Single tickets for Bills nearly gone
The Buffalo Bills moved a step closer to selling all of their tickets for the season over the weekend.
The Bills sold all of the individual-game seats for five of their seven games at Ralph Wilson Stadium after their first week of individual-game sales to season ticket holders.
Those games are against Seattle, Oakland, San Diego, the New York Jets and Cleveland, the team announced. The Bills are setting aside an undisclosed number of seats for more season- ticket sales, which will continue through Aug. 28.
Season-ticket sales have topped 52,000, which already is an 8 percent increase over last season’s total of 48,236. The team record for ticket sales is 53,004, set in 1993.
“I think No. 1 [reason] is the optimism surrounding the team this year,” said Marc Honan, Bills senior vice pres-
ident of marketing and broadcasting. “No. 2 is the regionalization of the team. We’ve been building on our season-ticket sales for several years. — I think those are the two biggest factors.”
Individual-game tickets remain for Nov. 30 against San Francisco and Dec. 28 against New England.
Starting last week, season-ticket holders were allowed to purchase additional seats to individual games. There were about 300 people in line most of the morning Thursday, the first day of those sales.
“I’m optimistic; I think everybody is,” said Orchard Park’s Tom Lenegan, a season-ticket holder since 1977 who was among the crowd of buyers. “It would be nice for a change to make the playoffs.”
“I think they’re going 10-6,” said Buffalo’s Mike Pecoraro, who is in his first season as a season-ticket holder. “Last year the Dallas game was sold out, and you couldn’t get tickets. For the home opener last year, I had to pay an extravagant amount of money to buy tickets.”
Season-ticket holders in line last week generally seemed understanding of the Bills’ expansion into the Toronto market. The Bills play one of their home games in Toronto on Dec. 7 against Miami.
“If it helps the team get the money they need, it’s fine. . . .“As long as it helps and they keep most of the games here, I think it’s OK,” Lenegan said.
“I’m not sure if the thing with Toronto is an impetus for the demand or not,” said Orchard Park’s Joe Pici, an 18-year season-ticket holder. “I can understand the financial need, but I’m a little antsy about it. To be honest, if it went any further than one game a year I’d be upset about it.”
Single game sales to the public usually begin in mid-July.
