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Another Blizzard/NFL Playoff

T

tbolt909

47 people died as a result of the Buffalo Blizzard one year ago. Bills host Pittsburgh on Sunday. The NFL could be facing potential disaster with the weekend weather forecast there. It's almost certain that people will die trying to get to the stadium in treacherous weather conditions. Kansas City has a game Saturday night in frigid below zero wind chill temperatures but no Lake Effect snow. The Bills stadium is in a ridiculous location notorious for heavy snow bands.

Will Radio be covering this event? Is a playoff game more important than public safety? Ironically, If Buffalo had lost last week, they would be playing in Miami this weekend instead. The NFL is a Blood Sport, but they will be facing a PR nightmare if people die because they foolishly tried to attend a game in dire conditions...
 
tbolt909 said:
47 people died as a result of the Buffalo Blizzard one year ago. Bills host Pittsburgh on Sunday. The NFL could be facing potential disaster with the weekend weather forecast there. It's almost certain that people will die trying to get to the stadium in treacherous weather conditions. Kansas City has a game Saturday night in frigid below zero wind chill temperatures but no Lake Effect snow. The Bills stadium is in a ridiculous location notorious for heavy snow bands.

Will Radio be covering this event? Is a playoff game more important than public safety? Ironically, If Buffalo had lost last week, they would be playing in Miami this weekend instead. The NFL is a Blood Sport, but they will be facing a PR nightmare if people die because they foolishly tried to attend a game in dire conditions...
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For sure, especially since the Bills flagship WGR is an all-sports station. Their Audacy sister news station WBEN can handle Winter Storm coverage.
 
Evidently they're selling upper bowl tickets for $50 and lower bowl tickets for $200 for the Chief's game...It may be dangerously cold for fans in the stands:

Ticket prices plummet for Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game with bitter cold temperatures in the forecast​

sports.yahoo.com

Ticket prices plummet for Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game with bitter cold temperatures in the forecast

You can attend Saturday's Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game for just $50, but be prepared for brutally cold conditions.
sports.yahoo.com sports.yahoo.com
The projections from weather services expect the game to be played at potential temperatures of 10 degrees below zero, with wind chill pushing it to 20-to-30 below and making this one of the coldest games in the history of the NFL.
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Most ticket resale websites have prices in the upper bowl of the stadium for around $50, while tickets in the lower bowl can be found for roughly $200-250. Mind you, this is for a playoff game featuring Patrick Mahomes and the reigning Super Bowl champion Chiefs taking on arguably the most explosive offense in the league. Of course, this all makes perfect sense. Sitting around in temperatures that cold is a legitimate hazard to the human body, and paying to do so would be a hard sell for many people.
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Mikey Radio said:
Evidently they're selling upper bowl tickets for $50 and lower bowl tickets for $200 for the Chief's game...It may be dangerously cold for fans in the stands:

Ticket prices plummet for Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game with bitter cold temperatures in the forecast​

sports.yahoo.com

Ticket prices plummet for Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game with bitter cold temperatures in the forecast

You can attend Saturday's Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game for just $50, but be prepared for brutally cold conditions.
sports.yahoo.com sports.yahoo.com
Click to expand...
I have a friend who works for CBS Sports who is trying to get there. She flew out of Stamford, made it to Cleveland, then renting a car to drove 3 hours tonight and 3 hours tomorrow. Hope all goes well but it's kind of ridiculous, but freezer bowls have been a tradition.
 
tbolt, for once, I agree with you! This is the first severe storm since last Christmas’ devastating blizzard. Perhaps that has me skittish. Governor Hochul has declared a state of emergency. The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning. Yet, the NFL is going ahead with this game.

Local schools have preemptively closed when similar forecasts were issued in the past. Yet, tens of thousands of people will be traveling into an intense lake effect snow band on Sunday. It’s going to be a nightmare. Cars will be getting stuck. Pedestrians will be slipping and falling. No matter how many layers you have, sitting in single digit windchills for three plus hours with snow and wind gusts up to 40 miles per hour has to be life threatening.

I’ve sat through some unpleasant Bills games at the Orchard Park stadium. But you couldn’t pay me enough to go to this game on Sunday.

I’m not sure this post has anything to do about radio, other than I’m sure WBEN will be in wall-to-wall coverage of this storm this weekend.
 
Mark1981 said:
I’m not sure this post has anything to do about radio, other than I’m sure WBEN will be in wall-to-wall coverage of this storm this weekend.
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It ties into radio and TV.
What about the Bills announcers? What about the crew that looks after game coverage for both radio and TV?
It's not just the fans in the stands, it's everyone all around...
 
Yeziknoradio said:
It ties into radio and TV.
What about the Bills announcers? What about the crew that looks after game coverage for both radio and TV?
It's not just the fans in the stands, it's everyone all around...
Click to expand...

I imagine the TV crews are already there. Do you really think anyone wants to move this game to another site like they did in 2022? Playoff games are a big deal, and they view this as homefield advantage.

Meanwhile the team is offering to pay people to help shovel snow:

www.nbcsports.com

Bills seek shovelers to work at stadium, with snow coming for Sunday's game

A winter storm warning is in effect for the Buffalo area from Saturday through Monday, and that means Sunday's playoff game will be affected.
www.nbcsports.com www.nbcsports.com
 
Having just driven back from Buffalo to Rochester in the freezing rain...

I think it's a little hysterical to predict that "people will die" getting to Sunday's game. The forecast, at least as of now, calls for no more than 14 inches of snow in the heaviest lake effect bands.

That's not anything like the multiple feet of snow that paralyzed parts of Buffalo in 2022. It's sloppy weather, it won't be fun to drive in, I'm certainly staying off the roads except to get back and forth to work - but in western New York it's probably not enough to force the game to be scrubbed.
 
tbolt909 said:
The NFL could be facing potential disaster with the weekend weather forecast there. It's almost certain that people will die trying to get to the stadium in treacherous weather conditions.
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Much easier than moving the game to a different location would be to postpone it for 24 hours to Monday, same time, since very little snow is expected then. Also, it's Martin Luther King Day, which means many people are off anyway--and/or don't have school.

Why even tempt a potential logistical and safety nightmare?
 
I reckon these here are Yankee problems. We rednecks in God's country were smart enough to build a roof overhead to deal with the problems that weather's pendulum swings our way. 😉

Except for Florida, of course, but they're just a different breed of redneck altogether.
 
TheBigA said:
I imagine the TV crews are already there. Do you really think anyone wants to move this game to another site like they did in 2022? Playoff games are a big deal, and they view this as homefield advantage.

Meanwhile the team is offering to pay people to help shovel snow:
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If the field conditions are really bad, that eliminates any Home Field advantage. What you likely get is a very sloppy low scoring game.

The game is not the issue. Some people from Pittsburgh will drive to attend this game. They may not get there alive if snowfall rates are 2 to 3 inches per hour with 50 mph winds. The Bills can't afford to buy their own shovels and stadium crew? They have to ask fans to shovel snow? Time for the NFL to build this team a Dome or relocate the franchise...
 
tbolt909 said:
If the field conditions are really bad, that eliminates any Home Field advantage. What you likely get is a very sloppy low scoring game.

The game is not the issue. Some people from Pittsburgh will drive to attend this game. They may not get there alive if snowfall rates are 2 to 3 inches per hour with 50 mph winds. The Bills can't afford to buy their own shovels and stadium crew? They have to ask fans to shovel snow? Time for the NFL to build this team a Dome or relocate the franchise...
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The Bills provide the shovels and aren't about to put hundreds of people on staff in case it snows. They're looking for "casual labor." The forecasters all agree that this is a lake effect snow event that will dump snow in relatively narrow bands. The tricky part is predicting where those bands will land. Otherwise, it's a more widespread winter storm that's more than manageable, and Cleveland is as likely to get hit as Buffalo. The new stadium design will reduce the impact on the fans and the field but still make it possible to have a natural grass field that is preferred by both the league and the players.

Football has been played in adverse conditions for its entire history. This ain't baseball or soccer. Even if you had a dome, it wouldn't change the problem of getting people to and from the game. My preference would have been to build the new stadium north of the city where they rarely get lake effect, but that ship has sailed in the wind.
 
flybynight said:
Not how it works...and crazy talk.
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Yeah, NFL owners want taxpayers to pay for stadiums.
Detroit and Minnesota have Domes. The NFL had to move a Bills game to Detroit last year because the stadium was buried in over 5 feet of snow. Climate Change will cause more of these severe weather events. The Bills would be a logical team to move to London as the NFL expands its Empire. The league doesn't want a playoff game moved or rescheduled (Although they have in the past).

It's true that Football has been played in snow, rain, fog, and wind for decades. It's different when the severity of the weather makes travel impossible and deadly...
 
rosecitymedia said:
I reckon these here are Yankee problems. We rednecks in God's country were smart enough to build a roof overhead to deal with the problems that weather's pendulum swings our way. 😉
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Problem here in Houston is that the teams won’t open the retractable roof even in good weather, and the Texans have been most notorious for this. We can have a gorgeous fall or winter day with clear blue skies and temperature in the 50s or 60s……and the roof is closed. Ridiculous.😡
 
tbolt909 said:
It's true that Football has been played in snow, rain, fog, and wind for decades. It's different when the severity of the weather makes travel impossible and deadly.
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So long as the teams, players' and coaches' families, TV crews and support personnel can be safely brought to the stadium, there's no reason the game can't go on. The fans will have to decide for themselves whether they want to go ahead with their plans to attend the game or stay home. The NFL doesn't need to be their nanny.
 
CTListener said:
So long as the teams, players' and coaches' families, TV crews and support personnel can be safely brought to the stadium, there's no reason the game can't go on. The fans will have to decide for themselves whether they want to go ahead with their plans to attend the game or stay home. The NFL doesn't need to be their nanny.
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The Governor of NY has issued a State of Emergency there(For whatever that is worth). The blizzard that happened a year ago was forecast by reputable sources 5 days in advance. Many people ignored it and died.

We live in a sue happy culture. Some fans will try to blame the NFL and get money if something bad happens. If a travel ban is put in place before game time, that creates a dilemma for the league...
 
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