Terry Pegula wasn’t satisfied just picking the pockets of state and county taxpayers in demanding they pick up most of the cost of building the Bills a new stadium. He’s now playing “stick ‘em up” with his season ticket holders.
We knew the Bills intended to charge fans for personal seat licenses, which gave them the “right” to buy season tickets (for an additional charge, of course). The team was hush-hush about what it intended to charge, but last week it began to inform fans holding the most expensive seats what it would cost to keep them: Up to $50,000.
Not to worry, though. The Bills will allow you to spread out payments for 10 years, provided you’re willing to pay 10 percent interest.
The pricing suggests that Pegula will put up little of his own fortune to cover the team’s portion of construction costs. Nope, this stadium is going to come out of the hide of taxpayers and fans.
One sage observer emailed me to say: “If, from the beginning, taxpayers and fans were given complete and transparent information the financing package could have been modified to protect the public interest through leverage-based negotiation. There’s only one winner in this game, and that’s the Pegula family. Perhaps fans & taxpayers might agree to place blame for this game losing fumble where it belongs, with the Governor, County Executive & Legislators!”