Per The Athletic Sabres Season Tickets Sales are estimated at less than 6,500

[Brawndo]

Quote

Buffalo has hosted two preseason games, and acres of empty blue seats greeted the players in KeyBank Center. The Sabres announced 6,846 tickets sold for Friday’s loss to Pittsburgh and 6,327 tickets sold for Monday’s 5-3 loss to Columbus. The actual attendance in the 19,070-seat building was just a fraction of those low numbers – it would have been possible to count the attendees Monday night – but ticket sales tell the damning story.

Fans who bought full season-ticket packages were charged for the three home preseason games. So, at most, the Sabres have sold 6,327 full-season packages, based on Monday’s ticketed attendance number. Buffalo used to cap season-ticket sales at 16,000, so the team could experience a drop of nearly 10,000 regular customers.

 

 

[LabattBlue]

Well Terry…if you haven’t been embarrassed over the last decade as owner of this mess, it is only going to get worse this season.  I tried to tell at least one poster(maybe more) that there would be a dramatic drop in STH’s this season. Believe me now?

[thewookie1]

Well there's a three way problem pinching the ticket base.

1. Bad Team

2. Canadian Border is Closed

3. COVID Vaccination Requirement

[tom webster]

1 minute ago, LabattBlue said:

Well Terry…if you haven’t been embarrassed over the last decade as owner of this mess, it is only going to get worse this season.  I tried to tell at least one poster(maybe more) that there would be a dramatic drop in STH’s this season. Believe me now?

Who didn’t believe it? Our group went from a height of 21 tickets down to 6 this year. On the plus side for those who still bought tickets, the secondary market should be a little higher when trying to sell to fans from other teams. Their choices will be to buy at season ticket price from us or box office price from the team. I will be supremely pissed if the team offers discounts on tickets.

By the way, don’t feel too bad for Terry, most of the lost tickets revenue will be made up by paying about $30M less in payroll.

[LabattBlue]

4 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

Well there's a three way problem pinching the ticket base.

1. Bad Team

2. Canadian Border is Closed

3. COVID Vaccination Requirement

I don’t see the vaccination requirement causing attendance issues at Bills games.  Yes maybe a drop because of the border being closed, but not sure what the percentage is of Canadian season ticket holders.   If the border was open, I’m sure those numbers would also be down. 

Edited October 5, 2021 by LabattBlue

[LabattBlue]

6 minutes ago, tom webster said:

Who didn’t believe it? Our group went from a height of 21 tickets down to 6 this year. On the plus side for those who still bought tickets, the secondary market should be a little higher when trying to sell to fans from other teams. Their choices will be to buy at season ticket price from us or box office price from the team. I will be supremely pissed if the team offers discounts on tickets.

By the way, don’t feel too bad for Terry, most of the lost tickets revenue will be made up by paying about $30M less in payroll.

I don’t feel bad for Terry, just sad and angry for what they have done to this franchise 

Edited October 5, 2021 by LabattBlue

[nucci]

10 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

Well there's a three way problem pinching the ticket base.

1. Bad Team

2. Canadian Border is Closed

3. COVID Vaccination Requirement

most of it is the bad team

[nucci]

We've become the team I used to feel sorry for when watching other games....bad team and empty arena. 

[Buffalonill]

2 minutes ago, nucci said:

We've become the team I used to feel sorry for when watching other games....bad team and empty arena. 

So the coyotes and the good old  Thrashers , Florida 

[GASabresIUFAN]

Geez I'm shocked.  Who would have thought that Buffalo fans would be smart enough to re-allocate their entertainment $ from the sorry Sabres to the successful Bills.

 

 

[Taro T]

54 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

 

The Pens game was part of the "royal" 1/2 season package.

The C-bus game was only forced upon full STHers.  

The Detroit game is a part of the "gold" 1/2 season package.

No data on which preseason games were part of the various 1/4 season (11 game) packages.

 

Canadian STHers were allowed to defer until next year w/out losing seniority nor their current seats.

All STHers were allowed to drop to the 1/2 season package in their normal seats with the right to go back to full seasons next year and IIRC no loss of seniority.

Taking the 1/4 season pack had downsides, but can't recall if it was possibly having to relocate next year, a loss of seniority, or both.

Full season packages originally had the March TO game in the package, but that was removed from the full package ~10 days ago.  STHers will have 1st crack at tix for that when they go on sale.

After the State's COVID testing mandate was announced, STHers could cancel their seats & IIRC they could get those seats back next year (like Canadian fans in general) but they'd lose seniority.

 

Would guess full ST packages sold are around 4,000 w/ a max of 5,000.

Pretty much everything else sold to date are 1/2 & 1/4 season packs.

Like @tom webster says, STHers should do OK on the resale market unless the Sabres undercut them.  Doubt the Sabres would #### the handful of fans still willing to pay for this "entertainment" but won't put it past them.

If the border weren't still closed/likely to be closed/ might be closed, expect the STs would've been somewhere between 8,000 - 9,000.  As it is, next year the STHer base will skew heavily Canadian as they DON'T have to pay to watch this "entertainment" (they just have to have, IIRC, 10% of the payment in and most of them have that already in the Sabres coffers simply by not taking the refund of unplayed games from '19-'20) and can go back to their old seats w/ no repercussions.  Yanks have to at least pay for 1/2 the season to do likewise.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Taro T
Unplanned, not unplanned. Friggin' autocorrect.

[tom webster]

1 minute ago, Taro T said:

The Pens game was part of the "royal" 1/2 season package.

The C-bus game was only forced upon full STHers.  

The Detroit game is a part of the "gold" 1/2 season package.

No data on which preseason games were part of the various 1/4 season (11 game) packages.

 

Canadian STHers were allowed to defer until next year w/out losing seniority nor their current seats.

All STHers were allowed to drop to the 1/2 season package in their normal seats with the right to go back to full seasons next year and IIRC no loss of seniority.

Taking the 1/4 season pack had downsides, but can't recall if it was possibly having to relocate next year, a loss of seniority, or both.

Full season packages originally had the March TO game in the package, but that was removed from the full package ~10 days ago.  STHers will have 1st crack at tix for that when they go on sale.

After the State's COVID testing mandate was announced, STHers could cancel their seats & IIRC they could get those seats back next year (like Canadian fans in general) but they'd lose seniority.

 

Would guess full ST packages sold are around 4,000 w/ a max of 5,000.

Pretty much everything else sold to date are 1/2 & 1/4 season packs.

Like @tom webster says, STHers should do OK on the resale market unless the Sabres undercut them.  Doubt the Sabres would #### the handful of fans still willing to pay for this "entertainment" but won't put it past them.

If the border weren't still closed/likely to be closed/ might be closed, expect the STs would've been somewhere between 8,000 - 9,000.  As it is, next year the STHer base will skew heavily Canadian as they DON'T have to pay to watch this "entertainment" (they just have to have, IIRC, 10% of the payment in and most of them have that already in the Sabres coffers simply by not taking the refund of unplanned games from '19-'20) and can go back to their old seats w/ no repercussions.  Yanks have to at least pay for 1/2 the season to do likewise.

We were also allowed to put all seats we didn’t buy in pause with right to buy them back next year.

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, tom webster said:

We were also allowed to put all seats we didn’t buy in pause with right to buy them back next year.

Good to "hear" that.  They should give your group that break as you're still buying more than a quarter of the seats you usually do.  Wonder if they gave the ticket brokers the same sort of consideration?  (Used to be very obvious which seats in the lower bowl were bought by brokers.)

[Brawndo]

26 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

I don’t see the vaccination requirement causing attendance issues at Bills games.  Yes maybe a drop because of the border being closed, but not sure what the percentage is Canadian season ticket holders.   If the border was open, I’m sure those numbers would also be down. 

The article estimates 10-20% of the STH are from Canada.

You are absolutely correct on the vaccine requirements, the Highmark Stadium was at 96 and 95 percent capacity the past two games, that’s comparable to the capacity from games during 1990-94

[Zamboni]

11 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Geez I'm shocked.  Who would have thought that Buffalo fans would be smart enough to re-allocate their entertainment $ from the sorry Sabres to the successful Bills.

 

 

I already had half paid down for my season tickets, when I told them to keep my money and I’ll resume actually attending games next season after I pay the balance. I personally don’t spend a dime on the bills.

for me personally, it was multiple reasons why I don’t want to attend games or pay the balance in full this year.

[Gatorman0519]

They are fielding what could be one of the worst teams of the modern era and they are not even shy about it.  Completely devoid of any stars or NHL caliber goalie. Not many are going to shell out their hard earned money to see that. 

[miles]

You cant put a garbage team out there year after year and expect people to keep coming back. There is not even a glimmer of hope at this point 

 

To be honest, i follow 2 teams, the sabers and the wild. i have completely moved on from the team and i follow the wild now and picked the kraken as my second team 

I only come to this forum because I enjoy the discussions. i have no interest in following the sabres anymore. 

Edited October 5, 2021 by miles

[K-9]

I hate to say it, but we may be on course to lose this team.

If Pegula’s recent bet on the North American energy sector doesn’t pan out by next summer, his East Resources Acquisition Company must dissolve and liquidate. Now I won’t pretend to know the potential impact that might have on Pegula’s finances, but it seems ominous to me. 

 

[Gatorman0519]

2 minutes ago, K-9 said:

I hate to say it, but we may be on course to lose this team.

If Pegula’s recent bet on the North American energy sector doesn’t pan out by next summer, his East Resources Acquisition Company must dissolve and liquidate. Now I won’t pretend to know the potential impact that might have on Pegula’s finances, but it seems ominous to me. 

 

I doubt it.  This is a NHL rich market.  Hockey is loved here. We have just been grossly mismanaged on an unprecedented level in modern sports history.  Its blunder after blunder after blunder for 15 years now. 

[Taro T]

Just now, K-9 said:

I hate to say it, but we may be on course to lose this team.

If Pegula’s recent bet on the North American energy sector doesn’t pan out by next summer, his East Resources Acquisition Company must dissolve and liquidate. Now I won’t pretend to know the potential impact that might have on Pegula’s finances, but it seems ominous to me. 

 

He has a ton of cash coming In from the Bills & though cash flow directly from the Sabres isn't good, the new US TV contracts & the fact that the Sabres have 1 of the lowest salaries in the league helps to offset a fraction of the ticket sale reductions (which are partially offset by still holding onto Canadian ticket holders' money from 1-1/2 years ago), & significant reductions from concessions & merchandise sales.

If the borders are re-oped by next October & they draft well, the STH base will be back near 12,000 seats.  (All the Canadians reclaiming their seats after NOT having to pay to attend the dreck that this season clearly will be.)  They'll be fine after this year IMHO.

Would be surprised if he has to liquidate his remaining EARC holdings & that seems rather small & fairly stable.  After the purchase of the Bills, most all their oil shale holdings rolled into JKLM Energy.  Doubt they'd be squeezed there barring another collapse like 18 months ago.  But maybe.

[K-9]

4 minutes ago, Let's Go B-Lo said:

Two things, the price of natural gas is spiking right now and I'm pretty sure Terry sold that business to Shell for like 4 billion dollars awhile back. Iirc, that was one of his big pluses in buying the Bills, he had tons of liquidity from that sale.

A third thing, I'm sure Terry has his money invested, not sitting under a mattress. The Dow has gone up massively since he cashed in his company.

He's fine. He loses the entire value of this team in his couch cushions on a Wednesday night.

And yet, in the midst of all that positive economic news, his company has yet to make the legally required acquisition(s). He has until July 1 to get that done. 

I appreciate that he has very deep personal pockets, but that doesn’t mean much to me. He’s not in these ventures to continually lose money, after all. 
 

I’m sure you’re right and it’s not a big concern, but it’s a cloudy horizon imo. 

[K-9]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

He has a ton of cash coming In from the Bills & though cash flow directly from the Sabres isn't good, the new US TV contracts & the fact that the Sabres have 1 of the lowest salaries in the league helps to offset a fraction of the ticket sale reductions (which are partially offset by still holding onto Canadian ticket holders' money from 1-1/2 years ago), & significant reductions from concessions & merchandise sales.

If the borders are re-oped by next October & they draft well, the STH base will be back near 12,000 seats.  (All the Canadians reclaiming their seats after NOT having to pay to attend the dreck that this season clearly will be.)  They'll be fine after this year IMHO.

Would be surprised if he has to liquidate his remaining EARC holdings & that seems rather small & fairly stable.  After the purchase of the Bills, most all their oil shale holdings rolled into JKLM Energy.  Doubt they'd be squeezed there barring another collapse like 18 months ago.  But maybe.

I’m referring specifically to his East Resources Acquisition Company, formed only last year and publicly traded. They have to make an acquisition by next July 1st, or it must dissolve and liquidate. 

[nfreeman]

4 minutes ago, K-9 said:

I’m referring specifically to his East Resources Acquisition Company, formed only last year and publicly traded. They have to make an acquisition by next July 1st, or it must dissolve and liquidate. 

OK, but that is a common occurrence with that type of company.  If it happens, the investors lose their transaction costs, but not the bulk of their investments -- that money has been sitting in a trust account and is returned to the investors.  His losses would be minimal and a million miles away from a level where he'd need to sell the Sabres.

[Taro T]

The entire market cap for ERAC is under $450MM and it's IPO was valued at $300MM about 18 months ago (give or take a few).

7 minutes ago, K-9 said:

I’m referring specifically to his East Resources Acquisition Company, formed only last year and publicly traded. They have to make an acquisition by next July 1st, or it must dissolve and liquidate. 

Actually, taking a very cursory look at some of it's filings, 1 of its external directors passed away which put too few outsiders on the board to stay listed.  That issue was apparently resolved in September.

Not sure what acquisition you are referring to, but it doesn't seem to difficult on 1st glance to make an energy sector purchase within the NEXT 8-1/2 MONTHS. 

What's missing here?

[K-9]

2 minutes ago, Taro T said:

The entire market cap for ERAC is under $450MM and it's IPO was valued at $300MM about 18 months ago (give or take a few).

Actually, taking a very cursory look at some of it's filings, 1 of its external directors passed away which put too few outsiders on the board to stay listed.  That issue was apparently resolved in September.

Not sure what acquisition you are referring to, but it doesn't seem to difficult on 1st glance to make an energy sector purchase within the NEXT 8-1/2 MONTHS. 

What's missing here?

Normally, I’d agree that eight and a half months seems like sufficient time. But it’s already been something like 17 months since the acquisition company was formed. Is there a dearth of attractive North American energy companies out there? I honestly don’t know. 

I don’t think you’re missing anything. And it’s not really a big concern for me, it just seems a little ominous on the heels of the negative Sabres news, that’s all.