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Marcel Louis-JacquesESPN
BUFFALO, NY – Speaking Monday at the famous Jim Kelly Golf Tournament, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league wants to keep the Bills in Buffalo, but in a new stadium.
“You have to think long-term here,” Goodell said. “This has been happening for decades, and it is time to make a new stage to ensure that bills arrive and are successful for many, many decades.
“We are focused on maintaining invoices [in Buffalo] in a new stadium in a public and private partnership. That’s the decent thing to do, and it should end there. “
Invoice owners Kim and Terry Pegula filed a proposal for a $ 1.4 billion stadium on the other side of the team’s current stadium in Orchard Park, which has a lease of $ 1 billion. ten years ending in 2023.
Pegula Sports & Entertainment (PSE) spokesman Jim Wilkinson said the team hopes to move forward with its plans for the stadium until an agreement is reached with Erie County and that “the Buffalo City and the state will have to decide if I want a team. “
But Goodell’s comments add credibility to the belief that PSE’s veiled threat of relocating is simply a bargaining strategy and that the team will eventually stay in West New York.
The 15-year-old commissioner said he discussed the Bills Stadium issue almost every time he travels to Buffalo, dating back to the 1990s, when the issue revolved more around stadium reforms. Even then, Goodell said, they knew the reforms would only be a temporary solution and the time would come when a new stadium was needed.
“We’re definitely beyond that,” he said. “I think a new stadium is needed. I think it will require a public and private partnership. I think the Bills, the community and the NFL will have to come together and do it in a smart way.”
Since 1973, the Bills have played at Erie County-owned Highmark Stadium, the fourth oldest stadium in the NFL. The county put more than $ 200 million in renovations to the stadium during the ten-year lease it signed in 2013, but Wilkinson estimated that renovating and modernizing the Highmark Stadium would cost approximately $ 1 billion, and that renewal talks will end. “
Goodell said he wasn’t sure about the stadium’s timeline, but added that the team’s new stadium had to be “built for Buffalo” and “adjusted to Buffalo.”
Erie County Commissioner Mark Poloncarz said the PSE never made any open threat to leave during the negotiations and that the county was willing to make a deal as long as it was fair to all parties involved.