Serious doubts sums this plan up the best. When I read the articles it seemed more like this is a scheme more than a business plan - with not much hope of succeeding.
The population of Elmira works against the chance of success. Maybe they already do this, but the Jackals need to market themselves to any communities with a 45 minute drive. There must be at least 250,000 people within that radius, I'm guessing. But it's tough to get people to commit to a long drive to see ECHL hockey unless there's something entertaining on the ice to see. I've gone to a couple of Jackals games - driving from my brother's place in Wellsboro, PA - which is just short of an hour away. Not horrible insofar as the drive is concerned and the games have been entertaining. Perhaps the Sabres/Amerks affiliation will help - but bottom line is they need a good on ice product and they need to promote it effectively to get people buying seats.
The biggest problem I see in that respect is that once fans get the perception that the team is on the way out, they stop going even more - thus exacerbating the problem. They also don't like to hear that "it's on the fans to show up" - especially of the game experience is not satisfactory. That means a competitive team and great gameday experience. There's some positive movement in that regard as I read about improvements to the arena including the scoreboard and general repairs/cleanup. The purchase of the Lindenwald Haus seems like another positive as well.
I think that the best hope is that within the three year time frame, the affiliation with Elmira proves to be of value and importance in the management of organization depth and the creation of an effective and efficient pipeline between Buffalo, Rochester and Elmira. So much so that if the Elmira experiment fails, the Sabres might be willing to either outright purchase the team, keep them in Elmira and absorb the losses or arrange some sort of subsidy to cover some of the losses that the public is incurring.
