1.4 billion after her husband’s death.
“It’s amazing. They’re going to make a big splash,” he said.
The breakup comes just over a month after a deal was approved between the bills and state and county governments, and about 14 months after the framework for a deal, with taxpayer money set aside to the state budget.
The new facility will replace the Bills’ current home, Highmark Stadium, which opened in 1973 and was deemed too expensive to renovate by a state study. The new stadium will transfer naming rights after the Bills announced a long-term deal with Highmark, a health insurance provider, and become the franchise’s third home.
Established by Wilson in 1960 as an American Football League franchise, the Bills spent their first 13 seasons playing at War Memorial Stadium in downtown Buffalo.
Hochul, who grew up a Bills fan in nearby Hamburg, N.Y., emphasized the benefits, both financial and psychological to one of the NFL’s smallest markets, of keeping the franchise in Buffalo. He said the team’s annual economic impact on the community is $385 million, while he said construction of the facility will lead to 10,000 union jobs.
“This is one of the highlights of my time as governor to make sure that we would deliver on what I said we would do to keep the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo for at least another generation,” said Hochul, who was wearing Bills blue and red colors, and even wore sneakers with the team logo.
The deal has been questioned, with critics referring to it as corporate welfare in using taxpayer funds to support Pegula, who has a projected net worth of $6.7 billion and also owns the Sabers in the NHL
Questions were also raised about whether it would have been better to bring the Bills back to play in Buffalo to help revitalize the city’s core rather than remain in suburban Orchard Park.
The most moving moment of the ceremony came when Pegula became emotional and paused for 25 seconds before catching her breath.
Wiping away tears, Pegula listed the names of 10 black victims who died in a racially motivated shooting at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022.
Pegula then pointed to his wife, who was absent and dealing with significant language and memory problems after suffering cardiac arrest a year ago.
Saying it cheers her up every day, Pegula quoted the Bellamy Brothers song “You’re My Favorite Star,” saying, “And Kim, you’re my favorite star.”
Moments later, Pegula pointed to the team’s existing stadium and then the stage he was standing on.
“We’re going to build a stadium here, right? And we’re going to tear down a stadium there full of memorabilia,” Pegula said. “So we need to fill this stadium with more memories and continue our legacy. We need to remember the past, but embrace building our future.”
