Beloved Bills Mafia Figure to Receive Theme Party at Buffalo Baseball Game

The bills – or Bisons – Mafia, are piling up.

NFL pundit and honorary Bills Mafia member Kyle Brandt will have his place in Buffalo sports fandom immortalized later this month when the Buffalo Bisons of the International League host Hello football personality on July 20, 2024. Brandt will throw out the first pitch before hosting a 90-minute autograph session; the first 3,000 fans in attendance will also receive a Brandt bobble head.

The Bisons announced the upcoming promotion on their X/Twitter account Monday morning. Brandt shared his enthusiasm in a follow-up article.

Brandt’s affiliation with the Bills organization and fan base is a strange, even endearing, story that has manifested itself in mutual adoration in recent years. The host first began doing a weekly guest spot on the team’s internal website One Bills live radio show several years ago, developing a relationship with the organization that culminated in hosting a team-produced hype video ahead of the AFC Divisional Round game between Buffalo and the Baltimore Ravens during the 2020 NFL season.

The video was incredibly well-received by fans, with Brandt’s phrase “Bills Mafia, rise” becoming a rallying cry among the Buffalo faithful. This resulted in the creation of several other hype videos over the years, with Brandt becoming the unofficial face of “Bills Mafia”; he attended the team’s Wild Card round victory over the New England Patriots in the 2021 NFL season before announcing the Bills’ selection of linebacker Terrel Bernard in the 2022 NFL Draft.

It’s a… unique promotion of Buffalo’s Triple-A baseball club that perhaps serves as a microcosm of the city’s relationship with its professional football franchise – a national football personality who has a soft spot for the team is beloved enough to be given a theme night at a local baseball game. If that’s not the embodiment of Buffalo, I don’t know what is.

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