He could sell a 25% minority stake in the Sabres or rather the LLC that owns them like he's doing with the Bills. He would get back what he paid for them and then some, which is wild.
I thought this was common knowledge. Even though I think part of the equation is cheap ownership, Pegula seemingly has no way to ever capitalize of the value of the franchise. If he sells part, that is shorting his daughter some amount of control. If it's all going to her, he doesn't see a dime without some other creative money move on her part.
Something tells me she would have no desire to talk to her GM multiple times a day. She might even hire a hockey ops guy to act as a go between her and the GM. She might hire -- wait for it -- real professionals to run her business, not groveling acolytes to stroke her insatiable boss man ego.
I wish he would put them in charge now. Make them the ones going to board of governors meetings and the public face of the team.
I agree with you. IMO everything changed the day he bought the damn Bills. Prior to that things were starting to look up for the Sabres and the area around the arena. He had put money into revitalizing the downtown area with the Harbor center and felt like he cared about the Sabres.
Maybe it's time the Sabres leave and Buffalo becomes a minor league city with an NFL team. You talk about the sports entertainment dollar mostly going to the Bills. What's going to happen when the new stadium open?
If the Sabres were competitive instead of the worst organization in all of sports do you seriously think they'd be struggling at the gate? If you had this kind of run in any other city with the exception of a handful of markets they'd be drawing <5,000 most nights. People are desperate for this team to give them a reason to buy tickets but they simply refuse to give it to them.
It's grey, for sure, but I'll default to the higher seeded guy in the grey.
apnews.com
I think its nigh impossible to really look at the last few years of the budget conscience Sabres and not think this isn't part of the issue:
Bills' new stadium costs balloon to $2.1 billion, $560 million over initial estimate, team tells AP
The projected cost of the Buffalo Bills' new stadium has ballooned to what team officials told The Associated Press is “north of $2.1 billion.”
560M is a lot when it comes to 'unexpected' costs, even a billionaire. The money that comes from NYS/Erie county is almost all in tax breaks, so they aren't getting a check. This is likely all financed at a time when interest rates aren't very friendly.
According to: Buffalo Bills on the Forbes NFL Team Valuations List, the Bills 'net' revenue is around 170M a year. The assumption is that the new stadium will increase that quite a bit. Lowering operating costs, better margins, higher ticket costs. And yes, a higher franchise valuation.
But if he had to finance 1B+ to build the stadium, you are looking at spending 70-80M a year just in interest before even start paying down the principal. I get it, they are rich as f*** and will be fine...that is still a huge cashflow interruption.
