The smell was the first thing to hit me upon getting off the elevator at KeyBank Center’s 200-level concourse.
It was the first time I had been in the building in more than five years. There was a time when the wafting smells of popcorn and deep-fried food ran through your nostrils. On this day, though, it smelled of stale beer, spilled and left to dry until the stickiness of the floor could be felt underneath everyone walking down the hall.
Sure it was 9 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day 2022 and the last of four March Madness games was about to begin. But for a major professional sports arena to smell like a dingy hole-in-the-wall bar seemed small-time.
That was before I picked a food vendor, placed my order and watched as the person behind the counter unwrapped a frozen La Nova pizza and placed it in the microwave. It was no cost to me due to free food vouchers given to the media, but it was hard not to think, “People pay for this crap?”
Having lived out of the area for five years, I was well aware of how the Buffalo Sabres’ on-ice product was in the gutter, but it was baffling that an area less than 30 years old was left to decay in such spectacular fashion. The next question became, “If the Sabres stink on the ice and the environment to watch the game isn’t any better, what’s the point of buying a ticket?”
The most important question was, however, “Where was Terry Pegula?”
The Sabres owner, who purchased the team in 2011 and vowed to make them a Stanley Cup contender and then purchased the Buffalo Bills in 2014, is nowhere to be found. That is unless he can take photos holding a golden shovel after breaking ground on a $1.7 billion football stadium for which he is currently on the hook for less than half.
Pegula hasn’t publicly taken questions from the media about the Bills since 2019 and the Bills a year later. Getting $850 million from New York State and Erie County for the Bills stadium wasn’t even enough to stop him from hopping into a car and driving off after the last photo was taken at the ground-breaking last summer.
The Bills have somehow experienced a resurgence since Pegula’s purchase of the franchise, but that’s mostly attributed to the decisions of general manager Brandon Beane and coach Sean McDermott. The Sabres, meanwhile, have languished under Pegula’s ownership, now sitting on a seventh head coach, a fourth general manager and zero playoff appearances in 13 seasons.
The coaches, general managers and players have taken the brunt of the criticism for the downward spiral that has seen the Sabres finish fewer than 10 points out of a playoff spot twice in nine years, including three last-place finishes in the Eastern Conference. Even the fans, fed up over more than a decade of ineptitude, have been blamed for being too toxic.
But the finger should be pointed directly at the team’s owner and those who enable him to operate his franchises from afar with no consequences.
Missing the playoffs by a point last year, the Sabres, loaded with young talent, were supposed to end the drought. Instead they’ve held a lead after the first period 17 times in 75 games. An offense among the best in the league last year has floundered under a more defensive approach, scoring one goal or less 18 times — with six shutouts — and have 10 losses by at least four goals, all increases from last year.
Pegula’s life has been turned inside-out over the last 18 months, after his wife, Kim, suffered cardiac arrest. It’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked or minimized.
But during that time, Pegula made himself president of the Bills and Sabres. He attended every Bills training camp practice, strolling the sidelines in Bills-embroidered shorts, rubbing elbows with Jim Boeheim and Sen. Chuck Schumer.
The crux of why Pegula hasn’t taken questions publicly in four years largely comes down to people enabling such a practice. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz cut a deal with Pegula for the new stadium and got to trumpet their heroics in saving the franchise’s fate in Buffalo when Pegula threatened to move the team if a deal wasn’t reached.
Poloncarz blasted the Bills for a lack of transparency Friday when it comes to rolling out the PSL prices. He believes the team and Legends — which will handle beverage, food and merchandise for the new stadium — is trying to gauge how much they can make off club seats before setting a price for the average fan.
“The other owners don’t care if the average fan in Buffalo can afford tickets in the new stadium,” Poloncarz lamented. “They just want to make as much money as they can. And it’s going to be like that not just for the PSL cost but with the increased prices associated with, probably, the tickets themselves.”
When Poloncarz cut the deal for the stadium, he had to know PSLs were coming — and didn’t denounce the idea Friday — because that’s how stadiums are operated and paid for nowadays. So it seems odd or incompetent that he didn’t know how they were going to roll out the costs.
That brings into question Poloncarz’s competency when it comes to negotiating a new lease between the Sabres and county-owned KeyBank Center when it expires in 2025. The 28-year-old building hasn’t undergone any major renovations outside of team-quality upgrades made by the Pegulas.
The arena is expected to need $150 million in upgrades, including a new roof, widening concourses and a sound system. Buffalo has already announced a 27-by-43-foot videoboard would be installed for next season.
Who pays for these upgrades remains to be seen, but based on how Pegula has been enabled in the past, it should be an uncomfortable situation. That leaves the fate of accountability to the fans, but that might have to come down to simply not showing up at all.
Maple Leafs fans overran KeyBank Center Saturday, making it seem like the game was played in Toronto to the unknowing viewer. It’s an embarrassment that likely didn’t bother Pegula because the NHL relies heavily on ticket sales, concessions and merchandise.
The NFL has a $110 billion television rights deal, compared to roughly $600 million the NHL has with ESPN and Turner. So the Sabres were content with a full building Saturday, regardless of which team had more fans.
Sabres fans have a right to boo whoever they want, as loudly as they want. They have the right to sell off their tickets when the team increased prices by 9% this season and unveiled a dismal product yet again.
“I spent 10 years working in the arena model and I know exactly how it needs to operate,” Guelli said. “Those buildings are community assets, they’re the staples of the city and they’re the catalysts for growth in markets if they’re handled the right way.”
KeyBank Center certainly hasn’t been treated like a community asset lately.