BUFFALO, N.Y. — After more than a week of tryin go get answers from the Buffalo Bills regarding the PSL concerns season ticket holders have, a spokesperson did respond to another inquiry on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Bills directed our questions to Legends Hospitality saying their waiting for new COO Pete Guelli to officially join the team in mid-April.
Last week 2 On Your Side reported that a season ticket holder was told it would cost $400,000 to keep his 8 club-level season tickets.
Other season ticket holders that have gone through the Bills Experience in Amherst have told WGRZ that their club-level seats cost between $25,000-$50,000 each.
2 On Your Side reached out to a spokesperson for Legends Hospitality, but still haven't gotten a response.
Responses aside, industry experts are weighing in on the PSL topic, particularly the messaging about pricing and reaction by the season ticket holders.
"They were definitely higher than I anticipated," said Todd Koesters.
Koesters is an associate professor and director of the Center for Advancement of Sport and Entertainment Management at the University of South Carolina.
He has decades of industry experience, including working on the sales model for personal seat licenses at the Circuit of the America's in Austin, Texas.
Koesters says the confusion and anger amongst the season ticket holders is understandable.
"Don't forget to dance with the person you brought to the Dance," Koesters said. "We've sort of lost that mentality in today's ever, ever changing grab the revenue dollar [model]."
One angle to this story that is drawing the ire of Bills fans on social media is the fact that New York State and Erie County are collectively giving the Bills $850M towards a new stadium, and asking season ticket holders to purchase a personal seat license.
"It is double dipping," Koesters said. "I don't know what the bills are hoping to generate in PSL revenue, and how that applies to the construction of the stadium."
The initial cost of the new Bills stadium was estimated around $1.4B, but costs have risen to $1.7B
"I know stadiums aren't getting cheaper," Koesters said.
But from an industry standpoint, higher priced club-level seats have been the new normal since Jerry Jones and the Cowboys completed AT&T Stadium in 2009.
"The club seats and the field level suites that they created, the smaller club level higher end seats, changed the way that that we sell club level at at sporting events today," Koesters said.
Jones has an ownership stake in Legends Hospitality, who has been contracted by the Bills to handle the sale of PSL's for the new stadium.
Concerns and frustrations by season ticket holders aside, expectations for the gameday experience at the new stadium are high.
Koesters says that the PSL model, coupled with demographic changes at club-level seating in stadiums across the league, will inevitably change the gameday experience when the new stadium opens in 2026.
"You're not getting as close to the action and teams responses to that is they're trying to create more of a fan experience around the entire day," Koesters said.
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