BUFFALO, NY — Once the NFL announced the Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns game was moved to Detroit on Thursday, Bills Mafia filled hotel rooms close to Ford Field.
"Within twenty minutes of the announcement all the downtown hotels rooms were sold out," Visit Detroit's CEO Claude Molinari said.
But lucky enough for last-minute Bills fans heading to Michigan - there are still plenty of rooms available according to Molinari.
"We have 45,000 hotels in southeast Michigan so the surrounding suburbs can handle a large influx of the Bills Mafia, which we are welcoming," said Molinari.
Fans of Buffalo, a travel company for Buffalo fans based on the East Coast, says they got to work within 24 hours to coordinate travel plans for Bills fans going to the game and ensuring they have fun at the Bills Backed Bar US-12.
"Anyone else trying to put together a 24-hour tailgate in a different city a couple states away would be crazy or not get a big enough turnout, whereas when we threw our the idea to do something we got a huge outpouring of support," said Will Bradley, Owner of Fans of Buffalo.
The last-minute game location change inspired podcast host Gregory Tompsett, to give away more than 500 tickets to Bills Mafia.
Ok #BillsMafia anyone who can make it to the game Sunday, but isn’t in a position to buy tickets right now, reply below. I’m gonna be buying some tickets tomorrow to help get as many Bills fans as possible there on Sunday
— Greg Cover 1 🏈 (@GregTompsett) November 18, 2022
Also, let me know if you want to help buy some as well pic.twitter.com/0ZLKgOZdEi
"The coolest part is a lot of other people started writing me and saying hey I don't know how to do that but if I buy tickets can you help me do that too? So we have a dozen people coming together to give those tickets away," said Tompsett.
Public ticket sales for the Bills v Browns game opens at 12 p.m. EST on Saturday.
