Hey Terry, Do Us A Favor and SELL

[Chainshot]

I guess I should have been more specific in the title...

 

[Beerz]

The value of a dollar today is worth more than the value of a dollar tomorrow..

Especially for a 73 year old.

 

[joshjull]

I guess I should have been more specific in the title...

Who knew you should have clarified you meant 100% of the team.

 

[Tatanka]

You do know that Terry does not own the Keybank Center...right? The County owns it and is responsible for paying for at least partial renovations. It's the County's responsibility to maintain the roof and Pegula is paying for it on his own

This is not accurate. Per the lease the lessee is responsible for routine maintenance including the roof. And the lease runs out in 2025. I would expect he would look at the county and state to bring the arena up to standard or take the team somewhere where they will.

 

[Beerz]

This is not accurate. Per the lease the lessee is responsible for routine maintenance including the roof. And the lease runs out in 2025. I would expect he would look at the county and state to bring the arena up to standard or take the team somewhere where they will.

The county is responsible for the shell of the arena .. The Sabres are responsible for everything inside. The County Executive Dick who I won't attempt to spell his last name even said as much. The roof falls under "the shell" of the arena.

And the lease ends in 2027

Edit: I have seen different sources saying 2025 and 2027 as the end of the lease

 

[HogtownSabresfan]

Nothing in this post is remotely accurate.

For starters, How on earth can Pegula have money tied up with the Bills? He paid 1.4 billion in CASH to buy the them. Which means he has no debt to service and is basically printing money with the Bills.

The Pegulas’ are worth 2-3 billion more than they were at the start of the pandemic. Pretty amazing accomplish for the terrible businessman you’re describing.

As for selling 25%, the reason for that should be fairly obvious. Its to pay for his portion of the new stadium. Which will cost at least 550 million. It could be more. I don;t know what the agreement says about who pays for overages.


EDIT: You may see something similar with the Sabres to pay for all the projects that have been announced for the arena recently.

Forbes says the Bills are worth $3.7 B. The reality is anything less than a $175 million profit is sad but you own football teams for the utility you get being one of 32 knights in the USA. It's royalty in America. What's the value of being one of 32 Americans to own a football team? Pretty high and beyond profit and loss. Many people suggest Trump took his second choice and ran for president after being spurned by the NFL. LOL.

 

[Beerz]

 

[TehDoak]

while I tend to agree that that this is probably related to the stadium build. But this is also probably a bit of asset diversification.

 

[Jeremy2020]

Very random. LOL, Where there is smoke, there is fire. He got stuff wrong though. But Athletic has a story.

Pegula family selling portion of Bills ownership stake: Sources

Sources stressed Pegula eventually might not sell part of the Bills, but for the first time, he’s ready to welcome a limited partner.

theathletic.com

What? The Bills are football team who's league is about to allow private equity to have an ownership stake for the first time meaning that the price to buy an NFL team is going to take a jump. The list of teams that aren't doing this in the next couple years will very, very small.

Now throw in a massive construction project (which will never come in at the estimate) in a time of massive inflation. It's not rocket science.

 

[joshjull]

When people Google his net worth, it says 6.8 billion. 4ish billion of that is tied up in the Bills. That is not liquid cash.

His net worth has gone up because the Bills and Sabres values have gone up. That’s how this works.

I hope this helps.

I really doesn’t help.

Since the Bills were bought with cash and have no debt to service. They are able to access up to 700 million against the team. Which is the max amount of debt allowed by the NFL for existing owners. So no, the entire value of the Bills is not “tied up”.

Also you need to stop using cash and liquidity interchangeably. Liquidity isn’t just cash on hand. It also assets that can be quickly converted to cash. In the Pegula’s case that would be the 700mil I just mentioned and the 2+billion of their net worth outside of Bills/Sabres. Thats a decent amount of liquidity.

If the current reporting is accurate, the Pegula’s share of the stadium costs are almost 700mil. They can either take out loans or bring on investors to pay for that. They chose investors and keeping the team debt free. I can’t think of why they would deplete their cash reserves to pay for a project like this.

Lets be honest, Your initial posts made it pretty clear it never even occurred to you that they were doing this to pay for the stadium. You went right to your little conspiracy that the Pegula’s are strapped for cash. All their businesses are failing, blah blah blah.

 

[joshjull]

If he doesn't need the liquidity, why wouldn't he keep the stake and watch it grow every year??

Because he has an almost 700mi bill for a new stadium to pay for.

 

[Beerz]

Because he has an almost 700mi bill for a new stadium to pay for.

You mean billionaires don't keep a bank vault full of money and gold coins around and go for a swim in it like Scrooge McDuck?

 

[Jimmybarndoor2]

This whole thread is stupid

 

[joshjull]

Straight up. He wants someone else to pay for the Stadium costs. Pegulas have billions in hard assets but 500 million in liquidity might tap out their cash reserves.

 

[joshjull]

@Chainshot There's the new thread title.

 

[RefsIdeas]

I really doesn’t help.

Since the Bills were bought with cash and have no debt to service. They are able to access up to 700 million against the team. Which is the max amount of debt allowed by the NFL for existing owners. So no, the entire value of the Bills is not “tied up”.

Also you need to stop using cash and liquidity interchangeably. Liquidity isn’t just cash on hand. It also assets that can be quickly converted to cash. In the Pegula’s case that would be the 700mil I just mentioned and the 2+billion of their net worth outside of Bills/Sabres. Thats a decent amount of liquidity.

If the current reporting is accurate, the Pegula’s share of the stadium costs are almost 700mil. They can either take out loans or bring on investors to pay for that. They chose investors and keeping the team debt free. I can’t think of why they would deplete their cash reserves to pay for a project like this.

Lets be honest, Your initial posts made it pretty clear it never even occurred to you that they were doing this to pay for the stadium. You went right to your little conspiracy that the Pegula’s are strapped for cash. All their businesses are failing, blah blah blah.

If they weren’t strapped for cash - they don’t do this to pay for the stadium. They would just…pay it.

I don’t for a second think they’re dead broke. But they aren’t certainly as liquid as you think they are.

 

[Beerz]

If they weren’t strapped for cash - they don’t do this to pay for the stadium. They would just…pay it.

I don’t for a second think they’re dead broke. But they aren’t certainly as liquid as you think they are.

You seem to think the only thing considered liquid is cash. That isn't the case.

 

[RefsIdeas]

You seem to think the only thing considered liquid is cash. That isn't the case.

lol, I am aware of that - I can assure you

 

[Beerz]

lol, I am aware of that - I can assure you

Well the way you are framing your argument doesn't come off that way

 

[Reddawg]

You seem to think the only thing considered liquid is cash. That isn't the case.

Yeah, they don’t call it liquified natural gas for nothing

 

[Reddawg]

Bugs me that no matter what anyone says to the contrary, there is still a large amount of people, maybe even the majority who believe NY State is using taxpayer money to buy Terry Pegula and the Buffalo Bills a new stadium.

That is not the case.

NY State is using taxpayer money as a portion (along with team ownership and the NFL) towards a new multipurpose stadium in Buffalo that the state will own and lease to the Buffalo Bills for football purposes. With cost overruns I don’t even believe the state is paying the largest portion anymore, and if the Bills and NFL portions are combined then it isn’t even close.

The Pegulas as team owners are spending $700m+ for the right to lease a stadium they will not own for $800,000 per year over 30 years. The state will do with the stadium as they wish during non football designated times.

The whole thing gets spun as a sweetheart deal for a billionaire boys’ toy when in reality it’s smart politics at work. Politicians do not get re-elected by allowing wildly popular sports teams to relocate. The new lease doesn’t guarantee that won’t happen, but it does highly, highly incentivize the team not to move. That was the whole point.

 

[joshjull]

The facts are the roof has been leaking for years. The scoreboard was supposed to be replaced 7 years ago. For 6/9 years Terry has been out spent by his peers (current owners) and very significantly outspent the last 2 or 3.

The arena repairs is a criticism with its own merits. But it has nothing to do with the hockey ops side.
-It has nothing to do with missing the playoffs for 13yrs
-Tells us nothing about how much will be spent on the hockey side.
-Nor will it impact out ability to hire a new coach.

Constantly posting about it doesn’t change that.

You can talk about Golisano all you want. I lived through it, I am aware. And it is 100% irrelevant to the current state of the team in 2024. Any comparison at this point is dumb. The team is historically bad. Terry and Tom aren't peers because Tom doesn't own an NHL team. Terry's peers are Jeremy Jacobs and Ron Burke.

I bring them up because I think your posts better describe Golisano/Quinn’s tenure than Pegula’s.

Those people spend more on their roster, more on their scouts, more on their analytics, and more on their player development personnel.

You keep saying they don't. But they do.

I’ve never once said other teams don’t spend more on their front offices than we do.

What I did say in response to you pointing out other teams have more staff in those areas……

The Sabres have accumulated/developed some of the best young talent in the NHL, AHL and have one of the best overall prospect pools. Something they did using analytics, player development and scouting. It’s a strength of their front office

The front office in 2021 set out to build up as much young talent as the could as part of the rebuild. By any measure they’ve been wildly successful. Their set up clearly works very well. The extent of your complaint is that they didn’t do it with more people. Who cares?

This season at the NHL level, is the first failure of this front office. Which I would chalk up generally to Adams decision to give the group from last season one more shot at making the playoffs. Then not adding much beyond depth vets.

 

[BuffaloMango]

The arena repairs is a criticism with its own merits. But it has nothing to do with the hockey ops side.
-It has nothing to do with missing the playoffs for 13yrs
-Tells us nothing about how much will be spent on the hockey side.
-Nor will it impact out ability to hire a new coach.

Constantly posting about it doesn’t change that.

I bring them up because I think your posts better describe Golisano/Quinn’s tenure than Pegula’s.

I’ve never once said other teams don’t spend more on their front offices than we do.

What I did say in response to you pointing out other teams have more staff in those areas……

The Sabres have accumulated/developed some of the best young talent in the NHL, AHL and have one of the best overall prospect pools. Something they did using analytics, player development and scouting. It’s a strength of their front office

The front office in 2021 set out to build up as much young talent as the could as part of the rebuild. By any measure they’ve been wildly successful. Their set up clearly works very well. The extent of your complaint is that they didn’t do it with more people. Who cares?

This season at the NHL level, is the first failure of this front office. Which I would chalk up generally to Adams decision to give the group from last season one more shot at making the playoffs. Then not adding much beyond depth vets.

Low spend on company infrastructure/maintenance AND headcount compared to their peers/competitors/industry standards are almost always related. Especially in athletics.

The Sabres are spending investing less than their peers in player development, player identification, players themselves, and infrastructure. They have been investing less than their peers for 7 of the last 9 years.

In any other industry investing measurably less than your competitors in nearly every single business unit YoY is a giant red flag for investors (fans) or senior execs, managers, and directors (coaches).

Do whatever mental gymnastics you have to, but all of these things cannot be siloed. And whatever Pegula did in 2013 doesn't change his pattern of spending since 2015/16.

 

[Dale Gribble]

I think the best hope would be to find a situation like Fenway Sports Group (a group looking to add a NHL team to their portfolio), but I have to think the price considering the market, dormant fan base, and arena won't fetch a high enough return to justify the hitting the premium cash price the NHL will demand.

Outsider here, but I have always wondered if the Jacobs familly would be willing to sell the Bruins to say the Fenway Group and buy their Home Town Team.

 

[Chainshot]

The real "unfortunate" thing about the Ottawa sale and now the Phoenix deal, the NHL has said "Even in a failing market, a NHL franchise is worth no less than 1 billion dollars"

And the one thing the NHL will not do is allow any deal that causes the franchise values to fall. In most markets, owners who lose money every year are being made whole, on paper at least, by the franchise value growth. If the value was to drop, than I think there would be a bit of a race to cash out by more than a few.

Even if Terry and Kim decided, today, that they are going to put the team on the market, I don't think they could find a buyer at 1B, especially with the state of the Arena. The Penguins got 900M with a less than 15 year old arena and 2 championships in the last decade. Buffalo has the need for either a brand new arena or a major refurbishment, which is going to be a 100M bill in the next few years.

I think the best hope would be to find a situation like Fenway Sports Group (a group looking to add a NHL team to their portfolio), but I have to think the price considering the market, dormant fan base, and arena won't fetch a high enough return to justify the hitting the premium cash price the NHL will demand.

Fenway Sports Group already owns the Penguins.