Highmark Stadium Tour

My wonderful wife surprised me with a tour of Highmark Stadium, home of my beloved Buffalo Bills, for my 40th birthday. I won’t go full history lesson here but here are some cool facts:

• Opened in 1973 as Rich Stadium; Rich Products signed a 25-year agreement valued at $1.5 million for one of the first naming-rights partnerships in sports history

• First playoff game was January 1, 1989, a 17-10 Bills win over the Houston Oilers

• The Bills won every home playoff game (9-0) until December 28, 1996 – an era-ending loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars – (even at 13 I knew that was the end of the run)

• The stadium wouldn’t host another playoff game until 2020 – the pandemic season when only a limited number of season ticket members could attend – Bills fans waited 24 years for a home playoff game and then by and large could not attend!

• Syracuse University played two home games at the venue in 1979 while the Carrier Dome was being constructed

• The NHL’s first ever Winter Classic was hosted at the stadium on January 1, 2008, a thrilling snow globe affair that I was fortunate enough to attend that saw Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins upend the hometown Sabres 2-1 in a shootout

• A new stadium is slated to open directly across the street in 2026

Onto the tour!

We met our tour guides at Gate 1 and proceeded into the Club Suites area. Formerly named after important figures in Bills history, the suites and clubs now bear the name of supporting partners. Not surprisingly, in Buffalo overhead heaters are a must for premium seating (red seats in the photo).

The tour started picking up steam as we made our way to the Van Miller Broadcast Booth and press room. Seeing a 70,000-seat stadium completely empty is an entirely new experience. I noticed so many more details along the Ring of Honor like the gold star under Bob Kalsu’s name honoring his service in Vietnam, and the blue and red emblems representing the franchise’s three retired numbers: #12 for Jim Kelly, #34 for Thurman Thomas, and #78 for Bruce Smith.

From there we made our way back to ground level and into the bowels of the stadium. The visiting locker room is hilarious in its simplicity. Envisioning oversized giants of the game preparing to the take the field in a room with high school quality lockers and facilities had me cracking up. The Bills locker room, on the contrary, was everything you could imagine. The lockers themselves are a deep mahogany with multiple compartments, stools, and places for personal items. Every player has a small jar filled with dirt from the field as a reminder to “Defend Our Dirt” – one of the many motivational sayings plastered throughout the locker room. Several walls are emblazoned with the key mantras of the coaching staff: Hard Work, Energy, Accountability, Respect, Team… forming a HEART acronym.

One of the most fun parts of the tour was the media room. I got to go up on stage with my young son for a “press conference.” The TV lights and NFL-flagged mics were on. The room is remarkably dull otherwise, white concrete walls, folding chairs for the media, and that’s about it. I have to imagine this will be supercharged when the new venue opens.

We made our way to the tunnel connecting the locker rooms and media room for the highlight of the tour. As the birthday boy it was my duty to press the button that raised the gate and revealed the field. Sadly, though apropos, it was about 40 degrees and ridiculously windy, so we didn’t spend too much time on the field. Nonetheless, it was fantastic getting to feel the turf beneath my sneakers, to line up at 30 yards out and imagine being Josh Allen uncorking a laser beam to Stefon Diggs in the back corner of the end zone, to look up to the last row of the top section – a place I’ve sat – and imagine what it must look and sound like on gameday. Watching my son grit through the cold for a few photos crawling in the end zone and on the midfield logo while grandpa looked on was as surreal as it gets.

Back inside the tunnel, on our way to the old administrative offices, we walked past a huge 60K mural painted on the wall. Owner Terry Pegula had the mural put up with the names of 60,000+ season ticket members listed as a homage to the first time the team crossed the 60K mark. The old administrative office hallways displayed giant ticket stubs representing the four straight Super Bowl appearances the team made in the early 90s. There were also overheard panoramic photos of each Super Bowl stadium with plaques commemorating the venue, date, and – tragically – the final score.

Our tour concluded in the entrance for the old administrative offices. The room was ordered never to be changed from its original motif. Accordingly, it features yellow paint on the walls, lots of dark wood, and photos of the team donning its old red helmets during games. It even has the first couch that was ever in the room – a sprawling brown leather couch that I found admittedly comfy. Lastly, in a fun bit of nostalgia for my family, there was a photo of Bills great Phil Hansen sacking Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino. For a time, Phil Hansen attended services at my grandparents’ church near Rochester, New York. We got to meet him, and he even came over to our house one year on Easter!

All in all, it was a fantastic, memorable day shared with family. One day when I take my son to the new stadium, I’ll be able to show him photos of him at the 50-yard line of the old venue. The stadium tech nerd in me is looking forward to the technological leaps that I’m sure are in store for the new stadium: frictionless retail, facial authentication, access control, mobile ordering, a live sportsbook, even simple things like larger elevators and wider concourses. It was incredibly fitting however, to get this behind-the-scenes look at a football stadium designed and built in the early 70s that is having its second and final moment in the sun. Go Bills! #BillsMafia!

Thanks for reading!