Media Day: Hey, Buddy, Can You Spare $1.4 Billion?

 
Here are some pretty pictures of something that, to borrow from my junior varsity football coach, will “never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never, ever, never, ever” be built.

There is only one problem with the $1.4 billion retractable-dome football stadium/convention center/concert venue fantasy floated at Tuesday’s meeting of the Buffalo Common Council:

The lack of $1.4 billion dollars.

OK, two problems: There is absolutely no demand for an enormous state-of-the-art convention center in or near Buffalo, except by the people who figure on raking in public money to build and run it.

All right, three problems: There is already a 20,000-seat indoor concert venue a mile or so away from the Outer Harbor. It’s called the First Niagara Center. The Buffalo Sabres also play there.

Oh, and no one bothered talking with the assumed tenant, the Buffalo Bills, before announcing plans for their new home. Four problems.

Other than that, terrific idea.

And only the first drawback really matters.

Someone named Nicholas Stracick, who bills himself as the president and CEO of the Greater Buffalo Sports and Entertainment Complex (GBSEC – an acronym that really rolls off the tongue) showed the pretty pictures to the Common Council, which has no money to do anything that the city actually needs, much less fund a wholly unneeded public-works project.

Then again, Stracick isn’t asking the city for money to build his dream. He just wants it to acquire 400 acres that the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority has squatted on for more than half a century. Which would, presumably, involve money.

Once that dunk is slammed, Stracick figures New York State and the National Football League -- neither of which he has spoken with, either -- will each eagerly pony up with $400 million or so, leaving only about $600 million to come from … somewhere.

But then, Stracick does have a track record of getting high-end entertainment corporations to cough up.

From nearby Derby, N.Y., Stracick is a former major league umpire who enjoyed a considerable windfall in 2002 after he and a business partner successfully sued Walt Disney Co. for stealing their idea for its Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World.

So there is that.

Despite the thorough lack of credibility, corporate media outlets throughout Western New York breathlessly reported this non-story as if it had actual merit.

At least one, Meaghan M. McDermott of Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle, infused a bit of sarcasm in her lede.

A proposed football stadium in downtown Buffalo could create as many as 10,000 construction jobs, invigorate the western New York economy and almost guarantee a Super Bowl game within two or three years after the project’s completion, developers say.

The only real hurdles to moving forward with the project are obtaining the land, getting the financing, getting the NFL on board and making sure the Buffalo Bills are even interested.

People who make these kinds of deals happen do not make their opening pitch at Buffalo Common Council Meetings. They get at least a few of the necessary elements, financial and otherwise, in line before going public, then leverage those commitments into additional private and, invariably, public invesment.

Alan Bedenko nicely runs down the sociopolitical reasons why it would be a crummy idea here, if there were any chance of it actually happening.

Which there isn’t.

I KNEW THERE HAD TO BE a reason the Bills kept Chris Kelsay around.

The veteran defensive end unloaded on the entire unit on the day after its collapse against Tennessee, sending some particularly pointed words the way of linemate Mario Williams.

“I’d take Mario Williams at full health and full speed probably over anybody else in the league,” Kelsay said. “At the same time I’d take Sean Ferguson, who we cut, over a guy that’s playing 50 percent, and I think our coaches would too. The playmakers have to make plays and the way you do that is giving all out effort every play.”

Williams seems to have taken at least the “full health” part to heart, undergoing what Chan Gailey called "a procedure" on his left wrist today. Gailey said Williams expects to be on the field when the Bills resume practice next week after their bye.

Kelsay has never been one to defer to his better-known, better-compensated fellow defensive end. After the Bills signed Kelsay in March, he declined to surrender the No. 90 he has worn since joining the Bills as a second-round draft pick in 2003.