Bills want home opener at new Highmark Stadium to be in prime time
While the decision on whether the first game at the new Highmark Stadium will be in prime time is up to the NFL, the Bills have been in contact with the league to share their desire, according to Pete Guelli, the team’s chief operating officer and president of business operations.
Fans reach out as Bills quarterback Josh Allen gives high-fives during the Return of the Blue and Red practice at Highmark Stadium on Aug. 1, 2025.
This year, the practice will be the first "official" event at New Highmark Stadium. Joshua Bessex, Buffalo News
The Buffalo Bills feel as though the opening of New Highmark Stadium deserves the prime-time spotlight.
While the decision on whether that ultimately happens is up to the NFL, the Bills have been in contact with the league to share their desire, according to Pete Guelli, the team’s chief operating officer and president of business operations.
“We’ve already been approached by networks that would like to have it,” Guelli said recently during a wide-ranging interview with The Buffalo News conducted at the NFL’s annual meeting. “We’re just trying to work through that. It’s really a league decision. We have talked to the NFL about our desire to potentially see that be a prime-time game. That discussion went well, and we’re going to continue to work through it and see where it nets out.
“However it’s set up, we’re going to make sure that home opener is a big event.”
The Bills are hopeful that the first regular-season game in the New Highmark Stadium will be in prime time.
Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Guelli told The News that the first “official” event at New Highmark Stadium will be the Bills’ annual “Return of the Blue and Red” practice during training camp, which this year is scheduled for Aug. 8. He also provided a few more updates pertaining to construction in and around the Bills’ new home:
A possible entertainment district?
The current Highmark Stadium is in the process of being stripped and sold off, but won’t be demolished until March 2027. That means it is still early to imagine what the campus could potentially be, Guelli said.The recent success of the team and the passion of the fan base, however, lead Guelli to believe that the new stadium and the area around it will be “a pilgrimage to come not only to a game, but the market to experience everything Buffalo is about.”
“We’d like to find ways to make it more of a year-round destination,” he said. “It’s just a little early in the process. The priority still is getting that building open, but we’re starting to imagine ways it could become a year-round destination.”
The summer of 2027 will be big. Don’t expect many, if any, non-football events until then. The stadium is a football-first facility, and the No. 1 priority is making sure it is ready for the Bills to use, starting in August.
Any events in the stadium that are not Bills games will be smaller in scale until the team gets through the 2026 season.
The Canadian push
The Bills have partnered with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment in an effort to expand their reach into Southern Ontario. It’s a logical business move, given the population of the Greater Toronto area.The timing is good, too, as the NFL is hyper-focused on international expansion. Guelli was previously with the organization during the Bills in Toronto Series. While that was a financial hit for the team, it has largely been remembered as a big miss by fans.
“I think it gives me a unique perspective on what worked and what didn’t,” he said. “Financially, it was great for the organization, but it could have been done a lot more strategically. We kind of turned the keys over and let somebody else run it. You can’t do that with your brand. That’s not something I would ever recommend doing in the future. We’ve got so much more equity up there now, and I think we’re taking a much more strategic approach to it and understanding that it’s a different market and it’s a different country.”
Kate Hussmann, the Bills’ chief strategy officer, devotes a large portion of her time to working on the push into Canada.
“This time around, we really want to build it the right way and, to me, that’s never going to take away from what’s happening in Buffalo,” Guelli said. “That’s bringing the fifth-largest market in North America into the fold and could allow us to, hopefully, be more competitive in the future as an organization.”
The Bills are a much easier team to market now than they were during the Bills in Toronto series. Quarterback Josh Allen’s presence as one of the biggest stars in the league is a big reason why.
Guelli said it is premature to discuss the possibility of the Bills playing a game in Toronto, but the team isn’t ruling it out. The NFL’s fixation on growing the number of international games could play a part. If Toronto gets added to the international slate of games, the Bills would be a natural fit.
“Ultimately, it’s about making the Bills more successful. It’s not about going anywhere,” Guelli said. “You don’t necessarily need to have a game there to bring the team there. You could go up there and host a minicamp, right? You could bring a practice up there. There are a lot of ways to plant a flag and bring the team.
“In some ways, it’s important to create some credibility in the market, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a game. We’d absolutely be open to it under the right circumstances. And I do think the way we’re set up now, it would be a lot more successful. There’s no denying the team is a lot better. The equity we build in the market is a lot more significant."
The future of high school football
It remains to be seen whether New Highmark Stadium will host Section VI and/or Monsignor Martin championship games, the way the current stadium has for several years.“I can’t promise anything. We would love to continue to host it,” Guelli said. “It’s more schedule-dependent, so once we see the schedule, we’ll have a better idea. I would just say that if, for some reason, we couldn’t, we’d find a way to support high school football in Buffalo.”
With the new stadium going to natural grass, limiting wear and tear on it and keeping it in the best shape possible for the Bills is a top priority.
Limited partners
For the first time in franchise history, the Bills introduced 10 limited ownership partners in late 2024. Included among them was private investment firm Arctos, making the Bills one of the first NFL teams to execute a deal in the private-equity space.“These businesses (NFL teams) have grown so much, and they're so much more sophisticated than they were before, so how do you find the right partners to help you continue to grow, especially when you've got a stadium and all the other opportunities that we have on that Bills campus," Guelli said. “So as we started going through it, there was no lack of interest. It was more about finding the right people. … I don't think people would have expected a team in Buffalo to really be in business with a private-equity company. We just needed to make sure it was the right one.”
Arctos had experience in professional sports, leading to team owner Terry Pegula being comfortable selling off a stake to the company.
“That was the same process with the rest of the LPs, people who could somehow be beneficial to us in several ways, whether it was the business experience they have, or some sort of connection to Buffalo, maybe a connection to Rochester, maybe a connection into Southern Ontario and Toronto,” Guelli said. “If you look at our group of investors, we've covered bases on all of those. That's been a great experience, working with those people on a regular basis. We run the organization, and they contribute on an as-needed basis, but that's been a really good experience. I think it's something that every team will be involved with in some way in the future.”
