Did not realize the Sabres were 31st in attendance...pathetic

[JujuFish]

3 hours ago, matter2003 said:

2 GW drives within the final 2 minutes of the KC game.

Nitpick: he has 0 GW drives against KC, since, you know, the Bills didn't win.

[msw2112]

Back to the Sabres attendance...the team has been terrible for years and the fans' patience ran out.  The on-ice product had been horrible.  I don't live in Buffalo anymore and have not visited in a few years, but my understanding is that the arena is also in bad shape with torn seats, etc.  COVID was also in the equation.  Plus, the Bills have been successful and making playoff runs, so Buffalo sports fans' dollars have been spent (appropriately) there.

Now that the Sabres are resurgent, the fans have started to come back and if next year's team plays like this year's team has played in March and April, attendance will no longer be an issue.  In particular, from mid-February through the end of the season, after the Bills season is over, I expect the place to be full on most nights.  I hope to make it back to Buffalo for a game or two and will likely catch them on the road when they are near me.  I will also likely spend the money on ESPN+ or NHL Center Ice, as I think the product will be worth watching.

[PromoTheRobot]

3 hours ago, msw2112 said:

Back to the Sabres attendance...the team has been terrible for years and the fans' patience ran out.  The on-ice product had been horrible.  I don't live in Buffalo anymore and have not visited in a few years, but my understanding is that the arena is also in bad shape with torn seats, etc.  COVID was also in the equation.  Plus, the Bills have been successful and making playoff runs, so Buffalo sports fans' dollars have been spent (appropriately) there.

Now that the Sabres are resurgent, the fans have started to come back and if next year's team plays like this year's team has played in March and April, attendance will no longer be an issue.  In particular, from mid-February through the end of the season, after the Bills season is over, I expect the place to be full on most nights.  I hope to make it back to Buffalo for a game or two and will likely catch them on the road when they are near me.  I will also likely spend the money on ESPN+ or NHL Center Ice, as I think the product will be worth watching.

The arena condition has been overblown by Vogl and Harrington. 

[Taro T]

9 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

The arena condition has been overblown by Vogl and Harrington. 

The extent of the dilapidation has been exaggerated, but there are issues that should be fixable and actually fixed.

There is no hot water in many, if not all, the bathrooms.  There are, in fact, seats that are broken.  Not 100's, but how many patrons paying good money have to sit in a broken seat before it is considered an issue?  Apparently many cup holders are broken/missing.  Tend to sit in rows where the cup holders are built into the seat arms, so no idea how big that problem is.

[PromoTheRobot]

44 minutes ago, Taro T said:

The extent of the dilapidation has been exaggerated, but there are issues that should be fixable and actually fixed.

There is no hot water in many, if not all, the bathrooms.  There are, in fact, seats that are broken.  Not 100's, but how many patrons paying good money have to sit in a broken seat before it is considered an issue?  Apparently many cup holders are broken/missing.  Tend to sit in rows where the cup holders are built into the seat arms, so no idea how big that problem is.

I guess I'm lucky because I've never sat in a busted seat. But I may have stepped on a crack in the floor without realizing it.

[matter2003]

9 hours ago, JujuFish said:

Nitpick: he has 0 GW drives against KC, since, you know, the Bills didn't win.

Haha, well what should have been GW drives if the defense got it's head out of it's rectum.

[Radar]

14 hours ago, JujuFish said:

Nitpick: he has 0 GW drives against KC, since, you know, the Bills didn't win.

Which had 0 to do with Allen and the offense. I would say our defense blew game winning drives.

[inkman]

On 4/23/2022 at 11:28 AM, matter2003 said:

We claim to be hockey town but are almost dead last in attendance ahead of only Ottawa??

Pretty pathetic. I know the team has not been good for much of the last decade but this team is definitely worth the ticket the last few months...hopefully fans come back once this team becomes good over the next few years. 

I get why they have gone away but it still is really disappointing to see Arizona out drawing us by over 2K "fans" a game.

https://www.espn.com/nhl/attendance/_/sort/homePct

 

Dunking on the fans seems a little off target.  Not only have the Sabres been terrible for over a decade, they also managed to put the least interesting product on the ice they could possibly manage. No passion, hitting, fighting and star players that weren’t very interested in anything Buffalo doomed this franchise. Fans will be back. Time heals all wounds, even one as wide and festering as much as this one.  This last month or so of play is like putting the staples in to seal that wound.  By next season, we should be close to healed.  If they win, by 2023, the fans will return. 

[JujuFish]

4 hours ago, Radar said:

Which had 0 to do with Allen and the offense. I would say our defense blew game winning drives.

Hence calling it a nitpick.  We need a new term.  LG (lead-gaining) drives?

Edited April 26, 2022 by JujuFish

[SabresVet]

On 4/24/2022 at 9:45 AM, JohnC said:

It doesn't matter that what Paul Hamilton reported about the owners' retrospective about granting authority to McBeane is accurate or not. It could be true or not.  What matters is that the football staff currently has the authority to make football decisions without the interference of the owners. The results are indisputable: The Bills  are acknowledged to be SB contenders by almost everyone involved in the sport. 

The same learning cycle of how the owners conducted themselves applied to their hockey business, as it originally did with the Bills. The owners were very involved in the hockey operation when they bought the team. The results were predictably bad. Are the owners now intimately involved with the hockey operation? My sense is they are not, or at least significantly less so. And it shouldn't be a surprise that the fortunes of the team have dramatically improved. 

With respect to the attendance, there is no question that fans expressed their disillusionment with the organization by not attending the games. No one should blame them for not willing to pay for a decade long bad product. This organization lost the trust of the fans. Long term dysfunction and a bad product will do that to any enterprise. The franchise has to now earn its lost credibility back. For a large portion of this season the Sabres were drawing 4000-6000 people at the arena. Recently, it has doubled in size with a sellout for the Rick tribute. Yesterday's game drew close to 13,000 very engaged fans to the game. That's progress. It's going to take time to bring back the fanbase that ownership/organization contributed in losing.  

Hence, why I said "take it FWIW..."  At the same time, knowing how Marie Antoinette Pegula is and seeing Terry (who seems more out of it every time he talks) would be of this mindset is reasonable.  They're billionaires and sometimes those people just think they're more capable to make better decisions that they really are.  Besides, with the Bills in 2017 they were operating from a position of weakness, McD capitalized on that, and ensured he'd have control...which is what he is as a Type A personality.     

Anyone can reject a report, but here's the deal.  When you plunk down hundreds of millions for a team there is no "learning cycle" and needing 2-3 seasons is not a standard.  They may be less hands-on now with someone they trust in KA, but in the end it's a business and they want to profit.  

The good vibes people have right now to feel good is nice heading into 2022-23.  I'm saying it's a bottom line thing and fans who invest little compared to ownership should separate perspectives.

One thing lost on this discussion of new management like a GM is that it's not hard to take a team already at the bottom and make them passable.  Like going from dead last in the NHL for 2020-21 to 24th this season.  It's a big jump to go from being a ~75 point team to competing for a playoff spot where this season it required 100 points to achieve.  

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, SabresVet said:

Hence, why I said "take it FWIW..."  At the same time, knowing how Marie Antoinette Pegula is and seeing Terry (who seems more out of it every time he talks) would be of this mindset is reasonable.  They're billionaires and sometimes those people just think they're more capable to make better decisions that they really are.  Besides, with the Bills in 2017 they were operating from a position of weakness, McD capitalized on that, and ensured he'd have control...which is what he is as a Type A personality.     

Anyone can reject a report, but here's the deal.  When you plunk down hundreds of millions for a team there is no "learning cycle" and needing 2-3 seasons is not a standard.  They may be less hands-on now with someone they trust in KA, but in the end it's a business and they want to profit.  

The good vibes people have right now to feel good is nice heading into 2022-23.  I'm saying it's a bottom line thing and fans who invest little compared to ownership should separate perspectives.

One thing lost on this discussion of new management like a GM is that it's not hard to take a team already at the bottom and make them passable.  Like going from dead last in the NHL for 2020-21 to 24th this season.  It's a big jump to go from being a ~75 point team to competing for a playoff spot where this season it required 100 points to achieve.  

The Bills are considered one of the best teams in the NFL. That's the current situation. With respect to the football team what is there to criticize? The owners hired the coach and empowered him and his staff to make the football decisions. The record speaks for itself. If you don't want to give the owners some credit for that, then that's your prerogative. 

With respect to the hockey team I don't know anyone who has said that during their tenure they have done an exemplary job. The record is the record and can't be dismissed. However, since the owners hired KA as the GM, it should be acknowledged that in relatively short order the prospects for this team has taken a dramatic step forward. Even a die-hard pessimist would have to acknowledge that the franchise is currently being run in a competent fashion. There was a learning curve for the owners in the football operation and there was a painful learning curve in the hockey operation. In my eyes both formerly sunken ships have arisen from the depths and are floating toward success. I have no complaints with how the owners have recently operated. 

[dudacek]

4 hours ago, SabresVet said:

Hence, why I said "take it FWIW..."  At the same time, knowing how Marie Antoinette Pegula is and seeing Terry (who seems more out of it every time he talks) would be of this mindset is reasonable.  They're billionaires and sometimes those people just think they're more capable to make better decisions that they really are.  Besides, with the Bills in 2017 they were operating from a position of weakness, McD capitalized on that, and ensured he'd have control...which is what he is as a Type A personality.     

Anyone can reject a report, but here's the deal.  When you plunk down hundreds of millions for a team there is no "learning cycle" and needing 2-3 seasons is not a standard.  They may be less hands-on now with someone they trust in KA, but in the end it's a business and they want to profit.  

 

You mean unlike the rest of us, who are in no way convinced we know better than teachers, or doctors, or scientists, or hockey coaches....😜

[JohnC]

15 hours ago, dudacek said:

You mean unlike the rest of us, who are in no way convinced we know better than teachers, or doctors, or scientists, or hockey coaches....😜

It's like the beer chugging guy with grease stained overhauls who runs a junkyard business who says he has to study the data before deciding to get vaccinated. Living a life of delusion separated from the world of reality. (I come from a blue-collar background. So I'm not trying to be condescending. What I have learned as I have got older is the importance of knowing what I know and recognizing what I don't know. When in doubt the best approach is to be humble.)

[Porous Five Hole]

21 hours ago, SabresVet said:

Hence, why I said "take it FWIW..."  At the same time, knowing how Marie Antoinette Pegula is and seeing Terry (who seems more out of it every time he talks) 

I guess you missed his intro of RJ on RJ night? Or are you just spewing BS for funsies?

[calti]

On 4/24/2022 at 10:40 AM, PromoTheRobot said:

Sell the team.

I was thinking just raise the price of cheeseburgers