People are upset, especially in New York, where people and businesses have put together nearly $850 million to help fund the Buffalo Bills new stadium, by a video that shows the owner of the Bills, Terry Pegula, using his $100 million superyacht. The yacht is over two hundred feet long and includes six high-end cabins, a movie theater, and a helipad. The yacht is for charter for $550,000 per week. While Pegula and family were enjoying the yacht in Newport, Rhode Island, fans at home fumed on social media about the optics. One user wrote, “The Pegulas are in Newport living the life while we pay for the stadium? Seems like a slap in the face.” Another user wrote, “I bet he pays more in dock fees than he pays in taxes.” Pegula made most of his wealth in fracking and has gotten plenty of criticism for his industry’s environmental impact, and also for how little his industry invests back into the local communities where he has his business and sports franchises.
Stadium Subsidy Deal Sparks Criticism
The basis for the criticism started with the deal that provided $600 million in state funds and $250 million from Erie County to assist in the completion of the Bills new stadium. Proposed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, the deal is being described as one of the biggest public subsidies in NFL history. While some officials contend that the stadium could represent economic development, history has shown that taxpayer-funded facilities that are often promoted as economic engines rarely end up as promised.
A report from June 2024 explained that stadiums, and projects like them, rarely function as economical engines. While often touted to create thousands of jobs and to bring in steady revenues to the local economy, those jobs often do not exist pass the moment the project is constructed, and activity inside and around the stadium and venue remains sporadic. To illustrate for context, NFL teams have on average ten home games during a season, and other events such as concerts and performances just do not bring in enough revenues or activity to keep the venue busy. Economists vehemently argue that the opportunity cost of this stadium deal (what else those public dollars could have supported), is astonishing. Often, education, infrastructure, and public services are losing out when cities approve sports facilities instead of supporting core community and citizen needs.
The Yacht Lifestyle Raises Deeper Questions
Tying Pegula’s position at No. 154 on the Forbes 400 list into the larger picture has only added to the justifiable outrage, further separating his wealth from the average Buffalo taxpayer. Adding to the stadium that taxpayers will fund is what some locals are noticing about the environmental costs of billionaires’ yacht and luxury lifestyles. Oxfam states that a single megayacht wastes about as much carbon pollution in a year as an average person would in 585 years, and that does not even include the use of the private jets, and other signs of the ultra-wealthy lifestyle.
For many Bills fans the issue is not simply Pegula’s wealth, but what his wealth means to them in terms of sacrifice they made for their team. “Love the Bills, but this stadium deal is robbery,” one fan wrote. “Pegulas pay nothing while we are going bankrupt.” The feeling on social media has shifted from that of admiration and encouragement for the team to that of envy and resentment over what many feel is tone deaf opulence at the public’s expense. While the team is preparing to move into their spacious new mansion of a stadium, fans are left with a very hard question to grapple with: Who is paying for this?
