Sportico Valuations for the Bills and Sabres

[Brawndo]

 

[Taro T]

19 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

 

Amazed the Sabres are estimated to be worth more than 3 MLB clubs.  Cool.

Also, rather surprised that they're estimated to be worth less than 2 MLS clubs.  Yikes!

[#freejame]

Are we supposed to have more value than the Pirates? 

[inkman]

I’m not sure how the maths work but the Sabres being just under 1/3 the value of the Bills is hard to fathom.  Ticket revenue I guess…

[PromoTheRobot]

44 minutes ago, inkman said:

I’m not sure how the maths work but the Sabres being just under 1/3 the value of the Bills is hard to fathom.  Ticket revenue I guess…

I don't know how they base valuation estimates on but I think much of the value is just being "in the club." The Bills are estimated to earn $104MM annually. The Sabres estimate is around $12.5MM.

Edited February 10 by PromoTheRobot

[Eleven]

Nothing too surprising here.

[Dude]

So Terry has seen a 6X increase on the Sabres in 15 years and a 3X return on the Bills in less than 12 years.  Not bad.

[PromoTheRobot]

27 minutes ago, Dude said:

So Terry has seen a 6X increase on the Sabres in 15 years and a 3X return on the Bills in less than 12 years.  Not bad.

A great investment. But like your house, you can't reap the benefit until you sell. That said, I wonder if they might take on some minority stakes to fund arena improvements?

[Dude]

3 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

A great investment. But like your house, you can't reap the benefit until you sell. That said, I wonder if they might take on some minority stakes to fund arena improvements?

Yeah, I was originally going to say "return" but he hasn't realized it yet.  And it wouldn't surprise me if they did that.  They did it with the Bills.

[PromoTheRobot]

2 minutes ago, Dude said:

Yeah, I was originally going to say "return" but he hasn't realized it yet.  And it wouldn't surprise me if they did that.  They did it with the Bills.

Just like Patrick Mahomes bought a chunk of the Kansas City Royals, I'd love to she Josh Allen buy a stake in the Sabres.

[Big Guava]

4 hours ago, inkman said:

I’m not sure how the maths work but the Sabres being just under 1/3 the value of the Bills is hard to fathom.  Ticket revenue I guess…

It's because the NFL is BY FAR the highest revenue sports league in the world and it's not even close.  They are essentially a money printing machine.

NFL revenue is likely to be over $25 Billion for this past year, more than double MLB in 2nd place at $12.5 Billion and NBA in 3rd place at $12.25 Billion.

For the NHL, revenue is projected to hit $6.8 Billion, well under 1/3 of the NFL.

 

Edited February 10 by Big Guava

[Broken Ankles]

3 hours ago, Eleven said:

Nothing too surprising here.

 

[jad1]

28 minutes ago, Big Guava said:

It's because the NFL is BY FAR the highest revenue sports league in the world and it's not even close.  They are essentially a money printing machine.

NFL revenue is likely to be over $25 Billion for this past year, more than double MLB in 2nd place at $12.5 Billion and NBA in 3rd place at $12.25 Billion.

For the NHL, revenue is projected to hit $6.8 Billion, well under 1/3 of the NFL.

 

He might be saying the Sabres valuation is surprisingly high at 1/3 the value of the Bills.

[pastajoe]

2 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Just like Patrick Mahomes bought a chunk of the Kansas City Royals, I'd love to she Josh Allen buy a stake in the Sabres.

He’s more likely to buy a stake in a California team when he finishes his career there.

[inkman]

1 hour ago, Big Guava said:

It's because the NFL is BY FAR the highest revenue sports league in the world and it's not even close.  They are essentially a money printing machine.

NFL revenue is likely to be over $25 Billion for this past year, more than double MLB in 2nd place at $12.5 Billion and NBA in 3rd place at $12.25 Billion.

For the NHL, revenue is projected to hit $6.8 Billion, well under 1/3 of the NFL.

 

Yeah my whole point was that I don’t understand how the NHL is worth that. 

[shrader]

3 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Just like Patrick Mahomes bought a chunk of the Kansas City Royals, I'd love to she Josh Allen buy a stake in the Sabres.

Is there any overlap in the Chief and Royal ownership? Allen buying something from Pegula would probably get very sketchy when it comes to salary cap circumvention rules. 

[PromoTheRobot]

11 minutes ago, shrader said:

Is there any overlap in the Chief and Royal ownership? Allen buying something from Pegula would probably get very sketchy when it comes to salary cap circumvention rules. 

Good question. I'm sure there's a workaround.

[Big Guava]

39 minutes ago, inkman said:

Yeah my whole point was that I don’t understand how the NHL is worth that. 

I dunno either...apparently they have been making some moves lately?

[Demoted]

17 hours ago, Taro T said:

Amazed the Sabres are estimated to be worth more than 3 MLB clubs.  Cool.

Also, rather surprised that they're estimated to be worth less than 2 MLS clubs.  Yikes!

None of that actually means anything though.

[Taro T]

4 hours ago, Demoted said:

None of that actually means anything though.

True.

With the possible exception of the Green Bay Packers valuation, every single one of these valuations is somebody's best guestimate of what the franchises are worth.  (And there was a reason the word "estimated" was used in each of the main sentences of the post you quoted.)

But it does speak towards perception and personally find it interesting that the Sabres are perceived to be more valuable than 3 MLB teams and also are perceived to be less valuable than 2 MLS teams.  That is surprising based on where those other 2 leagues fall in the public awareness (not really the right word here, but expect you get the idea) realm.

[nfreeman]

20 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

A great investment. But like your house, you can't reap the benefit until you sell. That said, I wonder if they might take on some minority stakes to fund arena improvements?

I hope not.  Letting the private equity wolves into the Sabres' henhouse increases the risk of the team moving at some point.  (The same is true of having them join the Bills' ownership group, but that risk is somewhat mitigated for a while by the new stadium.)

[Dude]

On 2/11/2026 at 5:09 AM, Demoted said:

None of that actually means anything though.

On 2/11/2026 at 9:48 AM, Taro T said:

True.

With the possible exception of the Green Bay Packers valuation, every single one of these valuations is somebody's best guestimate of what the franchises are worth.  (And there was a reason the word "estimated" was used in each of the main sentences of the post you quoted.)

But it does speak towards perception and personally find it interesting that the Sabres are perceived to be more valuable than 3 MLB teams and also are perceived to be less valuable than 2 MLS teams.  That is surprising based on where those other 2 leagues fall in the public awareness (not really the right word here, but expect you get the idea) realm.

Forbest valued the Seahawks at $6.7B last year.  They're reportedly going to be sold for $6.6B shortly.

[beerme1]

On 2/10/2026 at 4:12 PM, Dude said:

So Terry has seen a 6X increase on the Sabres in 15 years and a 3X return on the Bills in less than 12 years.  Not bad.

 

When the sale went down and people said he was crazy for buying the bills for that amount, I said wait a minute. And in less than ten years his ROV has not only proved me correct, but the man has a nice profit on paper to show for it. And now a new stadium to prop it up and an arena deal coming no doubt for the Sabres!

[inkman]

7 hours ago, beerme1 said:

 

When the sale went down and people said he was crazy for buying the bills for that amount, I said wait a minute. And in less than ten years his ROV has not only proved me correct, but the man has a nice profit on paper to show for it. And now a new stadium to prop it up and an arena deal coming no doubt for the Sabres!

There were people who didn’t think Pegula was going to make money buying an NFL when the league just prints money?  I don’t understand how anyone could think that was a bad investment.  

[PromoTheRobot]

2 hours ago, inkman said:

There were people who didn’t think Pegula was going to make money buying an NFL when the league just prints money?  I don’t understand how anyone could think that was a bad investment.  

I think Terry (and we) lucked out on the Bills sale. Because Ted Rogers passed away right before, the Bon Jovi/Toronto group could not easily raise their bid. Their $1B offer was already an overbid from the Bills assessed value at the time of $900MM. Along comes Terry with a bid that was 40% higher ($1.4B) and they couldn't match even if they wanted to. And T**** was borrowing 100% of his $1B offer from Deutsche Bank.

Edited February 20 by PromoTheRobot