Bills Mafia — #BillsMafia

Editor’s note: This announcement about our joint contest was originally posted at BuddyNixon.com on Saturday, March 2nd.

Think you have the most unique Bills jersey around? Interested in winning a pair of tickets to see a regular season Buffalo Bills game? Than you’ve come to the right place!

Here at Buddy Nixon, we are always trying to cultivate a culture of passionate, informed Bills fans. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no better way to do that than to go watch the team in person among 71,999 other fans who feel the same way. After all, a man is only as good as the company he keeps.

That’s why we’ve partnered with the good people at Bills Mafia to bring you an entire season of tickets. Each month, we’ll be providing you with an opportunity to win a pair of tickets to go to the mecca of Buffalo Bills fanhood by proving your passion in a unique way.

This month, we’ll be focusing on one of your most personal statements of Buffalo Bills fandom: your jersey collection. Over the years, you’ve probably collected an eclectic wardrobe of jerseys worn by a Buffalo Bill that held enough of a place in your heart to elicit you to put down 100 dollars of your hard earned income in order to “represent.” Consequently, those players eventually retire, move on, get traded, and while immediately after the jersey may seem stale, the shirt gains character as it ages, like a fine wine.

Well, we want to see the finest of your wines. Go through your closet, and pick out your funniest, most obscure, most ironic, rarest, or whatever other reason that makes it great. Put it on, snap a twitpic showing the players nameplate, and tell us very briefly why it’s awesome in an entertaining way.

We will pick 5 finalists, and at that point its up to you guys to pick your favorite one. We’ll tally the votes, and whoever has the best jersey will win!

Here’s what you need to do submit an entry:

-Follow @BuddyNixon and @TheBillsMafia

-Tweet a twitpic of yourself wearing your jersey that clearly shows the players name on the back. Has to be officially licensed, no duct tape! And one entry per person.

-In the same tweet, tell us why your jersey is the best. Make it brief, entertaining, and convincing. With #seasonoftickets in the description. Ex) ”Check out my entry for the #seasonoftickets cc: @buddynixon @thebillsmafia”

-Check back as about halfway through the month we’ll pick 5 finalists. See if you made it!

-Recruit your friends to vote. At that point, it’ll be up to #BillsMafia to pick who has the best entry. Recruit your friends, promise to take them to the game!

Other Details:

Dates: March 23rd the 5 finalists will be selected!! They will then be put up for voting on Facebook. Get your friends to login and like us to vote! Voting will run through March 31st.

Bonus: The first Billy Joe Hobert entry AUTOMATICALLY will advance to the final round.

Game: the winner of all 7 contests will have a draft of the games they want. This will be hosted live September 1st. Order will be determined by random selection.

Extras: Win exclusive #BillsMafia gear!!!

And that’s all there is to it! Go Bills!

Look out for contest two dropping April!!

We’ve been advertising this on Twitter and Facebook for a little over a week now, and I figured it’s probably best to get everything written down before it all begins (in a little over 3 hours from the time I’m writing this). Join us!

So, we created a group over at NFL.com and we’re at about 250 entries so far.

Whomever has the most points after the Super Bowl will get a free “MAFIA” hat. If there’s a tie, we’ll give out multiple hats.

DJSTICKS26 has graciously donated this autographed 8×10 of Aaron Williams:

Autographed photo of Aaron Williams

So we’re going to a do a giveaway…

In a comment below, submit a guess of what you think the TOTAL YARDS OF OFFENSE FOR THE BILLS will be tomorrow. Whomever guesses the closest will win the photo. PLEASE BE SURE TO LEAVE YOUR TWITTER HANDLE OR FACEBOOK NAME SO WE KNOW WHO IS WHO.

Rules and stuff:

• In the case of duplicate guesses, the one with the earlier comment will win the tiebreaker.
• Must be following @TheBillsMafia and @DJSTICKS26 to be eligible.

Thanks, @DJSTICKS26, for donating the photo and good luck everyone!

THANK YOU, #BILLSMAFIA!

What does #BillsMafia mean to you?

Your answer could result in you being the owner of a brand new jersey from The Bills Store, courtesy of BillsMafia.com!

We recently hit the 10,000 follower milestone on our Twitter account, @TheBillsMafia — and we (Del, Bre, and Leslie) wanted to come up with some way to convey our gratitude to those who have helped make this movement what it is over the past fifteen months or so. Without the #FAMbase, #BillsMafia isn’t anything but another hashtag on Twitter…

Unfortunately, we only have the ability to give one jersey away, so we want to make it count.

So here’s how it’s going to work…

1. Sum up your thoughts of what #BillsMafia means to you in one tweet, and be sure to use the this hashtag: #mafia10k. Your tweet must be tweeted by 12pm Friday, November 30th!

And by one tweet, we mean just that — ONE TWEET. No usage of third party services such as Twitlonger and the like to get past the 140 character limit (actually you have 130 to work with since tacking on ” #mafia10k” at the end is going to eat up 10 characters).

Also, no multiple entries. Users who tweet more than one time with #mafia10k will be considered ineligible.

2. We’ll retweet a sampling of all the #mafia10k tweets we find on Twitter after 12pm Friday — which will be randomly selected as contest finalists. Whichever tweet gets the most combined retweets and favorites by 10am Sunday, December 2nd will be the winner of the jersey.

3. Winner can select any jersey from shopthebills.com (including customized). Just no “Nike Elite” variations. $300 is too rich for our blood. ;)

4. Winner must be following @TheBillsMafia (duh).

5. We reserve the right to clarify, expand, or restrict these rules at any time during the next few days. You guys always find loopholes! ;)

Good luck! We’re looking forward to what you come up with!

“Sing with me, Bills Mafia…”

So, you know the “Fanchise” opener NFL Network has before Thursday Night Football?

The one with CeeLo Green singing the Blitzkrieg Bop ripoff, joined by fans across the NFL?

Well, apparently NOT ONE BILLS FAN HAS SUBMITTED A VIDEO!

We need to fix this. We’re Bills fans… We’re Bills Mafia — rabid for this football team whether it’s 16-0 or 0-16. We cannot go unrepresented.

So, to get the ball rolling and encourage participation in this effort, we’re going to provide a little incentive.

SUBMIT A VIDEO OF YOU REPPING BILLS MAFIA (whether it be a Mafia shirt, holding up a sign with the hashtag, whatever) and if you’re the first one to appear in a Thursday Night Football opener on NFL Network, we’ll send you a t-shirt.

So, what are you waiting for? Get after it!

Who will this year's pick be?

Like all members of the Bills Mafia, I have spent way too much time over the past two months reading mock drafts. I’m not sure what the fascination is with mock drafts, but people love to write, read, and pick them apart. We are just a couple of short days away from the NFL Draft, and now Bills Mafia members can have some fun.

Post your prediction for the Bills first round pick below, and one winner will win a Bills Mafia T-shirt.

Here are just a couple of rules to keep things in order:

• Only one entry per person
• Please just list one player – if you list more than one the first name you list will be your entry
• If multiple people make the correct selection, one winner will be selected at random
• If no one makes the right pick, all entries will have a chance to be the random winner
• The contest is for the Bills first pick – if the team trades back into the first round it will not affect the contest
• If the team trades out of the first round I will likely throw a temper tantrum, cry like a little girl with a skinned knee, and cancel the contest
• Posts must be one the board by 5pm EST on Thursday, April 26

Let’s get as many Bills Mafia members as possible to participate as we all look forward to Thursday night. So who is your pick? Have at it and thank you for participating in the Bills Mafia NFL Draft Contest.

Late Friday night we decided to celebrate a great week with another wristband giveaway. Why was it a great week? Well, the official Bills Mafia Twitter account, @TheBillsMafia, passed 4000 followers and oh yeah– THE BILLS SIGNED MARIO WILLIAMS!

In typical fashion, we made you work for it. And in typical fashion Bills Mafia showed up! Not too shabby for 11:30pm on a Friday night! Three lucky people went to bed one #BillsMafia wristband richer.

Like last time, we had followers on Twitter post photos of themselves in Bills gear holding up a sign. The sign this time around had to say “Welcome home Mario from #BillsMafia.” We thought it would be fun to put a gallery together showing the excitement we have for the newest playmaker added to the Bills defense.

So, Mario, if you’re reading this… enjoy the photos below and WELCOME HOME!

In case you missed it, Stevie Johnson re-signed with the Bills this week. ;) Two months of stress and worry among the fanbase was swept away in one short press conference.

The #BillsMafia wristband given away to last night's winners.

Bre, Leslie, and I wanted to do something fun to celebrate. Everyone loves the #BillsMafia wristbands, and we still have some from last season to spare, so we figured we’d do a giveaway…

But we wanted to make it fun and involve the Stevie news in some way. So after giving it some thought, we had a 45 minute contest window last night requiring followers of @TheBillsMafia on Twitter to post photos of themselves in Bills gear holding up “Welcome Back Stevie, from #BillsMafia” signs to show our excitement that Buffalo’s favorite playmaker was re-upping for another half-decade. Three people were picked randomly and won a wristband. We got a pretty decent response seeing how we really only gave around 20 minutes notice!

Plus we got a pretty sweet little “welcome back” gallery for Stevie.

I think I can speak for all three of us when I say it was awesome. I’m pretty sure we had more fun than those participating. And Bre put it best when it was all over…

REAL FANS. REAL FAMILY.

Anyway: Stevie, if you’re reading this… enjoy the photos below and WELCOME BACK!