BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) – While the return of a limited number of fans is helping mitigate some of the financial losses for the Buffalo Bills, expect the loss of fans to have more of an effect on the Buffalo Sabres.
The hockey season is now upon us and fans are not allowed at Sabres games to begin the year.
"So much of the revenue in hockey relates to the fans in the stands," Larry Quinn, the former President and Minority Owner of the Sabres, said. "Yes, tickets. But then there's suite sales."
Concessions will also negatively impact revenues. Even further, Quinn said concerts provide boosts to the hockey teams. KeyBank Center does not have any events scheduled until the summer. Even then, it's not known if the state will loosen its coronavirus restrictions.
"The only revenue that they really maintain are their television rights revenues and the national broadcasts," Quinn said. "It's got a major impact…It accounts for maybe – and I'll be real optimistic – say 20% of their revenue. It's in that range. You're losing 70 to 80% of revenue."
The good news? Quinn doesn't think there will be a significant impact in the long term. He thinks the financial state will be back to normal a year from now, especially given the deeper pockets of owners around the league.
"Owners have the ability to withstand this," he said.
Quinn said he hopes hockey teams will have learned to perfect their television broadcasts, especially as the NHL's agreement with NBC Sports expiring at the end of this season.
Dan Kaplan, an NFL writer with The Athletic, said having the fans for this weekend's Bills game proves to be "a wash at best" because of the expenses incurred with staffing and security.
"Clearly, this is about a lot more than making money for the Bills to have fans in the stands for this playoff game," Kaplan said.
He even said a deeper run in the playoffs could end up costing the Bills financially because teams lose money on travel costs, especially if they make it to the Super Bowl.
"You have to look at it holistically for the whole season," Kaplan said. "National TV revenues are shared equally among the 32 teams. It doesn't matter if a team plays a primetime game or no primetime game. The money gets divided equally. It's why the NFL of all the leagues is in the best shape financially in this pandemic because such a large share of their overall revenue share comes from national categories like TV and sponsorship."
