I’ve returned to shore from a lovely Disney Cruise with my wife and 5-year-old daughter. The Disney level of service was all it’s cracked up to be. And it was 75 degrees in The Bahamas (sobs quietly).
Now, on to an unusually Buffalo-centric newsletter.
Demolition of old Highmark Stadium will be complete by March 2027, creating potential mixed-use development possibilities. Buffalo Bills
The Bills will demolish the 53-year-old Highmark Stadium by March 2027, leaving a large expanse of land adjacent to the team’s training center facility and HQ, across a street from the new $2.2 billion venue.
Once demolition is completed, the former stadium site will be transferred from Erie County to the Erie County Stadium Corporation, which will then be leased to the Bills. As part of a 30-year lease for the new stadium (beginning this year), the team could redevelop the former stadium site.
Bills President of Business Operations Pete Guelli told me there are no plans to move the training facility or team HQ, making the old stadium site an appealing mixed-use development prospect. The main question he and the Bills are beginning to ponder: What are the opportunities over there, and how do they connect to the new stadium?
The very earliest thinking is that it could be a destination-oriented development.
Orchard Park is a 20-minute drive south of downtown Buffalo and could — without a detailed feasibility study to support this claim — almost certainly use more hotel rooms. The town of Orchard Park recently relaxed its hotel height restrictions in a move that should benefit any future Bills’ plans.
The stadium’s capacity is more limited than its predecessor, likely growing the number of people interested in the team and the stadium that are unable to get game tickets. The Bills’ fan base, like many others, includes a large number of people that come to the stadium site on game days without tickets, only to tailgate and hang out in the parking lot. The Bills and Legends Global plan to stand up a stadium tour business, and development across the street could support that during the week. A juiced-up team hall of fame exhibit and store make sense, too.
“Being a Bills fan and coming to Orchard Park has almost become a pilgrimage, so how do we play on that?” Guelli said.
The Bills have a team of people scouting other mixed-use properties, including visiting Green Bay for the NFL Draft this year to study Titletown, a place somewhat similar to Orchard Park.
“Can we come up with a plan where they work together, and this becomes more of a year-round destination?” Guelli said. “I think we can.”
Bills and Sabres owner Terry Pegula has mounted an “aggressive push” to bring additional events and entertainment to KeyBank Center Getty Images
At the end of my interview with Pete Guelli about the Bills’ stadium, I asked the president of business operations for the Bills and Sabres, “What’s up with the arena?” referring to the KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo.
“That’s a good question,” Guelli said, chuckling at my abrupt change of subject.
The Pegulas privately funded a new Mitsubishi video board and roof in 2024 and improved the sound system this season. But the KeyBank Center is 30 years old and has never had the major renovation (think $100 million or more) most of its peer venues have received, making it the longest-running NHL building with no such overhaul.
In September, the Sabres extended their lease five years through September 2031 to give themselves more time to study what’s possible with the arena, as well as finish the Bills’ stadium, which has consumed the organization’s attention. But with the city owning the land and the county owning the arena, it’s a complex situation.
Guelli, who has been back in Buffalo for 18 months after a decade-long run with the Hornets and a shorter one with the New York Giants, said the Sabres want to stay in the arena and have no plans to move. But he otherwise had almost as many questions about the arena as I did.
“We’re talking to everybody in the public sector,” said Guelli, including the state of New York, which was instrumental in the Bills’ stadium project. “What’s the right plan? Not just for the arena but for Buffalo.”
KeyBank Center needs most of the systems and fan experience upgrades that a 30-year-old venue would require, but I’d argue that from the street level, it lacks a really nice, obvious, grand front entrance. The Pegulas’ Harborcenter development appended to the arena, in my humble, non-Architectural Digest view, muddles the arena’s presence in the neighborhood.
The 19,070-seat arena — visually, (and again, offered with humility) it resembles a concrete tin of sardines or maybe a covered above-ground pool? — has no dynamic facade features or connection between its interior and the surroundings. It could use more windows, especially on the backside, which has some great views of the Buffalo River (despite the towering Buffalo Skyway’s best attempts to block them).
The city’s light rail line’s extension will run past the backside of the arena, with fans soon able to enter the venue from a skybridge that will be completed by mid-2026 (pretty clutch in the dead of winter).
KeyBank Center sits in a corner of downtown Buffalo that’s struggled to launch, so to speak, with numerous aborted or delayed development projects stifling the area’s potential.
Between the arena and the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino to the south are a handful of large surface parking lots, which draw the mind toward potential new development.
Despite its aged appearance, the building’s relevance is indisputable. KeyBank Center had its highest grossing show ever last fall, a Paul McCartney concert, and will host the 2026 NHL Draft in late June. The venue hosts roughly 140 events annually, a number Guelli, who knows the arena business from his time as the Hornets’ COO, wants to get closer to 200.
“You need to draw people downtown, and then you need to have things for people when they are downtown, and these arenas provide that. Hundred-fifty events, 1.3 million [people] coming through the doors, that’s exactly the way you catalyze the opportunity,” said Guelli. “You can see it being the impetus for growth in this city. How do you do that in the right way, reach the right public-private partnerships to activate the neighborhood, not just the building.”
This Google Earth Pro screenshot gives a lay of the land surrounding KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo. Google Earth Pro
Delaware North Sportservice President Tom Barney has been with the company for over 30 years. Delaware North
Funny story: I toured Delaware North’s Buffalo office in early December while in town to see Highmark Stadium. Delaware North Sportservice PR man Charlie Roberts showed me around the office and introduced me to some key folks, but one person I apparently passed by without meeting was Tom Barney, who was recently named president of Sportservice.
Barney saw me and asked a colleague who I was — they said something to the effect of “he covers us for SBJ” — and Barney thought to himself “hmm, maybe someone I’ll be meeting soon.” By that point, he already knew he was being hired as Sportservice’s new president, which was announced Jan. 8, though neither Roberts nor I knew, of course.
Barney is a typical Delaware North executive hire: He’s a Buffalo native that’s been with the company more than 30 years in a variety of positions and verticals, all while remaining gung-ho about taking on new challenges.
“I walked over and said I could totally do this job and would like to be considered for it,” he said. The response was, ‘great, we were thinking about you for it.’”
Barney got the job, replacing Jamie Obletz, who was promoted to COO after Amy Latimer’s departure for Oak View Group. His office will move from the 12th floor of Delaware North’s downtown Buffalo HQ to the 11th.
It’s a full-circle moment for Barney, who was a senior financial analyst for Sportservice in the late 1990s. Since then, he’s worked all over the Delaware North family tree, with multiple stints in the corporate office and stops in the travel, parks, gaming and Patina verticals. He mentioned that his life in finance has created the mindset of closing the book and moving on to the next focus or target.
“You close the quarter or the year, or the loan,” in the finance world, he said. “My mindset is, what’s the next best play from here?”
I used the term “bingo card” to describe his career, but he preferred to view it as a pyramid, with all the different blocks adding key experiences to make the whole smarter and more effective.
When I spoke to Barney in mid-January, it was the day before a quick trip to San Diego to meet the Padres and Petco Park operators. There will be (or have been) many more such introductory visits before MLB Opening Day, given the importance of baseball to Delaware North Sportservice’s business. Sportservice COO Adrian Dishington, hired in October, is joining Barney on those trips.
Barney’s goal with Sportservice is to, “in some respects, continue what Jamie’s built, which is great relationships with customers and clients,” he said. “It’s a 115-year-old company, and you get the opportunity to run it for your leg and then you move it to the next guy. But don’t lose the consistency and values that we’ve brought for decades.”
Sodexo Live’s menu for the College Football Playoff championship game at Hard Rock Stadium included two mofongo dishes, each selling for $25.
If you’re not familiar with mofongo, it’s a Puerto Rican version of mashed potatoes, swapping plantains for potatoes. Sodexo Live’s take was served with a choice of jumbo grilled shrimp, chicken chicharrón or pork chicharrón, and finished with pickled hibiscus onions. My tastebuds can’t imagine what pickled hibiscus onions taste like, but I’m from North Carolina, so “pickled” is enough to pique my interest.
The Titans’ upcoming Nissan Stadium is putting checkout-free stores at sports venues to the test, SBJ’s Ethan Joyce and I discover. Joyce then looks at ways for checkout-free stores can improve in the latest SBJ Tech newsletter (along with how well fans are adapting to these shops).
Oak View Group is aligning with Kraft Heinz in a sponsorship that splashes many of the food giant’s top brands across more than 50 OVG-managed venues, reports SBJ’s Terry Lefton. The five-year deal incorporates staple brands like Heinz Ketchup and Mustard, and Kraft Mac & Cheese.
More than $15.5 billion in construction at new and renovated professional, college and amateur sports facilities is scheduled to finish in the U.S. and Canada in 2026, writes SBJ’s David Broughton in the magazine’s annual venue preview.
Cosm debuted a multiyear, multisite deal with Monster Energy during its presentations of UFC 324 on Saturday, notes SBJ’s Rob Schaefer. The agreement designates Monster as Cosm’s “official energy drink partner” and will include several unique elements:
AEG signed a multiyear technology deal with Twilio that will see the customer engagement firm deploy across AEG’s Crypto.com Arena, L.A. Kings and AXS’s ticketing platform, notes SBJ’s Rob Schaefer.
