Ever since 1973, the Buffalo Bills have played all their home games in the famous Highmark Stadium. With a seating capacity of over 71,000, it’s served them well for over five decades. But this is to be their last season there.
Some fans are welcoming the move not just for the new facilities that will be provided, but they also believe it could lift the alleged curse that some put down to the assassination of President William McKinley in the city back in 1901 and others is due to the stadium’s proximity to a large cemetery.
It’s a curse that has seen the team sustain four Super Bowl losses in a row, as well as failing to win a championship ever since the move to the current Highmark Stadium.
But there are surely more pressing reasons for the move and the key one is financial.
Renovate or move?
The alleged curse notwithstanding, the stadium has served the franchise exceptionally well over the last five decades. However, like many fifty-plus-year-olds, it’s now starting to creak a bit and show its age.
When an estimate was sought to make the necessary repairs to the structure, and the upper deck in particular, the figure was close to $1 billion. If this were a one-off cost, it might have been acceptable. But the feeling was that there would be another big repair bill waiting for the owners, the Pegula family, just around the corner.
The harsh winters of New York State were another issue to be taken into account. The plunging temperatures and potentially disastrously strong winds are enough to batter the best-built of stadia. So even the repairs could soon be under threat.
In addition, as ticket prices have steadily increased year on year, fans have started to demand more and better facilities from the teams they support. This has become even more critical with the increasing number of ways to both watch and bet on the action remotely, preferably somewhere warm, dry and welcoming.
So, with a car park just over the road from the old stadium ready and waiting for development it was decided that the most cost-effective solution would be to build a whole new stadium with a budget said to be around $2.2 billion.
A stadium built for the future
As already mentioned, the challenges of running a football stadium in an environment where the temperature’s been known to drop as low as -20o F are many.
So Populous, the designers of the stadium, faced the challenge of weatherproofing it in a way that wouldn’t be necessary in many other parts of America.
Starting with the external cladding of the stadium, this has been designed to be especially thermally efficient.
It may have seemed logical to have a totally enclosed stadium to keep out of the worst of the weather. However, it was decided that a canopy covering around 60% of the seated areas would offer enough protection for fans from the elements.
The canopy roof includes hydronic pipes that carry warm water to melt any snow as it falls and the concave shape will collect the water as it disperses.
Great attention has also been paid to the acoustics of the new stadium in order to ensure that the matchday atmosphere is present. This may prove to be especially important as, at around 61,000 the capacity of the new stadium will be around 10,000 less than the old one as well as making it one of the smallest stadia in the NFL.
On the pitch itself, the surface will be real grass with a SubAir system to regulate the level of moisture and oxygen in the soil. There will also be underground heating and ultraviolet lighting to keep the surface in perfect condition.
Naturally, there will also be a plentiful supply of suites for corporate hospitality, alongside everything else fans can expect from a 21st-century stadium, including bars, food concession stands and merchandise stores.
In short, this is a stadium that has been truly designed to be future-proof, for the next few decades at least.
It’s all about the money
That’s not to say that there hasn’t been quite a considerable amount of controversy about how the build has been funded. This is because $850 million of the total has come from public money, which some feel would be better spent on improving local services.
While the Pegula family has yet to comment publicly, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has justified the payment, saying that the Bills’ presence in the area, “goes to our identity … it’s part of our local psyche, and it makes us so proud … that’s not quantifiable.”
So we wait with excitement for the start of the 2026 NFL season, when the newest stadium for the game will finally be open for business.