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Alaina Getzenberg, ESPN
BUFFALO, N.Y. — There’s a stadium being built in Orchard Park, New York. It’s right across the street from the Buffalo Bills’ current venue and will contain a plethora of new and exciting features.
But since the first images of what the stadium could look like were shared with the public, the focus has been on the group of bison statues being placed outside of the new Highmark Stadium. In the Buffalo-area, the talk has been just how big the bison will actually be.
“We’re spending a lot of time on scale, size, what they look like. It’ll give fans kind of an idea of how big we think they should be, which I know there’s a ton of debate about,” Frank Cravotta, Bills SVP of new stadium design, said in a video released by the Bills this week.
Some answers to that question were provided with the team releasing a video this week previewing the new Bills Stadium Experience, which will offer fans an opportunity to explore what the new stadium will bring, what different seating experiences will look like and a model of what is to come. It is available to visit upon appointment with season ticket members receiving priority.
As part of the video, the team included insight on what to expect from those bison statues with images of what they are projecting them to look like.
“Well, they’re scaled right now as 16-feet tall. We like the size of it,” Cravotta said. “We think it works for a variety of reasons. One of the first things that I downloaded was the world’s largest buffalo. We all agreed that it’s cool because it’s big, but there’s no emotion there, there’s no detail. It’s just big.
“… If you were to create a bison that is 40-feet tall, you’re kind of then taking all of the rest of what we’re doing out of proportion.”
The “World’s Largest Buffalo Monument” is in Jamestown, North Dakota, sitting at 26-feet tall with 60 tons of concrete.
There was some disappointment on social media among fans about the expected size of the bison statues, but the goal of them — amongst other stadium features — goes beyond the size of the bison themselves.
“We’re not trying to say this is it. What we’re saying is, for scale, this helps tell that story,” Cravotta said. “Showing scale and showing movement and detail. What it will help show is that this is built for Buffalo and appropriate and cool, like this is a cool factor. I hope that what comes across is that we dig into this deep.”