Bills Stadium (Buffalo Bills)
Bills Stadium (Buffalo Bills)
Blanks are chunks of the RED plastic seat backs mixed with Buffalo Bills colored resin.
All blanks will come with one COA per blank. COAs are 4" x 6" card stock with foil embossed COA seal. (Full Blocks come with 10 COAs.)
All blanks are cut as they are ordered.
The American football stadium in Orchard Park, New York, originally Rich Stadium and known as Ralph Wilson Stadium from 1998 to 2015 and New Era Field from 2016 to 2019, is a stadium in the southern portion of the Buffalo metropolitan area. The stadium opened in 1973 and is the home of the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL).
An original franchise of the American Football League in 1960, the Buffalo Bills played their first thirteen seasons at War Memorial Stadium, a multi-use WPA project stadium that opened in 1938, located on Buffalo's East Side. While suitable for AFL play in the 1960s, the "Rockpile" (as the stadium came to be nicknamed), was in disrepair and with a capacity of under 47,000, undersized for a National Football League team. The league mandate instituted after the AFL–NFL merger of 1970 dictated a minimum of 50,000 seats.
In early 1971, owner Ralph Wilson was exploring options to relocate the team, possibly to Seattle, with other cities such as Memphis and Tampa soon expressing interest as well. The potential loss of the team hastened the stadium project and Rich Stadium opened in 1973. The location and construction of the stadium in Erie County were the source of years of litigation, which ended with a financial settlement for a developer who had planned to erect a domed stadium in Lancaster. However, plans changed because it was not wanted to be close to Lancaster High School. The stadium was ultimately built by Frank Schoenle and his construction company. Bonds were approved by the county legislature in September 1971.
The stadium's former name, Ralph Wilson Stadium (1998–2015).
Rich Products, a Buffalo-based food products company, signed a 25-year, $1.5 million deal ($60,000 per year), by which the venue would be called "Rich Stadium"; one of the earliest examples of the sale of naming rights in North American sports. (The name was somewhat of a compromise, after Bills owner and founder Ralph Wilson rejected the name Rich wanted to use, "Coffee Rich Park.") By a vote of 16–4, the county legislature approved the name in November 1972, despite a matching offer from Wilson to name it "Buffalo Bills Stadium."
When the Bills organization regularly referred to the stadium without the "Rich" name, Rich Products brought a $7.5 million lawsuit against the team in 1976. After the original deal expired after a quarter century in 1998, the stadium was renamed in honor of Wilson. Rich Products balked at paying a greatly increased rights fee, which would have brought the price up to par with other NFL stadiums.
On August 13, 2016, Buffalo-based New Era Cap Company and the Bills reached a seven-year, $35 million agreement for stadium naming rights. The Bills and New Era officially announced the stadium's new name of New Era Field five days later, on August 18, 2016.
On July 15, 2020, the Bills announced that New Era Cap asked to be released from their naming rights and sponsorship deal, and the two sides would agree on terms to terminate the contract. The statement referred to the venue only as "the stadium."