Plans To Put The Buffalo Bills New Home On The Hamburg Fairgrounds Slammed [PHOTOS/VIDEO]

With the debate swirling about where the next football stadium should go, I was given a bit of a history lesson about how our area has gone through this before. Not just a few years ago, I am referring to over 30 years ago when the question of where the home of The Buffalo Bills should be was as pressing as it is today.

I was speaking with Marty Biniasz from the Erie County Agricultural Society about the issue recently and he brought up the fact that in 1971, the issue of where the stadium should go was very much a hot topic. As a matter of fact, "The Fairgrounds in Hamburg was one of the potential sites for a place for the Bills to play their games" Biniasz explained to me.

According to Biniasz, the plan would have called for 65,000-80,000 seat facility that would cost around $25 million to build. That's the price tag for a four year contract for a player these days. The new stadium proposals these days calls for at least $700 million.

The debate at the time regarding the Hamburg site was an interesting battle. It seems to me that the stadium would have been placed where the parking lots are now for the Events Center and where the midway is set during the Erie County Fair. If you've ever been to The Fair, it would basically be where the big Ferris Wheel is set up.

According to reports from '71...

On March 25, 1971, after much debate in the press and political jockeying by then County Executive B. John Tutuska, the Erie County Agricultural Society (ECAS) unanimously rejected the proposal. In a statement given to the media, the ECAS Board said, “we have a solemn obligation to the preserve the continued growth of the Great Erie County Fair as an essential part of our regional and American heritage.”

The Fairgrounds site would have been the best options in terms of how quickly a stadium could be built, the traffic patterns could have been tweaked to allow for swift traffic flow in and out.  However, even in 1971, the idea of keeping the Fairgrounds a place where agriculture and the people involved in it can assemble to honor the hard work and the traditions that have been a part of Western New York's history, was the top priority of The Agricultural Society.

There are currently 4 options that most say would work best for the new stadium to be placed.Only one of which calls for the stadium to be placed outside of the city and remain in Orchard Park.

I have been to Arlington, Texas a couple times since AT&T Stadium was built. Once for a tour on an off day and once for a concert. If you don't know, Arlington is not exactly the big city that you would think. The Dallas Cowboys have a dome stadium that can seat more than 80,000 and it is not a downtown stadium.Tailgating was similar to what we enjoy at The Ralph and the area around it seems to thrive.

I like the fact that the Bills play outside at home. However, after seeing what the benefits are of having a dome stadium, as long as it gets use more than 8 or 9 weeks a year, a covered facility...dome or retractable dome, seems to be the better option. As long as we can keep the atmosphere surrounding game day as exciting as it is now at The Ralph.