2025 Arena Upgrades

[Porous Five Hole]

https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/keybank-center-updates-202526-audio-system-concessions
 

While you could say this is just keeping up with the Joneses, I’m happy to see the Sabres addressing these items. New for this year is a new audio system in the arena, express entry (don’t have to empty your pockets to walk through metal detectors any longer), and some concession upgrades. 
 

I’m glad the audio was finally addressed.  I guess new seats will have to wait another year

[sabremike]

Lipstick on a pig. The only other arenas that are as big of a shithole as KBC are either being replaced (Ottawa, Calgary) or getting massive renovations (Washington). 

[Porous Five Hole]

36 minutes ago, sabremike said:

Lipstick on a pig. The only other arenas that are as big of a shithole as KBC are either being replaced (Ottawa, Calgary) or getting massive renovations (Washington). 

While true, it doesn’t mean the team should not address issues. 

[Pimlach]

Yea!  On the positive side, they fixed something two years in a  row now.   

First the scoreboard and the holey roof, now better Audio and express entry and better hot dog buns. 

Go Sabres! 

 

 

 

 

[LabattBlue]

Something is better than nothing.  👍🏻

[mjd1001]

25 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

Something is better than nothing.  👍🏻

Agreed.

Hopefully once the new Bills stadium is open, they will look to do something bigger with the Arena.  If they wait too long, the thing that will be best for it will be a few thousand sticks of dynamite and a wrecking ball.

I don't like the special discount menu for only season ticket holders. Yeah, you want to reward your season ticket holders somehow, but for the rest of fans, you basically telling them "you aren't good enough buy more tickets or we'll get you to pay up in other ways".

Edited September 7 by mjd1001

[sabremike]

1 hour ago, mjd1001 said:

Agreed.

Hopefully once the new Bills stadium is open, they will look to do something bigger with the Arena.  If they wait too long, the thing that will be best for it will be a few thousand sticks of dynamite and a wrecking ball.

I don't like the special discount menu for only season ticket holders. Yeah, you want to reward your season ticket holders somehow, but for the rest of fans, you basically telling them "you aren't good enough buy more tickets or we'll get you to pay up in other ways".

The State and County are tapped out after the Bills stadium and the City is broke. I guess Terry is going to spend the half billion dollars to get the arena up to league standards.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[K-9]

8 minutes ago, sabremike said:

The State and County are tapped out after the Bills stadium and the City is broke. I guess Terry is going to spend the half billion dollars to get the arena up to league standards.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Well, considering Pegs is on the hook for $1.35b ( his original $550m, plus $800m in overruns) for his share of New Highmark Stadium costs, perhaps he’s tapped out. 😄

[LGR4GM]

7 minutes ago, K-9 said:

Well, considering Pegs is on the hook for $1.35b ( his original $550m, plus $800m in overruns) for his share of New Highmark Stadium costs, perhaps he’s tapped out. 😄

He got 1 billion dollars when he sold a 20%-ish stake in the Bills.

[LabattBlue]

1 minute ago, LGR4GM said:

He got 1 billion dollars when he sold a 20%-ish stake in the Bills.

Plus the PSL money.  

[K-9]

Just now, LGR4GM said:

He got 1 billion dollars when he sold a 20%-ish stake in the Bills.

Yep. I pointed that out a while ago when some around here were saying the stadium costs were impacting his ability to fix the Sabres and their arena when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. And I would say that given the revised NFL franchise values put out by Forbes, he and his minority partners nicely padded their worth since. 

3 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

Plus the PSL money.  

I wonder how much the PSL revenues defrayed his costs. It will be interesting to find that out.

[JohnC]

Just now, K-9 said:

Yep. I pointed that out a while ago when some around here were saying the stadium costs were impacting his ability to fix the Sabres and their arena when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. And I would say that given the revised NFL franchise values put out by Forbes, he and his minority partners nicely padded their worth since. 

Do you know how much he paid for his big boat? 

[K-9]

1 minute ago, JohnC said:

Do you know how much he paid for his big boat? 

Nope. And I don’t really care. Gotta be at least $100m if I had to guess. 

[JohnC]

Just now, K-9 said:

Nope. And I don’t really care. Gotta be at least $100m if I had to guess. 

That all! 😀

[Big Guava]

I'm in the wrong business...I need to sell stuff to stadiums looking to upgrade and overcharge them by 5x what you could get them yourself.

Edited September 7 by Big Guava

[Pimlach]

3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

He got 1 billion dollars when he sold a 20%-ish stake in the Bills.

 

3 hours ago, LabattBlue said:

Plus the PSL money.  

what about “drill another well”? 
 

[OverPowerYou]

So is it worth going to a game yet? Contmeplating the Columbus Day one 

[pastajoe]

On 9/7/2025 at 3:37 PM, JohnC said:

Do you know how much he paid for his big boat? 

It’s valued at around $100 million and has an estimated annual running cost of roughly $7 million.

[K-9]

1 hour ago, pastajoe said:

It’s valued at around $100 million and has an estimated annual running cost of roughly $7 million.

And like most yachts-owning billionaires, it will be listed and used as a private charter for rent, thus allowing a generous business tax write off. Much like billionaires do with land by growing a small crop or having a few barn animals allows them to write their properties off as “ranches” to, again, enjoy a nice business tax write off. East Aurora’s own Jeremy Jacobs enjoys being a “rancher” and all the tax benefits that provides.

[Porous Five Hole]

I didn’t see this anywhere on SS, but this is more than the arena cost to build even adjusted for inflation.  The arena was built in 1995 for $127M. That's only $270M adjusted for inflation today.

https://www.wgrz.com/article/sports/nhl/sabres/keybank-center-renovations-expected-to-cost-400-million/71-147c5a48-cda9-4df5-ae2b-d91bb5c21b93

[LabattBlue]

1 hour ago, Porous Five Hole said:

I didn’t see this anywhere on SS, but this is more than the arena cost to build even adjusted for inflation.  The arena was built in 1995 for $127M. That's only $270M adjusted for inflation today.

https://www.wgrz.com/article/sports/nhl/sabres/keybank-center-renovations-expected-to-cost-400-million/71-147c5a48-cda9-4df5-ae2b-d91bb5c21b93

The city is broke, the county doesn’t want anything to do with the arena, and the state just gave Pegula a boatload of money for the Bills stadium.  It will either be a scaled back Pegula funded renovation, or get comfy in the arena as it stands today.