ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — During a recent fireside chat, sans fire, with the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, Buffalo Bills chief operating officer Pete Guelli said that personal seat license sales for the new stadium are "going well."
"The Club Seats are completely sold out," Guelli said. "Suite sales are going incredibly well. We've gone on sale with the lower level, and those are moving very quickly."
According to data obtained by 2 On Your Side through a freedom of information request, however, PSL sales during the second quarter actually dropped.
A total of 5,895 PSL's have been sold since sales began in March. During the first quarter of sales, the team sold 3,602 PSL, although those were exclusively club-level seats.
The second quarter of sales, which occurred between July 1 through September 30 and was opened up to lower bowl seats, the team sold 2,293 PSLs.
That's a 36% decrease from Q1 to Q2.
According to the report submitted to the state, there are a total of 58,353 PSLs to be sold. The Bills previously told WGRZ that the Stadium Experience in Williamsville is setup to process, on average 50 account holders each day.
During Q2, 951 account holders purchased PSL's, but the report issued to the state does not include how many total account holders actually went through the process.
The Stadium Experience is open 7 days per week, except holidays and game days.
Per their agreement with New York State, the Buffalo Bills are required to submit quarterly PSL sales data to the Erie County Stadium Corporation—a separate entity created by Empire State Development as a way to transition ownership of the stadium from the county to the state.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that construction overruns have ballooned the stadium project north of $2.1B. The team/Pegula family is responsible for all overrun costs for the project.
"What the Bills have chosen to do is market, the more expensive PSL's first," said Marc Ganis. "That makes sense because of the size of the market."
Ganis is the president of Sportscorp Ltd and an NFL advisor.
"Now they still have 55,000 seats to sell, but most of those are going to be the lion's share of those will be much lower price," Ganis said. "So this is a reasonable result with a clearly strategic marketing program that they have focused on to start with."
2 On Your Side reached out to the Bills for comment, but did not get a response.