The Buffalo Sabres are testing the limit of how much suffering a fan base can handle

New York Times

26-03-2025

BUFFALO, N.Y. — In April 2013, then-Buffalo Sabres general manager Darcy Regier warned fans what the team's pursuit of the Stanley Cup would require. The Sabres had already missed the playoffs four of the previous six seasons, and Regier fired coach Lindy Ruff and replaced his entire coaching staff midway through the 2012-13 season.
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'I understand our fan base, and I would like to think that people will give up some suffering in order to win a Stanley Cup,' he said.
'I'm willing to do it. I believe our fan base is willing to do it. We certainly don't want to extend it for a long period of time. We want to make it as short as possible, and that's the goal.'
Sabres fans bought into that concept. Two years later, on March 26, 2015, the Sabres hosted the Arizona Coyotes with the two teams neck-and-neck in the lottery odds. The prize of that year's draft was Connor McDavid, but a top-two pick would at least guarantee Jack Eichel, another franchise pillar to build around. That night in Buffalo, Sabres fans became Coyotes fans. Arizona's goals elicited cheers from the home crowd. When the Coyotes won in overtime, Sabres fans celebrated.
Odd as that night was, it showed how engaged Sabres fans were. The Sabres finished that season with 11 straight sellouts at home. They drafted Eichel No. 2 in the 2015 NHL Draft and had more than 15,000 fans fill the arena for a development camp scrimmage in July.
Almost 10 years later, Eichel returned to Buffalo as a member of the Vegas Golden Knights on March 15. The crowd was roughly the size of that development camp crowd. The Sabres sold 16,770 tickets and beat the Golden Knights 4-3 in overtime with fans booing Eichel, whose tenure with the franchise ended acrimoniously, every time he touched the puck. A game like this used to be a guaranteed sellout in Buffalo, but there were thousands of empty seats in the arena.
One of those empty seats for that game belonged to Louie Gott, a season ticket holder for the last 30 years. Gott has decided not to renew his season tickets and is purposely leaving his seat empty for the remainder of the season, in part to make a statement and in part because selling and even giving away tickets has become more work than it's worth.
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To understand exactly what Gott is giving up, you need to understand his origin story as a season ticket holder. When Gott was 11, his father got out of prison, and the two didn't have much of a relationship. Hoping to build a bond with his son, his father asked Louie what he liked. He told him he liked the Sabres, so his dad bought them season tickets.
'For 15 years, it was very rare that we even missed a game,' Gott said. 'We built our whole relationship in that arena.'
Around the start of the Sabres' playoff drought, Gott's father got sick, and Gott took over the season tickets. In 2016, his father died, and for the last eight seasons, Gott has kept the tickets and recently started splitting them with a friend.
He almost gave them up a couple of years ago, but the Sabres' employees in the ticket office went to great lengths to keep his business. For the last 10 games of the season, they upgraded his seats from the 300-level to the 100-level. They sent an employee up to his seats and brought him to a bar to have drinks. They even got him tickets to a concert at the arena he wanted to go to.
This time around, Gott told them he didn't want to be convinced. The friend he split the tickets with told him, 'Don't even ask me.' Gott told his ticket rep not to call him unless there was a 'huge organizational shakeup.'
'I'm like apologetic when I call them,' Gott said. 'I'm not going to sit here and scream at them. It's a tough job.'
This season, the Sabres are 30th in the NHL in attendance by average percentage of capacity with 84 percent. One of the lower teams is the Utah Hockey Club, which can only count unobstructed seats toward attendance figures, skewing their number. The other is the last-place San Jose Sharks. The Sabres are 27th in average raw attendance with 16,070 people per game. That number is up from an average of 15,981 last season and 15,567 the season before. It's a better situation than the one the Sabres faced coming out of the pandemic when the team averaged 9,998 tickets sold per game, but the prolonged losing is hurting the franchise's bottom line.
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'(The Sabres) ruined a night out,' Gott said. 'It's more practical to sit at home during a miserable winter night than go out and watch a hockey game, which is a sport I love.'
The Sabres haven't released season ticket numbers since the waitlist dried up, but preseason attendance provides a strong suggestion. Fans who buy full-season ticket packages are charged for all preseason home games. So the 9,924 attendance number for a preseason home game against the Columbus Blue Jackets this season represents the best estimate of full-season tickets sold. Coming out of the pandemic, the Sabres had roughly 6,500 full-season ticket holders. That number bumped up closer to around 9,125 in 2022-23. When that team came up one point short of the playoffs, the Sabres sold around 11,153 full-season tickets in 2023-24 based on preseason attendance data. But a disappointing season in 2023-24 led to that drop back down just below 10,000. The team also sells half-season tickets, quarter-season tickets and flex packs.
And while the price has become a point of frustration for fans, the Sabres still have some of the cheapest tickets in the NHL. According to the team website, season ticket prices range from $1,014 per seat in the value section of the 300s to $6,820 per seat in the rinkside tier. They offer discounted concessions to season ticket members. They upgraded the video board last offseason, fixed the roof and made adjustments to the in-arena game presentation. The quality of the seats is still a common complaint from fans, but the on-ice product trumps all other gripes.
'I don't need to be valued by the Sabres,' said TJ Jones, who has been a season ticket holder for two seasons and plans to be back in some capacity next season. 'They can show me I'm valued by putting together a competitive team and winning some hockey games.'
Furthermore, the Sabres are uniquely affected by the current political tension between the United States and Canada over President Donald Trump's decision to implement 25 percent tariffs on all goods imported from Canada. Trump has also said he wants to make Canada the 51st state. That's led to some in Canada limiting their travel to the United States and not supporting American companies. The Sabres draw between 7 and 10 percent of their season-ticket base from Canada and broadcast their games in Southern Ontario on FUBO. They are the only team in the NHL that plays both the Canadian and American national anthems before every game, regardless of opponent. According to border crossing data, 69,000 fewer people crossed into the United States in Buffalo this February compared to last February. Any decrease in ticket buyers from Ontario, be it single-game tickets or season tickets, will hurt the Sabres. The NHL and the Sabres declined to comment on the situation.
Dale Stevens is from Hamilton, Ontario, and splits season tickets as part of a group. He's been coming to games since he was 7 years old and plans to be back next year. The only things that would give him pause are if crossing the border becomes more of a hassle or the Canadian dollar were to take a hit.
'If the last 14 years haven't gotten me to stop coming, this won't do it,' Stevens said.
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Last offseason, the Sabres fired Don Granato and hired Ruff back as coach. Ruff became a significant part of their marketing campaign for the 2024-25 season. The team had Ruff calling season ticket holders over the summer. The Sabres offered packages starting at $22 per game in reference to Ruff's jersey number when he played for Buffalo and included a Ruff bobblehead with the purchase of a three-game ticket pack.
The result has been a modest uptick in attendance, but still thousands of empty seats for most games. The Sabres are in last place in the Eastern Conference. Now, the season ticket situation has the potential to get worse. They sold a team that was close to the playoffs leading into the 2023-24 season and then sold Ruff's return last offseason. What's left to sell after 14 years without the playoffs?
'It feels like we're all getting treated like idiots that are going to keep showing up,' Gott said.
The only evidence at this point is anecdotal, but conversations with fans, feedback in The Athletic's surveys and responses to the team's social media posts promoting season-ticket renewals don't paint a promising picture.
Sabres COO Pete Guelli, who holds the same title with the NFL's Buffalo Bills, sent a letter to season ticket holders on Feb. 27 pitching them on renewing. In that letter, he noted season ticket holders could lock in their current price without an increase but only if they renewed by March 17 at 5 p.m. That deadline angered some fans who have stuck with the team and consistent price hikes for tickets. By comparison, the New York Rangers announced they wouldn't be raising season ticket prices if they missed the playoffs. After the early bird renewal deadline, the Sabres' ticket employees started calling those who didn't renew, offering an extension of the deadline.
That letter also took a hopeful tone. Guelli wrote that the team is 'on the doorstep' of where it wants to be, despite having the fourth-worst points percentage in the NHL. He wrote about the 'massive steps' the Sabres have taken on the penalty kill, even though the unit ranked 21st in the league at the time. After that letter, the Sabres lost six straight games.
'They're lying to your face almost right now,' Gott said. 'I get that there's not too many answers right now, but they're very tone-deaf as an organization right now.'
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Guelli declined to comment for this story.
Hints are everywhere that consumer satisfaction has waned. In The Athletic's recent ownership rankings, Sabres fans submitted the most responses and rated owner Terry Pegula 32nd in the league by a wide margin. Of the more than 1,300 fans who responded to our Sabres fan survey last month, 67 percent rated their confidence in Pegula a zero or a one on a scale from zero to five. The same was true for GM Kevyn Adams.
A main point of frustration for fans is that the Sabres haven't spent to the salary cap ceiling since the pandemic, and the cap is about to skyrocket in the next few years. The Sabres are the only team that has left at least $6 million in cap space unspent in each of the last five seasons. Pegula hasn't spoken publicly about the team since 2020, when he deemed the organization's mission was to be 'effective, efficient and economic.' That day, Pegula hired Adams as general manager. He also fired more than 20 people in the hockey operations department.
Three seasons into Adams' tenure, the team was showing promising results. But in the last two seasons, the Sabres have regressed. They're back near the bottom of the standings. Adams also angered the fan base in a December news conference when he noted that Buffalo isn't a destination city for players and that the team would have to earn that moniker by winning because 'we don't have palm trees. We have high taxes.'
That prompted fans to show up to the next home game carrying palm trees around the arena. 'Fire Adams!' chants have been common at Sabres home games, and he was booed when the staff was introduced at the home opener. Fans in the 300s have even resorted to screaming toward Pegula's box when he's there.
Pegula isn't there as frequently as he used to be, though. He also owns the Buffalo Bills, who are a perennial playoff contender in the NFL. Fans have the perception that he cares more about the Bills than he does the Sabres, in part because of financial commitments. The team spends to the cap, and Bills quarterback Josh Allen recently signed the richest contract in NFL history. The Bills are also building a new stadium, the cost of which is expected to exceed $2 billion. Pegula received $850 million in funding from the state of New York and Erie County but is responsible for all cost overages beyond the initial $1.4 billion estimate. Ticket prices at the new stadium are expected to increase significantly when the stadium opens in 2026. The Bills already command a lot of people's attention and discretionary income in the early part of the hockey season.
On top of all that, Pegula's wife, Kim, who used to be president of both the Bills and Sabres, suffered a debilitating cardiac arrest in 2022 and was later declared legally incapacitated as a result of a brain injury caused by the cardiac arrest. In addition to the emotional toll that has had on Pegula and the extra time needed to care for her, Kim was a major part of the day-to-day operations of both franchises.
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Winning would solve a lot of problems for the Sabres, but fans don't have a lot of reason to believe the team is any closer to doing that. A few months after the Pegulas bought the team, the Sabres got three home playoff games in a first-round exit. They haven't played a playoff game or collected the revenue that comes with it since. In a league in which teams' financial health is largely dependent on ticket sales and revenue generated from fans attending games, the Sabres have been bleeding money in recent years.
There are still rare nights in the arena that serve as a reminder of what Buffalo looks and sounds like when the Sabres are good. However, the Sabres have had only four sellouts this season, and 19 home games have had fewer than 17,000 people in attendance. Some of their largest crowds have come due to thousands of fans from the opposing team. That was most glaring for a December home game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in which visiting fans represented the majority in the arena.
Buffalo is the second smallest market in the NHL based on population, but the Sabres have the ninth largest arena as Buffalo has long been a market that punches above its weight. Commissioner Gary Bettman has always been supportive of the market, even when the team filed for bankruptcy in the early 2000s. When asked about the Sabres' struggles on and off the ice, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic, 'No concern at all with Buffalo Sabres ownership or franchise. I'm sure they would have wished for better results this season, but this is a good franchise, in a great market, with committed ownership.'
Western New York hasn't lost its passion for hockey, either. The market routinely ranks among the best for television ratings during the Stanley Cup playoffs even though the Sabres aren't participating. The same was true for the recent 4 Nations Face-Off without a single Sabre playing for Team Canada or Team USA.
'People love hockey here, they really do,' said one former Sabres employee who was granted anonymity to protect their relationships. 'The Sabres have turned into a brand where people are hockey fans more than they are Sabres fans.'
And they still have fans like Jones. He's lowered his expectations of the on-ice product. He views the Sabres as his 'lovable losers,' works down the street from the arena and enjoys meeting up with friends at the games to break up the monotony of long winters. He acknowledges the time commitment is more strenuous than the cost.
'If you're living and dying on every game, I have no idea how people like that can last more than one year as a season ticket holder in the drought era,' Jones said.
The answer is that fewer and fewer people can, especially when the suffering Regier talked about over a decade ago has no end in sight.