Article: McDermott Concerned about PSE Dysfunction

[BillsFan17]

4 hours ago, May Day 10 said:

Kim pegula is not qualified to run operations of a sports team, let alone like 4 of them.  So, the most senior sports business guy?  Kevyn Adam's.  His qualifications are that he played in the nhl and lives in buffalo.  He is in over his head. 

 

So you see countless mishaps like alumni jerseys with mis-spelled names that arent even correct or authentic jerseys.  They miss the deadline to change to royal blue this year.  Miss the deadline to wear the black/red jersey this year for a special event.  They completely forget "hockey is for everyone night", first say it was because there were already too many theme nights, then say they had it planned all along and it is some un-named game (with like 4 left).  They missed their own deadline to release pricing to season ticket holders for their "ez" renew program.  On the eve of the deadline, they sent an email out to sth revising the t&cs to buy them 15 more days.  Then, they completely butcher sth pricing.  Chopped the arena into 40 price levels that are confusing and you cant even look at in good faith on their web site.  My 300 level tix that I hung onto for the past 10 miserable seasons only due to preserving my seniority and seat location went up by about 10% or roughly $350.  Just because they are close to center ice in the 300s.  Great. Punish me for being loyal now.  Let's alienate everyone! Not surprising the team is locked into the bottom of the nhl ON the ice.  It's a circus, and this is just what we see. 

 

The pegulas need help.  Its amateur hour.  Mark my words that the Bill's will have their "polian moment" as well if things appear to be going well.

So they didn't wear the jersey you wanted and they raised ticket prices. Those monsters.

[JM57]

1 hour ago, BillsFan17 said:

So they didn't wear the jersey you wanted and they raised ticket prices. Those monsters.

There's no statement of desire in that post. PSE flat out missed deadlines with the NHL. They were going to switch to royal blue and didn't submit on time. They were going to wear the throwbacks on theme night like Vancouver did, and didn't submit on time. 

 

Those are concrete examples of the failings of management. Meeting deadlines is business 101.

[YoloinOhio]

This is in the other Pegula thread but thought i would include it here too in case some didn’t read. Good article that lays out the PSE business situation and what they are dealing with.

 

https://buffalonews.com/2020/04/19/buffalo-bills-buffalo-sabres-terry-and-kim-pegula-nfl-nhl-oil-prices/

Edited April 21, 2020 by YoloinOhio

[GimmeSomeProcess]

16 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

This is in the other Pegula thread but thought i would include it here too in case some didn’t read. Good article that lays out the PSE business situation and what they are dealing with.

 

https://buffalonews.com/2020/04/19/buffalo-bills-buffalo-sabres-terry-and-kim-pegula-nfl-nhl-oil-prices/

Funny this story paints a more objective picture and clearer understanding what’s going on. I love Tim Graham’s work but he Tim did the classic fear mongering approach. Tim’s is getting the clicks and the Buffalo News article got buried cause of it. 

[May Day 10]

1 hour ago, JM57 said:

There's no statement of desire in that post. PSE flat out missed deadlines with the NHL. They were going to switch to royal blue and didn't submit on time. They were going to wear the throwbacks on theme night like Vancouver did, and didn't submit on time. 

 

Those are concrete examples of the failings of management. Meeting deadlines is business 101.

 

Thank you  

 

It just feels like an amateurish mess with little attention to detail.  Heap in the shoddy game presentation and the embarassing hasek jersey retirement ceremony.  They also forgot that the Sabres Hall of Fame exists.

 

Its attention to detail.  They are 100% in control of this stuff, unlike the luck needed with drafting, development, etc... there is no excuse to visibly fall short in so many places

[BillsFan17]

1 hour ago, JM57 said:

There's no statement of desire in that post. PSE flat out missed deadlines with the NHL. They were going to switch to royal blue and didn't submit on time. They were going to wear the throwbacks on theme night like Vancouver did, and didn't submit on time. 

 

Those are concrete examples of the failings of management. Meeting deadlines is business 101.

They missed a deadline and the person responsible for that was terminated. The misspelled name issue was clarified pretty quickly after the situation.

 

These are the pitchfork worthy issues? I mean, im an islander fan, i once had someone buy the team with zero money, legit potential for relocation (KC), had to split home games with an arena that was not suited for hockey, an old facility that was and still is very unsuited for today's standards...

 

But yeah, not submitting a jersey in time. What a circus.

Edited April 21, 2020 by BillsFan17

[ALLEN1QB]

We would have been better off with Bon Jovi I knew it!!

[dollars 2 donuts]

18 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Here's what I got from the article...

-The Pegula's were overly ambitious and PSE expanded too quickly that an economic downturn has created an unfortunate situation where tough choices had to be made.

-Graham was looking for disgruntled ex employees and found them.

-It's highly unlikely we get a new stadium here unless the majority of the funding comes from the tax payers.

 

thank you, Doc.

 

I’ve said this before, given Buffalo is a small market I want my owners as rich as possible.  I wish they were worth 5 billion dollars.  If they are experiencing economic misfortune, even if it is not comparable to our everyday experience, that is not good news for the teams I love.

 

Which is why I have always been iffy, even during good times, about the Pegulas spending 1 or more billion dollars for a house for their team which would likely give little return, regardless of any other uses.
 

Additionally, and albeit not my first thought during recent events, NY’s financial situation during the Covid-19 pandemic all but assured the fact that help on a stadium is not coming from Albany.

Edited April 21, 2020 by dollars 2 donuts

[Don Otreply]

8 hours ago, eball said:

Irresponsible post. That is literally the only mention of McDermott’s alleged concern in the entire article, and is essentially hearsay. 
 

The Pegulas are a target of Graham right now. They’ve made mistakes, certainly, but to imply McDermott is worried is jumping the gun. 

This ^^^
 

That and Sean is likely smart enough to not purposefully under mine his employer, being he is of the school that lose lips “sink ships”. It’s a click piece. 

[aristocrat]

5 hours ago, NickelCity said:

 

Damn.

 

i mean maybe those people should have lost their jobs over this. if it was their job to handle all those things and kim learns of the screw ups it's no wonder heads are going to roll.  sure the timing is awful but all that mess is going to cost some people their jobs. 

[Cripple Creek]

16 minutes ago, GimmeSomeProcess said:

Funny this story paints a more objective picture and clearer understanding what’s going on. I love Tim Graham’s work but he Tim did the classic fear mongering approach. Tim’s is getting the clicks and the Buffalo News article got buried cause of it. 

Tim is becoming more sullivanized every day.  He's a crybaby hack.

[aristocrat]

1 minute ago, ScottLaw said:

I guess you missed the point. Kim is the one ultimately responsible. 

 

she is and her responsibility is to hire people that will run her departments effectively.  now she has to go find the people that will do so.   we all have complained about the little things at games going wrong for years so hopefully now they start getting them right. 

[oldmanfan]

They are in businesses that are particularly vulnerable to the current crisis. In addition it would seem there were some employees with agendas other than the owners'.  Given both these it should not be surprising some folks got let go, furloughed, etc. nor should it be surprising that some of these are bitter about it and thus are negative about PSE.  

 

The Bills seem to be in very good shape under Beane and McD.  The Sabres?  One hopes Kruger will give them stability; Botterill may not be the right guy (shouldn't he have been making sure the uniform color requests got in on time and such?).  They could probably use a guy that oversees PSE with more of a business background than Kim, but with what happened with Brandon they are probably gun shy about giving a guy too much power over the enterprise.  Long term I think the ramifications are that the new stadium talks will be held up for a year or two, the Sabres are going to be dependent on Kruger (I can see him taking over for Botterill and bringing in his own coach), and neither team will be sold.  Hockey is Terry's passion and he won't sell unless he has absolutely no financial choice, and then any new owner would keep them in Buffalo given what a great hockey city it is.   

 

The News article gives to me an objective analysis, the Graham article is unfortunately what I've seen from him before; he has a premise in his head about what he wants the story to be and then slants interviews and such to match his preconceived notion.

[BeastMaster]

So I read the article, and I also read the Q and A with Kim.

 

Seems like the writer is looking to bash them from the way it's written.

 

There's some stuff that doesn't look good, for sure. I've always hated the nepotism garbage, but it's pretty much SOP for these big companies.

 

Bottom line for me is don't let it affect our Bills! 

 

Hopefully they learn from the mistakes like Kim claims...they get their house in order, and this fades away once the country gets back to business as usual.

 

 

[aristocrat]

at least we aren't the jags who are trading their former number 4 pick and the info coming out is just ridiculous and their best defensive player is all over twitter bashing the team demanding a trade out.  

[billsfan1959]

Like most posters here, I don't know either the Pegulas or Tim Graham personally. I have however, been an avid fan of this team for many years and have observed Graham in many interactions with team personnel, fans, and others. I have also had the opportunity to observe the Pegulas over the last five years.

 

The Pegulas have, at times, seemed naive, over their heads, and slow to put the right people in decision making roles. However, I have never observed anything that makes me question their hearts - in regard to building strong competive teams fans can be proud of. Graham, on the other hand, has shown himself, time and again, to be as self absorbed and narcissitically thin skinned as they come, to catalogue and store away every slight or criticism directed at him, and to have no qualms using his profession as a means to act on personal grudges. 

 

I read the article and this is just my opinion, but I think, while many of the concerns may be legitimate, Graham made a conscious effort to portray his article through the lens of greedy billionaires living a life of luxury at the expense of the common working man. It is throughout the entire artice, sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle. 

 

I am grateful that the Pegulas kept the Bills in Buffalo and they have done some very good things. I also believe they have made their fair share (or more) of mistakes and I have no issue with anyone questioning or criticizing actions they take if they do so in a legitimate way. I feel Graham showed a decided bias in his article and, while there may be truth in some of the issues he talked about, I am suspect of whether it was the real truth or Graham's truth.

 

There is a difference.

Edit: And I don't think this is going to affect the culture McDermott and Beane have created with the Bills.

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by billsfan1959

[Don Otreply]

41 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

It's a click piece yet you have people in the know confirming the same feel within PSE. 

 

Tim just made this up out of the blue.?

Tim would never have used language that would lend itself to exaggeration...  not Tim, oh no no no...?

[GunnerBill]

30 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

The News article gives to me an objective analysis, the Graham article is unfortunately what I've seen from him before; he has a premise in his head about what he wants the story to be and then slants interviews and such to match his preconceived notion.

 

This article is objective too. Graham spoke to former employees, he spoke to current employees and he gave the organisation the chance to respond which it barely did. It isn't "balanced" but news doesn't have to be balanced. Truth sometimes looks one way or another. Graham did everything I would expect an objective reporter researching this piece to do. It came out in a way that doesn't look great for the Pegulas... but that is probably because things really don't look great for the Pegulas. The News article gets you to the same place. The Graham article focuses on the people angle so of course it is going to be more emotive. But there is nothing, at all, in the News article that contradicts anything in the Athletic piece.

 

Graham and his co-author are doing a live Q&A on the Athletic app this evening (afternoon your time) where I suspect they will be asked a lot about this. I intend to follow along for a bit if I have logged off the work laptop by then.

[Dirtyd415]

15 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

Oil prices cratered in 2016 too. 

 

Anyway, his business is entertainment now.  If he still had a large chunk of his worth in oil, he's nuts.

Oil prices have never before in history fallen this fast or remained this low for an extended period of time.  They only thing worse to have your money in right now would be entertainment.  At least people still need oil, albeit at much lower demand.  The entertainment industry (including sports) will emerge from the pandemic a battered and disfigured version of itself.  When only essential business are able to operate, you don’t want to have all of your money tied up in the least essential business of them all.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Dirtyd415

[4_kidd_4]

If Tim is pulling a vintage Sully then he’s done it well, as this here thread discussing his article is about to go double digit pages. ?