Kevyn Adams GM thread

[TehDoak]

The Bills stadium has nothing to do with the Sabres. The stadium’s final cost will likely fall between 1.5 and 2 billion dollars. Pegula is getting 850mil in tax paying dollars and selling 25% of the Bills to cover his costs. That sale should net him at least 1 billion, probably more. So thats a stadium fund of around 2 billion, possibly more. That doesn’t included PSLs which could net him another 65mil.

The money involved with the stadium dwarfs anything NHL team related. As taxpayers, we alone gave the Bills almost 10X the upper payroll limit of an entire NHL team. If Quinn/Peterka both signed 7-8mil AAV deals. Even combined, that amount would still be less than 1% of the stadium project. I also don’t know why you think the Sabres are in the black.

Pegula will also never make back the money he lost on the Sabres since he initially bought them. The Sabres as a stand alone entity have probably lost over 100mil during his ownership. The Covid season alone was a big chunk of that.

The Sabres have only broken even/made a little money in the two years post full season lockout. That was with an enormous season ticket base that had a big waiting list that drove a ton of sellouts and they had 3 rounds of playoff revenue. Do you envision any of that happening any time soon with this team? They’re not making money now and aren’t likely to do so any time soon. Paying or not paying Quinn/Peterka right now means nothing in the big picture of the numbers involved. Not paying them means losing less money not making money.


Our roster spending habits are entirely due to Adams and the plan he wanted to pursue.

I think that is probably not accurate.

The stadium is a real cash cost. Much of it is 'publicly' paid for via future tax breaks. NYS is not outlaying cash for the Pegulas. So, there is heavy financing involved for this. Any over runs (which have said to have exceeded 600M+ already) is being paid for by the Pegulas. And yes, they will recoup that cost in the future with a partial sale. But none of this is done. This requires real, liquid cash to get done.

And while you are correct, the scale compared to the Sabres is tiny (billions vs 10s of millions), the Pegulas cost consciousness started happening right before the start of COVID (remember the PSE Presentations) and continued through about when they found out were going to have to build a new stadium. Going back to when Adams was hired...the Sabres were under heavy budgetary restrictions from that moment on.

Think of the Sabres as a bleeding attery they chose to tie off so the Bills stadium wouldn't potentially cause any issues with the 'real' family money. Yes empty COVID arenas were part of it, but those were essentially promised to be make right via escrow payments.

There are a lot of reasons why the Pegulas went from "Drill another well" to "Economic, Effective, Efficient", a lot of which we will never know, I'm sure. But saying that the fact the owner had to finance and build a brand new stadium that will cost almost 2B all in wasn't part of the math is silly. It's a huge financial strain, even for someone as wealthy as the Pegulas.

I believe (or hope at least) that when the new stadium opens, the extra cash flow will come to the Sabres as well. But...time will tell.