The reviews of Highmark Stadium are in

The WBEN All Local. A daily look at what's happening in Buffalo, Western New York, and the world. I'm Susan Rose. I'm Brian Maserowski. Bill's fans got their first look inside the new Highmark Stadium on Saturday, and the reviews are in. For me, it's a few little things, like the food. The food was improved a lot. We got a pizza and it was very good compared to across the street. Actually having a nice seat, bathrooms were very big and clean. the concourses are not all cramped. I thought the view, the seats that I have now are awesome. I'm one row down from the very top row and I can see everything. It's amazing. Can't wait for opening game and see it at night when it's really dark out. It's going to be amazing. So we were on the 50-R line on the Yavit roadside and the rain came so the wind was blowing in under we were undercover but we were getting hit. Oh, okay. Well, it makes sense. The wind blows that way, yeah. Well, whatever, yeah. Bills will be hosting the Panthers this Saturday for the first game action. It's the first preseason game at the new stadium, but lots of impressions by lots of people. Yeah, you're seeing a little bit of all of it. I think the negative gets overblown. So you're seeing a lot of the obstructed view seats. Yes. If you'd look at it, you'd think that there's thousands of obstructive views. There can't be that many of them because I'm seeing the same three pictures over and over again when people are talking about it. So I don't know exactly what they have. We got to hear from somebody who might have like, that's their actual seat. And they didn't know it was obstructive view. And then like then I'll be like, okay, this is an issue here. Everything else seems like it got a pretty decent review. New food options people were liking. The wider concourse, the sight lines. That's huge. Not just the wider concourse, but the wider area in your seat between you and the row ahead of you. It's just a lot bigger. And that's a different feeling. I'm going to go next week. I'll be at the open practice they're having on Tuesday. So I'm excited to see you inside. Yeah. what everything looks like, how it's going to be on game. But I think Saturday is the day where you get a little bit more of a, I don't know, game day experience because it will be an actual game. So it'll feel a little bit more realistic. I feel like there was so much to look at this Saturday that it's a good thing that it wasn't a game because it didn't. We're focused on everything else. Even Saturday. I mean, how much are people really going to be paying attention to the game? Probably not that much. And more people might be walking the concourses, too. But it'll be interesting to see. Now that it's open, people are already thinking about what might go around it. And here's WBEN's Brayton Wilson. While there's been plenty of talk of the new Highmark Stadium potentially bringing new ancillary development like bars, restaurants, and hotels in it around the new building, John Simperman from Barnstorm Sports and Entertainment just doesn't think the facility.

can serve the region as any sort of economic enhancer. In fact, Simperman is not much in favor of trying to make properties near the new stadium like the old stadium site or even ECC South Campus a destination for a new entertainment district. I think it's a gorgeous state-of-the-art stadium that keeps the bills here for a minimum of 30 years, but there is not incremental revenue that's going to come from the building, you know, primarily where it is. There's no hotels. There's not a lot of ancillary entertainment. You know, it's a great building, but it's not a new revenue drive. driver for Erie County. Siperman feels there's other factors the bills in New York State should look to perfect with the new stadium. I think where the stadium should focus is efficient ingress and egress, really focus on other means of transportation, i.e. public transportation to the facility, but I think that adding restaurants and bars for a 365-day environment is not a good investment. Sipperman strongly believes the focus of any future development of ancillary entertainment should be in downtown Buffalo, especially. around Key Bank Center. He does warn, though, the city just can't go diving headfirst into shallow water to build up the cobblestone district. I think there needs to be a comprehensive blueprint for what the vision is of cobblestone. And I think if you look at Boston with the hub, if you look at Cleveland with the Gateway District, these are great entertainment districts that have organically been built around their arenas and their stadiums. I would look at those models and really focus a lot of resources on bringing people downtown. The arena is so... important to the economics of our region. You know, we're talking 150 to 200 events a year. We need to focus more attention there. Hear more from Simperman online. Brayton-Wilson, WBEN.com News. All right. Thank you, Brayton. And Iranian officials say the Strait of Hormuz will never fully reopen until the U.S. corrects its behavior. Tehran is out with a list of demands. It is a long list there. They're saying that not only does the U.S. have to let up on its blockade, not only does the U.S. have to pay reparations for damages caused by the war effort. It also has to agree to stop saying anything negative about the Iranian regime, that it's got to take all forces out of the Middle East writ large. That is Shannon Kingston at the State Department. Some people hoping increased attention to another old building in Buffalo will finally lead to some changes. Here's WBEN's Jim Fink. The former Wonderbread Building. Once an east side landmark, and now an urban eyesore, has prompted Buffalo Common Council Majority Leader Leah Halton Pope to ask the city law department if there is anything legally that can be found to force Canadian developer Harry Stinson to do something with the Forgeron Street complex. There's an issue here and it needs to be dealt with. And yes, that is the same Harry Stinson who owns the Buffalo Grand Hotel and is facing several legal issues from the city. Leah Hulton Pope says, it is time to do something.

vacant building owners, you've got to do something with your property, or we're going to come for it. Built in 1923, the six-story building has been vacant since Wonderbred shut down its local operations in 2004. Stinson bought the building six years ago with plans of renovating it into apartments and a startup incubator space. Those plans never materialized. Why would I want to buy property next to this eyesore that hasn't been taken care of? This is Jim Fink for WBEN.com News. All right. You read more about that. And if you don't know what it is, just kind of see what we're talking about over at wbens.com. Well, more than 180 new wildfires across the country since Saturday, according to the government agency that tracks them. Eight grew into large intense infernoes, mostly out west. Firefighters working to contain nearly 100 large fires nationwide. In Utah, hundreds of thousands of acres scorched. Two pilots were killed, fighting a 174 square mile wildfire still burning. The helicopter, flying in an area of steep terrain, crashed, igniting another fire. People in southern Oregon forced to evacuate as the Wright Spring fire grows in size. Canada battling its own fire crisis. More than 20,000 people ordered to flee their communities in British Columbia, now under a state of emergency. That's Sophie Flay reporting. Mark Zuckerberg's $300 million super yacht under scrutiny after it reportedly failed to help a small boat stranded in Alaskan waters while a much smaller cruise ship came to the rescue. The distressed vessel, a 21-foot skiff, ran out of fuel Monday night while traveling between Petersburg and Juneau, Alaska, prompting the Coast Guard issue a marine assistance request. According to the Alaska Beacon, Mark Zuckerberg's 387-foot yacht launch pad was closer to the stranded boat, but did not respond. Instead, the cruise ship Wilderness Legacy came to the rescue and towed the skiff to safety. Mark Zuckerberg's spokesperson says the meta-CEO and his family were not aboard, and the yacht's crew was monitoring a different radio channel. Ted Lindner, Fox News. Okay. So Mark Zuckerberg wasn't aboard. Okay. But the crew should have known. Yeah. I like that the yacht is under scrutiny. So everybody gets to, you know, hide under the cover of the yacht. It's not the yacht who made the decision. Right. Because the yacht is a boat. It doesn't do anything without somebody telling it to. Somebody is. The exclusive WBEN 7 weather forecast calls for temperatures rising to around 80 degrees muggy once again for our Monday, along with some early showers and the potential of stronger thunderstorms into the afternoon, mainly along lake breeze boundaries away from downtown Buffalo. Temperatures into the overnight drop into the lower 60s, still with a chance of showers and possibly a thunderstorm. On Tuesday, we're mostly sunny highs are right back to around 80 degrees with a shot of storms across the southern tier.

Exclusive WBEN 7 Weather Forecast. I'm meteorologist, Autumn Lewandowski. Lucas Buckley is in studio with us this morning. He was one of more than 51,000 fans inside the new Highmark Stadium for the very first time for Saturday nights blue and red practice. I mean, you had high expectations going in. Did it meet those and then some? Absolutely. And then some especially. We've heard it described leading up to this as like walking into a Ritz Carlton. And that's kind of what it did feel like, which that might seem maybe a little pretentious. Like a Ritz Carlton if they served hot dogs. Yes, right. Yeah. And made sausage for you. But, you know, that might seem a little like snoozy to hear that for a lot of people just because of what we're used to. But it's important to remember that's the norm around the NFL now is. The Ritz Carlton. I mean, you see SoFi Stadium in L.A. and Atlanta Stadium. So I was blown away. blown away so good. Like that's generally the positive, you know, feedback that we're getting. There's a lot. I don't know, like, what to make of it, though. Can you really judge a stadium by the first time that you're in it to watch a practice? Because you're looking at all this stuff. There seems to be so much stuff inside. There's a lot of stuff. Everywhere you look, there's a concession stand or a food place to walk in. Seriously, wherever you walk. If you look to your right or your left, there's some place you can go to grab a souvenir, grab a drink, grab something to eat. The 360 view thing is true when you're on the bottom, when on the 100 level at least. You can see that. But yeah, there's something everywhere you look. It's like eye candy. Yeah, yeah, really. It really is. Or there's some type of art piece to look at. It's sensory overload. Where was your seat? We were in 450. Thank you, Joe Beamer. It was his seat. But it was a great seat up there. But from up there, you could really... get a sense of how people have said it's like the odd. I never went to a game of the odd. Up in the oranges? Yeah, up in the oranges. It's steep, but you're also right over top of the action. If your view cuts off, so if you're looking like past the overhang, the view ends at the end zone end line. So you're, you're right over top of the action. And the pictures that are online don't do... the sizing justice. Everything is closer than what you see in the picture. It's like the rear of your mirror. But you look to your left.

you look to your right it's like either end of the stadium is 50 feet away from you that's how it feels because you're just stacked on top of each other so it um that was really impressive i was going to ask the most important question could you see the field yes yes that that's one thing if you're high up like that yes you can some of those it's not all the seats i don't know what percentage it might be some of those pictures of the obstructed views Some of them are unacceptable. Others, like, looking through a pane of glass. Spare me the outrage. But there are some, like, I was actually looking around for that because that kind of stuff always intrigues me. Looking by the press box because it juts out a little bit. That's, like, way up high, tucked into the corner. Some of them did not look like seats that were for sale. I mean, like the people were kind of looking for a place to take a bad picture of a seat in the stadium. The others, like these first row seats in the upper decks where you have the railing and everything in front of you, oh. I mean, like that looks like a real problem. If I bought that seat there and you're, you know, looking at the screen that they show you when you buy a seat and then all of a sudden you get there and you get this railing in the way, you can't see the field unless you're standing up the whole time. Yeah. And you're in row one? That's rough. The railings look more intrusive than the glass windows do that other people have been mentioning also. Because, I mean, it's just an iron bar. I mean, maybe if they lowered it one thing down, you'd be able to see better. But there's also the fact that... People went to the virtual experience thing and apparently got to see from that angle. Some people say it's accurate. There's other people who say, no, they weren't told everything. So luckily, I wasn't in that spot. The rain. Yes. So you were up in 450, you said? So you were dry. We were dry, yeah. Well, I think, yeah, yeah, I think the whole section would have been dry. It was. cut you could see it walking around it was kind of like the snow globe game a few years ago against the colts where you could see the uh the rain just kind of like swirling yeah with the win and uh the the rows that were not covered i forget i don't know where it cuts off maybe midway down the 100 level or so but immediately everyone starts heading up the stairs towards the concourse you could see it but everyone else higher up was covered as where where did you who got the rain that's what i want to know so you're covered in your seat like where did the rain come in was it in the concourse was it in other no sections it was really only the 100s which is ironic because they paid the most right and they're getting free food and everything too but yet they're they're not being spared from the elements So it was really, honestly, from what I saw, only them. It was only those people flooding up going towards the concourse, all taking shelter in the one area where you could watch from the concourse and see out of the field clearly. But ironically, yeah, it was the most expensive seats.

It's kind of funny. The cheap seats stay dry. Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, they've got other coverings down there. Like, that's the, you can kind of go in the club and enjoy yourself, I think, if the weather gets too bad. And also, it's a practice. So I don't, if it was sprinkling, I might be like, all right, we'll see you. I'm going to walk around the concourse or something like that. I mean, cool to see, you know, all the new things that are out there. I still think Saturday is like the real, because a game's going to be played, which is so much different than walking in for a practice where, you know, you're going to have a start time, an end time, all right, how does this play look on the field? Well, you've got players are scattered all over the field doing their own little things for practice. Yeah. It's not quite the same, right? Right, yeah. You know, you can, for a preseason game, it's like, all right, this is how a game is going to look on the field. Yeah, like looking, when they did team drills, it was completely different from when they're sitting there stretching and doing all that kind of thing. Three really quick notes before we wrap up here. One, the gray alternate looks, it's still not great, but it looks better on the field. Oh, I thought it looked worse. You did? Yeah, all the pictures. Wow, wow. I was, you know, blinded for a good 30 minutes. Number two, this would make an, it's going to be the best stadium in the country, I think, for a hockey game or concert of some type. It feels like key bank center on steroids when you're in the bowl. Okay. And then three, there's some little things like some paint that could be applied somewhere, but that's really it. Okay. Well, really cool. Great first impressions. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for giving me this role now, covering all the bases here. You're in every seat here. That's right. That's the WBEN, all local. All new episodes are made available each weekday morning, produced by the award-winning WBEN Newsroom. Lemonade. Fresh squeeze, lemonade. Lemonade? Oh, nuts. Is your business struggling to be seen, not reaching the right customers? Yeah. Odyssey's here to help. Your one-stop shop for digital marketing. Wait, really? With targeted digital media, plus SEO, SEM, social, OTT, and more. We help your business reach the right audience and drive results. Whoa, hey, one at a time. Stop missing out on valuable customers. Visit digitallocalads.com to learn more about our local advertising solutions. That's digital local ads.com. Okay, people. Line starts here.