Why Some Bills Fans Are Yelling at the Clouds – Buffalo FAMbase — #BillsMafia

This is a constant joke among my older Wyoming friends. We “yell at the clouds” like Abe Simpson from The Simpsons. Moreover, we are proud of it. It’s a great meme and talking point for those of us of a certain age…and especially relevant to older Buffalo Bills fans.

Anyone born in the 30s, 40s or 50s knows exactly what I’m referring to here. We were alive when the Bills were born in 1960 and have lived through the Rockpile, Rich Stadium and its iterations, and now a new “Highmark Stadium” to come.

Back then, our fathers, uncles and cousins ​​in my family worked at Bethlehem Steel and couldn’t afford to see the Buffalo Bills play in person. A few of my cousins ​​would go to a few games every now and then. They told stories about the cigar smoke and beer kegs brought to the Rockpile when Buffalo played at home.

I was about 10 years old then and I was hooked.

Every Sunday after church, it became a tradition for the men in the family to gather around my Uncle Steve’s color television to watch the Bills game. Being the weird kid that I was, I immediately decided to hang out with my uncles who were drinking beer and smoking pipes and cigars instead of playing with my cousins ​​in the backyard like I was supposed to do it. My aunts hated it and were constantly telling my uncles to kick me out of there because their swearing had a bad influence on me.

Too late.

There I can locate the birth of my potty mouth. Between the official Buffalo Bills forum (RIP BBMB) and Xwitter, the potty mouth image has been my avatar for 22 years for a reason. My earliest memories of the Bills were of the old men in my family yelling at the television like they were yelling at the clouds.

These days, it’s not just our older generation shouting at the clouds about the bills.

Change is hard, and it happens fast. The new stadium will be completed in the next few years and the fan experience will mark the beginning of a new era in Buffalo Bills history. As a senior, it’s mind-boggling to think how far the franchise has grown since the birth of the Bills.

Time passes and waits for no one.

Important decisions must be made by season ticket holders regarding “PSL” (personal seat licenses) claims and how much it will cost to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of owning a seat in the new stadium. I know what my long-lost uncles would have to say about the NFL extorting fans like they do today.

The marketing plan is in place to deal with subscribers who doubt PSLs. Dan Alexander from Forbes wrote an interesting article about PSLs as an investment and their value. But someone has to pay for these luxurious stadiums (compared to the Rockpile) and it’s the users of the facilities who will bear the biggest cost, certainly not the billionaire owners who will continue to find ways to extract even more money supporters.

While this “marketing plan” to make PSLs more acceptable may be necessary, it carries a risk of major hypocrisy. The marketed image of “BillsMafia” is that we are a bunch of blue-collar, beer-drinking, hard-working people who know how to tailgate. When the cost of purchasing a subscription includes thousands of dollars for a PSL, it no longer becomes affordable for the very people billed as “BillsMafia.”

This is why Bills fans (especially older fans) are screaming at the clouds right now. Our love for this team turned into a marketing plan to pave the way for the next generation of Buffalo Bills fans. I hope our unique culture will not be destroyed in this process.

Editor’s note: Change is inevitable. Yelling at the clouds is our way of expressing our frustration over things we have no control over. Enjoy every moment of the journey because it flies by, friends. Come on the bills.

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