Mango

PSL's should be illegal for any stadium that accepts public funding, aid, or tax breaks. If an owner wants to charge $200k for PSL's, go for it, but they need to forfeit all their public subsidies.

pRoVe It. WhEn DiD tErRy sAy "I mEdDlE"?

Don't get teenaged me excited. Ok, I just thought of the 23-24 Buffalo Sabres. I am all cooled off.

Do we want to keep the Taylor Swift talk going in this thread? Or should we move on to something a little less combative like Britney Spears mental illness?

Correct.

They are two different companies with two different owners entirely. Labatt USA is owned by FIFCO which is owned by Cerveceria Costa Rica S.A. Labatt Canada is owned by Inbev/Anheuser-Busch. The sale was forced when InBev merged with AB. They are not brewed in the same place, controlled by the same people, nor share any funding/financials. There are zero meetings between Canadian and US leadership.

Anybody notice that Yuengling has been sponsor a bunch of Sabres social media posts lately? Fairly significant since AB is the official beer of the league and Labatt has been the official beer of the Sabres. I would assume that means Labatts spending is down, allowing other private breweries to start taking ad space. Not to mention the Pegula's manage two sports teams, losing one makes it much easier to lose the other. Labatt isn't doing well. I think they are in serious jeopardy. They basically only sell meaningful volume in WNY. They lost Josh Allen as a sponsor because they actually no-called/no-showed to a meeting. That is how he ended up with Corona. There is not a brand of any size in the country that would no-call/no-show a Josh Allen meeting. They also laid off 70+ employees in the last few months.

Imagine how much the team would save on alcohol costs? Just turn on the tap water...boom wine!

Nobody wants to come here. So we have to develop our own.

Gretzky was minority owner. Jordan outright bought the team. Jordan is worth 10x Gretzky with prior NBA ownership, a NASCAR team, and responsible for 10%+ of all Nike sales. They are not the same. I don't think I am conflating on the court vs. off the court at all. Jordan was a bad drafting owner. I am not arguing that. What I am talking about is Black Jesus as a brand and a printer of money. There isn't another athlete in the American big 4 leagues that has ever been as big or bigger than the league they played in than Michael Jordan. When it comes to everything that happens on the field, ice, court, course etc. Jordan, Brady, Gretzky, Tiger, Serena etc. are all fairly close comparables. When it comes to everything else outside of that Michael Jordan doesn't have any peers.

It isn't exactly a complaint on Pete Guelli. A good portion of it is a complaint about Pegula. The Pegula lead Sabres are literally the worst team run franchise the league has seen. No other team has come from so close to the top and fell so close to the bottom and stayed there for that long. No one. Pegula is a historically bad owner. And released a statement that he hired somebody to help run parts of the franchise who "turned around" a franchise that was also pretty bad at sports.

The full quote. He may be really good at what he does. But also "turning around" a brand that Michael Jordan is in charge of isn't exactly a heavy lift. It gets even lighter when that brands major revenue base is in the backyard of where Jordan grew up and played college basketball. I don't mean to discredit a local guy. He may very well be really good at what he does. But you can't discount the Jordan effect. MJ also invested a ton of his own money into poor black communities around Charlotte. Worth noting he also owns a NASCAR team there as well. Jordan was and still is heavily entrenched in the community in NC.

I think it is more the optics of the worst owner in NHL history (literally) releasing a statement that he hired somebody who "turned team x around" when they were in fact really bad. It is also worth noting that Michael Jordan certainly understands marketing and branding. There are likely zero comps in the history of American Sports to somebody like Michael Jordan owning a professional sports team in the backyard he grew up in. In the big 4 sports in the states Michael Jordan likely knows more about the the sports, marketing, and partnerships side of basketball than half the owners in the league.

I understand there is the business side which is the man behind the curtain and then there is the product on the field. It is incredibly tone deaf for Terry to announce a new COO of the Bills and Sabres and verbalize that he "turned the Hornets around". He may or may not be really good at what he does. But fans don't really give a shirt about corporate sponsorships or the profitability of their venders at the arena/stadium. So to release a statement on your letterhead that the guy you hired "turned team x around" when they were really bad his entire tenure is super dumb when you are in the middle of the absolute worst run of ownership that the NHL has ever seen. EVER!

He looks shaky. But he’s also being hung out to dry. The Sabres are lucky this isn’t 6-0. I don’t mean Levi keeps bailing them out. He has but not as much as luck has played a part.

Not to beat a dead horse; but these guys don’t have any idea what they are doing or seeing out there. “If you watch our games we put in a lot of effort” - Alex Tuch That was a huge red flag for 2 reasons: 1. WTF are you watching when you guys go over film? Seriously? Does nobody understand what effort is? Do they not understand the film? Are they even watching the right team? 2. This city is so totally unplugged from this franchise that they gave done from 99.7% capacity to like 70% and bottom of the league. The only people booing are the last 800 people who still give a shirt.

“If you watch our games we put in a lot of effort” - Alex Tuch, literally

That’s fair. But something about if’s and but’s, and my aunt, or whatever also applies. You could maybe make an argument for domestic following. But I think Swift likely destroys Beyoncé internationally. It is an interesting point about music standing the test of time. Madonnas music might be a good comp? The crazy part about Swift is that she just doesn’t have a comp.

It’s Swift and not really close.

That was the greatest face off win we never won.

It took me some time to come around to it but she is more famous than just about everybody in the NFL aside from maybe, MAYBE, one or two players. She has nations bidding on her exclusive rights. It’s insane. I’ve been big on sending Levi down. But I also don’t thing one or two games here or there will ruin him. But he has to go back down.

The internet went wild because Baker Mayfield was messaging women on Snapchat to get blowies behind target. Imagine the trouble Paul McCartney would get in? He might date a woman with two legs. Or no legs. Theres a chance John Lennon could turn out to be Kanye West. I like to think Yoko Ono’s weird screaming/screeching/singing exhibits is her lifelong jealousy of Donna Godchaux's “success”. Donna has Europe 72’ and Barton Hall 77’. Yoko is still trying to catch up by becoming the world best “Donna impersonator”

There’s a weird ebb and flow with the way the league plays the Sabres. Press and forecheck heavy. Sabres don’t adjust. Opponent wins big. Then it seems like the league just sort of collectively gradually eases up until the Sabres win a couple or score a bunch. Then teams start carrying/taking us seriously again. They press and forecheck and we suck again. The cycle continues until we die. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a good team or bad team. It’s like a secret the whole league is in on except for the guys in our locker room.

3-4 very very dangerous shots in the last 45 seconds of game clock. This could get out of hand very quickly. Sheesh.

Jesus these shots on the PP/PK I’m shocked they didn’t rip two of those right by Levi.