On Thursday, Bills president Russ Brandon made reference to the recent league meeting that resulted in the Rams besting the Chargers and Raiders by getting approval to move to Los Angeles and reflected on how many people thought the Bills would “have been part of that equation” just a few years ago.
Brandon credited the sale of the team to Terry and Kim Pegula after Ralph Wilson’s death for taking “the anvil off our collective shoulders” about the possibility of the Bills moving to another city. It didn’t take away the possibility of the team moving to a new stadium, however.
Ralph Wilson Stadium is one of the oldest stadiums in a league that has seen more modern edifices constructed from coast to coast, so there continues to be discussion about when the Bills will make a move in that direction. With eight years to go on their lease, Brandon said that the only focus right now is on the current stadium.
“It needs to make sense for our community and it has to have a macro appeal to our fan base,” Brandon said, via the Buffalo News. “We also have to be practical as we move forward. We are still working through the renovations of Ralph Wilson Stadium. We think that [$130 million] renovation will serve us very well. There’s a lot of speculation. We are working on Ralph Wilson Stadium and Ralph Wilson Stadium only for the time being.”
There would be several questions to answer before the Bills could make serious moves toward a new stadium and history says that the amount of public money involved will be right at the top of the list. It’s not one that needs to be answered immediately, though, and that’s a nice change from the recent past in Buffalo.