Ever since the beginning of 2023, many Buffalo residents demanded that the Bills sign a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) if the team also wanted $750 million of public money for a new stadium. After a few months in 2023, the Bills proudly announced that they had signed an incredible CBA that reached “beyond the stadium”. Included in this deal were several things that the Bills were being asked to do rather than legally forced to do. For example, the CBA says that the Bills will need to talk to local high schools and “commit to work with local artists to develop a community art program”. Nothing says the team must do this.
Unfortunately, CBA’s are broken by many teams with no consequence for the team or owner, just look at Detroit. This signed CBA says that a Community Benefit Oversight Committee (Committee) will essentially be given the job of seeing what and where the Bills were spending money on to help locals and the community. The CBA also says that the Committee will “identify priorities where the Bills can best direct their resource commitments”. City leaders heralded this deal as something that no city had ever gotten. Last year, in March 2024, I wrote a story on this site discussing how laughable it was for anyone to think that this oversight committee could do a single thing that mattered or enforce the CBA. One reason why is that the team has three people on the Committee. Furthermore, some of the other people who were put on this Committee are employees of different organizations that have financial ties to the Bills. Good luck getting any hard-hitting information from this group.
Then this week happened. Over the last few weeks, the Bills have released PR piece after PR piece praising themselves for spending $3.7 million on “community commitments”. Except, the oversight committee seems to have little idea as to what the Bills did, nor how they went about deciding that this project was worth doing for the community…especially since it cost almost $4 million dollars. The Committee asked for any additional information from the Bills and whether this money would be included in the $3 million of annual community allocations required from the Bills.
These all seem like very reasonable questions. But oh boy did this piss off the Bills. The Bills VP of Stadium Relations told the Committee last week that a few things need to be clarified:
First, the team is the only one who “will decide how $3 million is pumped into Western New York”.
Next, the oversight committee has “no authority over how the Bills’ community investments are appropriated or apportioned”.
Next, in case the committee forgot, the team never “relinquished any authority concerning spending”
Lastly, does the CBA claim that the Bills must spend at least $3 million per year ($100 million total) for community purposes? Yes. But the VP wants everyone to stop trying to add up community expenses made by the Bills on an annual basis. Rather, when trying to put together if the Bills properly spent $3 million in a year on the community as the CBA requires, everyone should be required to include “the aggregate of all philanthropy…expanded by the Bills”. This means that the Bills shouldn’t be held up in shame if they don’t spend $3 million in a year on the community. The team is giving every second of every day…so factor that in too.
Here is what, I think, is the worst part about this entire story. When the Bills called for community meetings to have the public tell them what they needed from the CBA, the public expressed many needs for financial help with mental health, violence, education, affordable housing, etc…all serious issues. The Bills heard all of this and spent the $3.7 million on what exactly?
“Much of the 2023 spending was dedicated to in-kind contributions of free tickets, “football experiences” and unspecified charitable giving” — Buffalo News, 12/15/24
One of the local leaders who helped draft the CBA is now outright stating that the Bills are going against what is found in the CBA. It is difficult to see how she isn’t correct here. The Bills would not stop talking about how much they would include the community when it comes to giving back to the area. Now? Shut up and take whatever it is that we give you. If the Bills think that these types of statements will allow them to invest more into the community, they have quite the surprise ahead of them.
When the Bills say on their website that this CBA “firmly” commits them to the local community, they mean it. One local Buffalo blog, BuffChallNews.com, brings up just how the Bills are escaping their requirements in the CBA. In the agreement, the Bills are required to announce a new public arts program that was “created by local artists”. Yet, rather than finding and working with locals, the Bills just “hired a consultant, from Kansas City of all places, to develop the program”. Even though this local Buffalo blog tried to remind team executives about this agreement, the team “never committed to meeting” anyone locally.
But at least the committee has helped in the past two years, right? No. In fact, the advice given to the Bills ranges from “limited to none”.
