Buffalo Sabres COO Pete Guelli Announces “Key To The Arena” Contest On Sabres Live | KeyBank Center

Buffalo Sabres COO Pete Guelli Announces “Key To The Arena” Contest On Sabres Live | KeyBank Center

at Key Bank Center where we uh were treated to some great food. The bacon was amazing. Dan and Pete, Pete Guelli, by the way, COO of the Sabres and the Bills, but we’re going to focus on the Sabres joining us now. Uh yeah, I don’t know if you had a chance to go try the bacon that they had in the food area, but it was amazing. Yeah. Just enough to keep me going and to know that it was really good. Yeah, it Well, yeah. and I kept going back for more and I was leaving with one piece and going back with another. So, it was great. But we’re not here to talk about bacon. Actually, I want to start this show with a bang with you. So, I’m hearing that Sabres fans have a once-ina-lifetime opportunity to win this crazy sweep stake. So, how about you get us going with what fans can uh can get out of this beautiful celebration day. Yeah, you know, obviously it’s special day today. It was exciting to welcome Key Bank back, you know, as the title sponsor of the arena and, you know, they’d been here for 10 years. They’ve extended for another 10. So, we thought it would be appropriate. There’s so much that happens at Key Bank Center. Obviously, we’re obviously proud to be the home of the Sabres and the Bandits with their backto backto back championships and there’s all these events that are coming in here. How do we give people an opportunity to participate in as much as that is possible? So, we put a contest together where you can basically get the key to Key Bank Center. you can win two Saber season tickets, two Bandit season tickets, and five events on top of that. So, we thought really unique opportunity. You can uh qualify through any of our platform, Sabres platform. So, get on social media, get on the website, and find out how you can get in the mix, but somebody’s going to win a great prize. So you you guys were talking about how it went from about 100 to 120 events here to 140 and you’re hoping like if you win that sweep state you’re going to be here probably at least what 50 times. Yeah. You’ll get a nice cross-section of events. So again we got some great things coming in here. Obviously some great concerts and we’ve got the NCAA regionals coming up here. So, a lot of great things happening at Key Bank Center. And that, you know, that’s the whole um concept behind this is let’s get someone here and let them experience as much as you can at Key Bank. With the number of events you’re looking to host here, right, as many nights as you can to fill the building. I’m thinking you’re going to have to build a suite here for that person to live in. Or me and you, Dan. Like, I’m talking like we’re gonna We’re already spoiled. All right. Don’t get carried away with yourself. But I’m thinking I don’t know. Right up there, I can see just a a sweet where if you win this, you got tickets to every event and you live right here. Well, they’d be living our lives then because I feel like we live here anyway. So, why shouldn’t somebody else come in and be a part of it as well? Big one of the big uh you know talking point today was the heartbeat of Buffalo like this building being the heartbeat and and what it does for not only the city of Buffalo, Erie County, Western New York in general, southern Ontario. Um, how much in your new position here now that the time you’ve been here, you sense that this building is more than a heartbeat. It’s every organs together to make this downtown area go. Yeah, it’s really true. You know, I’ve been here a little over the year and um, you know, I’ve experienced a lot of events already here and this is what draws people to downtown. I don’t I don’t know what the what the second property is that draws the second most people, but it’s got to be way behind this building. We had a million three come through here last year for all these different events. You can see the harbor center and the hotel go up. There’s a lot of things going on obviously and the canal as well. So, you know, this is the epicenter though for all of it. And so, our goal is let’s program it as many nights as possible. Let’s get people downtown. Let’s let it be a catalyst for growth in the city because we know it’s good for the city of Buffalo. Do you have other hopeful whether it’s entrepreneurs or builders or just idea people coming to you or have you had since you’ve been here kind of trumpeting that message that hey look if if you continue to build what you already have if you continue to expand this is what we can bring to the table in you know kind of in an effort to make it that hub that you speak of because I speak from experience too being on I know you’ve done this but being on the road Marty now when you go to rinks it used to be some of the rinks right were out in the middle of nowhere boom and then you you go to the game and then you have to find your way home. But more so now and you know actually Detroit’s a fairly good example too of an area that there was not much there at all. Certainly that was appealing to hang around and go shopping or out you know before and after the game. Uh but now it’s just people in Detroit that’s where they’re going and I know that’s what’s happened here for years. Uh but back to the original question that I rambled on from because it’s what I do. It happens got a lot to talk about. people come to you saying, “Look, we like what you’re already doing. If you do XYZ, we’re going to bring more to the table ourselves.” Yeah. I I would say I’ve seen a lot of alignment and that’s from the public and private sector. So, whenever we’re talking to the local politicians and you saw Mark Poland Cars was out here from Erie County, there were representatives from the state here, representatives from the city here, everybody agrees that this is really the engine. Yep. And how do we again build upon that? and then you know how does it extend into the city of Buffalo and just make this more of a destination for people here and help kind of revitalize some of these areas. So I would say there’s a lot of mind share and you know a lot of the private partners as well you know having key bank come in here and be a part of this and I think you guys saw in some of the comments we’ve engaged an architect to look at the building what’s the future of the building but also you know what’s the future of the surrounding property because I’ve been through this before when I was in Charlotte and we had a new arena go up there and that became everything grew from there that uptown Charlotte area I think you guys know it’s pretty dynamic area it all started with the arena we already have that here you know we already have the programming. So, how do we take the next step and and really make this the epicenter of everything that’s going on in Buffalo? So, last year was the new video board, uh the roof, like it was, you know, the the two biggest uh maybe uh you know, improvement that were made to the building. Any future plans that fans can can see come in over the next few years when it comes to Key Bank Center and the improvement to the building? Yeah, you know, when I came in, one of the first mandates from Terry was, hey, how do we look at the fan experience and make sure we’re keeping up, you know, nationally with what this building should be and make sure when our fans walk in, you know, they feel like they’re walking into an environment they want to keep coming back to. So, yeah, last year made some big investments and the scoreboard was really wellreceived. The roof is a foundational piece of the building. It had to get done. Not ready to disclose anything, but we said we’d do something every year. We have a couple of really interesting things that we’re going to roll out here in the near future. So, every single year we’re going to do something as we’re kind of building up to what the bigger ideas for the building might be. Well, I know that there’s a big building going down 20 minutes, you know, down the street in in Orchard Park right now, but um that is exciting as well. And you’re a big part of that. So, there’s a lot of excitement when it comes to, you know, the fan experience and and trying to continue to grow that fan experience. Well, and you know what too, just to on that point, um I don’t know if we I don’t think we talked about it on air, but I’ve had the discussion here today with many people with the building existing and there was a similar situation up in Toronto with what used to be Skyome, now Rogers Center, and I used to talk about how going to that building for me, it just kind of lost an aura, right? It was if especially if the roof was closed, it was just kind of this you’re still watching Major League Baseball, but you needed almost other reasons to come to the ballpark. So now you watch ballparks being built and arenas where the interaction with the fans with the game, it’s always kind of connected no matter where they roam throughout the building. Is that a part of the thought process too? Because I know that the changes they made up there to that ballpark have already drawn me to two games in four weeks which I never would have done before. Hence the importance of as you mentioned if it’s something or a couple of things every year where you continue to improve on. Are you looking at what other areas have done to their facilities that exist and taking some ideas from that? Yeah, to me what’s the most interesting part of this is, you know, the experience is really as soon as you leave your house and you start coming down here. You know, parking is part of the experience. Ingress and egress is part of the experience. And when you walk in, the food and beverage is part of the experience. You know, what you see on the video board is part of it. So, you know, how do we enhance all of that and kind of look at it from street to seat and make sure that it’s as positive as possible? And ultimately we know people a lot of people are coming down here for the Sabres games and you know they want to make sure the team’s performing at a high level which is really important but what are the things that we can control as you’re coming into the building to make sure that experience is good and you’re going to leave here and you’re going to want to come back. So you everybody’s talking about economic impact, right? And you mentioned uh I don’t know if you mentioned, but they mentioned that they’re trying to get to from 140 to maybe 200 events in this building. 3,800 employees in the building, you know, more dates for everybody to work, more people being employed, 700 million economic impact in just from the building. Um like how do you get from 140 to 200? like we’re talking about a lot of events to get to that point. Well, first of all, it was great to hear everybody’s remarks today because there’s a common theme. It’s getting people into downtown Buffalo. And as I said before, there’s no building that gets more people into downtown Buffalo than this one and we just want to grow it. So, we’ve just put an emphasis on recruiting events. Like, we’re open for business. If there’s an event out there that we think makes sense, we’re going to try to be in the market for it. And I think, you know, this Paul McCartney concert’s a great example. He picked 18 cities to play and Buffalo was one of them. We’ve had some amazing comedy acts come through this year. Shane Gillis jumps out at me. Sold out. Was one of the highest attend events we’ve ever had here. And you come downtown, you come into the building like, “Wow, this is great. This is the exact kind of activity we need as many nights a year. You know, the Sabres games were great this year. You know, we had a lot of people come in for those games and hopefully they stay in the city and want to hang out afterwards.” And we saw what the Bandits did, you know, going on another championship run. and those nights were amazing and some of these events and concerts on top of that. So, it’s just become an emphasis, Marty, like we want to make sure we’re in the hunt for every potential event that possibly could be here because I think Buffalo is a great city for it and you know, we should be on the radar for those kind of things. Get Paul McCartney to come here by the way because I we were talking about I saw Elton John here and that was like you know his his last tour and everything. So how do you get big acts like this that handpicked certain location to say we are one of those place you have to come? Yeah some of it’s all a negotiation. I think the first thing you want to do is establish why Buffalo was a place that you want to come to and it’s a great stop for people because it you know this is a city of good neighbors for a reason. Everybody comes here and they have a great experience. It’s easy to get in. It’s an easy out for them. I think you’re always discussing the economics around the edges. How do we make it more appealing for acts to come here? So, it’s really all those pieces kind of coming together, but I think more than anything, it’s constant dialogue with all the promoters that handle these events. We want to make sure we’re talking to them every single day. We want to know what the events are. What is it that the performer or the actor, the event needs to come here, and if it’s anything that we can do to get them here, we’re going to do it. The talks with Key Bank to extend this to the extent that you have, which is ultimately, as you mentioned, will be a 20-year partnership. when this extension is done. Um it’s almost or it is, you know, unheard of to have a 20-year commitment not just for the naming rights on the building because we’ve seen them come and go, but a commitment, as you’ve already talked about, to more than the building and and to what this means, the fact that Key Bank chose you and this building. Talk about what that means to where you are and where we’re all going. Yeah. You know, look, when I came in, there was a number of priority projects. We knew that this relationship was going to be up for renewal. And so, obviously, one of the first meetings I had with Mike McMahon, the market president for Key Bank, and we sat down and just talked about what the future could look like. He brought Chris Corman, the CEO, to the table early in the process. And it was more this iterative conversation about how do we continue the relationship. It was never if, it was more about how. They’ve built a lot of equity in the 10 years that they’ve been here previously. They know we’re serious about what the next generation is building looks like. they know what we’re trying to do from a programmatic standpoint here and they felt like it was something that they really wanted to be a part of. So the conversations were great. It’s nice when you can go back to a partner and have that discussion. We weren’t looking necessarily to bring anybody else in. Obviously hopeful that this conversation will go great from the jump and they did. And so yeah, it’s it’s gratifying to have them come back. In a lot of ways it’s nice to have somebody like Key Bank buy into our vision for this building because when you put your name on it or keep your name on it, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Bill’s camp is going on, but in a little bit more than a month, Sabers camp is going to start. So, you’ve been in Rochester a few days checking on that. Um, are we going to be sitting up in uh in uh you know, the 100 level, 200 level watching Sabres practice and kind of checking out how that goes? Are you going to you going to be absolutely out? Absolutely. You know, camping roster is great. It’s a nice opportunity for everyone to get together and start building that foundation for what the season’s going to look like. you know, um, Brandon and Shawn have done an amazing job. They’ve got this incredible culture there. So, it’s it’s fun just to be a part of that and yeah, it’s the same exact thing with the Sabres to come in for training camp, kind of be a part of that. You know, we’ve made a lot of changes on and off the ice this year. So, it’s going to be fun to see all those pieces get integrated and then when the puck drops, you know, in October and we take on the Rangers at that home opener. I mean, it’s exciting that we’re opening up at home. Yes. With, you know, kind of a big opponent. Let’s get this place rocking. Let’s get off to a good start and show people that the changes we made in the offseason are going to make a difference. Looking forward to see you in camp and on October 9th when the Sabres host the Rangers 700 p.m. here at Key Bank Center. Can’t wait. It will be so much fun. Pete Guelli, CEO of the Sabres and Bills. Thank you for stopping by. Congratulations on this great uh partnership with Key Bank and the naming rights and everything. And um we’ll have you back on the show during camp and get your uh your thoughts on how things are going. look forward to it. We need to talk about hockey assists, too, before the show is over. That was unveiled today. And I think that’s a real important part of what was announced today.

Buffalo Sabres COO Pete Guelli got on Sabres Live to talk about the 10-year extension of KeyBank Center’s naming rights, and to announce the launch of the Key To The Arena contest, where fans have the opportunity to win 2 Sabres season tickets, 2 Bandits season tickets, and tickets to 5 live events at KeyBank Center for the 2025-26 season.

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