New scoreboard, other projects planned for KeyBank Center

Jun 18, 2023

Fans attending Buffalo Sabres games and other KeyBank Center events are going to see immediate differences this season with upgrades in foods and beverages, both in products and point-of-sale technology.

A concession inside the KeyBank Center. The Sabres have been working with concessionaire Delaware North to improve its core products in the arena for this season, particularly the pizza and beef on weck.

To coin a hockey term, expect multi-year changes on the fly at KeyBank Center.

Fans attending Buffalo Sabres games and other arena events are going to see immediate differences this season with upgrades in food and beverage, both in products and point-of-sale technology.

John Roth, the newly hired COO of the Buffalo Sabres and Pegula Sports & Entertainment, spoke to The Buffalo News in an exclusive interview.

But other major items are coming on board starting in 2024, Sabres Chief Operating Officer John Roth revealed in an exclusive conversation with The Buffalo News.

The key takeaways the team is planning to address:

"Hockey operations are finally in good hands with general manager Kevyn Adams, assistant GM Jason Karmanos and coach Don Granato. But the Sabres have a long way to go off the ice," writes Mike Harrington.

“We have three big things we’re tackling right now, and we will start out at some point in 2024 on the roof,” Roth said. “It won’t take down the arena (from hosting events). We’ll continue to operate fully. And then the thought is the summer of ‘24 would be when we hit the ‘center-hung’ and do all the acoustical work.”

Owner Terry Pegula will foot the bill for the immediate upgrades, Roth said. The team is starting the process to get a handle of what it will have to pay, and has brought in Populous, the Kansas City-based firm that is the designer of the new Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, to provide recommendations.

“They’re going to come up with a bunch of different options for us with the board, everything from taking something close to what we have and making it modern to doing something completely different,” Roth said. “I think the appetite to do a massive, massive board like some other places is probably not there, and that’s more a ‘Terry aesthetic’ thing. But you’re looking at a major upgrade. Ultimately, he’ll decide what he likes and how much he wants to spend. These things aren’t cheap.”

NHL teams have become engaged in a bit of “scoreboard wars” in recent years, in terms of sizes, 4K resolution and special effects for their arenas. For instance, the behemoths installed in 2019 in Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center and Chicago’s United Center cost $15 million and $14.5 million, respectively. Those two feature multiple screens and even moving parts on different levels of the board to assist in game presentation elements.

As Roth indicated, the Sabres aren’t likely to get one of those, but they should be in the ballpark of several recent additions to the NHL scene. A new board went into Boston’s TD Garden in 2021 as part of $100 million in renovations across the arena, and San Jose’s SAP Center got a new one last season that features video that appears to jump off the board, a la Times Square. That one cost about $5 million.

Coming this season will be a new board in Vancouver’s Rogers Arena, which had not upgraded its system since 2006.

“That is the big capital investment that we’re going to make, to start off,” Roth said. “And then we’re going to kind of chip away at other things, always looking for ways to improve the experience for our fans.”

The surprising departure of Ron Raccuia from the Buffalo Bills nonfootball operations has accelerated the growing influence of John Roth, a longtime friend and investment manager of team owner Terry Pegula.

Roth, who was hired by Pegula in January for the Sabres and took on a similar role with the Buffalo Bills in July, said he has taken particular note of the sound quality in the arena, and calls it “very spotty.”

“To me, the lapendary panels are not deflecting the sound like they should,” he said. “Some areas are really loud, and some areas we can’t hear much. So, fixing that, I think, will be will be possibly even more impactful for fans.”

As for seating upgrades, those are on the team’s to-do list, but not on the front burner for the next couple of years.

“We don’t have anything to share at this time,” Roth said when asked about seating, which has been virtually unchanged since the building opened. “We’re viewing all of this as a multiple-year process, and there will be more things to come later. But rest assured, we’re actively thinking on that topic.”

“I’m part of a team. It’s not just one guy,” said Jon Roth, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Buffalo Bills. “It’s about the group of us, and I think we’ll all be better as a result of that.”

The arena is owned by Erie County and operated by Pegula Sports and Entertainment. It is likely any large-scale renovations of seating and building structure that are similar to ones done in many NHL arenas built in the 1990s would require assistance from the county and New York State.

Since purchasing the team in 2011, Pegula has paid for many capital improvements on his own. He spent more than $10 million in 2011 alone for the renovation of the team’s locker rooms, training facilities and for upgrades to the ice plant and Zambonis. And part of the $172.2 million he spent in advance of the opening of LECOM Harborcenter in 2014 was for the parking garage and pedestrian walkway that connect the building to the adjacent arena.

The Sabres have been working with concessionaire Delaware North to improve its core products in the arena for this season. The Buffalo-based company – which lost the contract for the new Highmark Stadium to Legends Hospitality – has brought a new GM to KeyBank Center in John DonVito from Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He is a Rochester native who also has worked for the NHL’s Nashville Predators.

Two points of emphasis: improving the quality of pizza and beef on weck served in the arena, which had been the source of much fan consternation in recent seasons.

“Delaware North has done a really good job stepping up, and we’ll be showcasing a bunch of new things,” Roth said. “We have taken a real shot at the beef on weck and at LaNova pizza, and we’ve had multiple different food stations staged for us to show us what they can do over the next couple of years. I’m pretty excited.”

Dominic Verni, the vice president of hospitality for PSE, said Delaware North did an “extensive exercise” for both the arena and the current Highmark Stadium to improve its pizza offerings.

“That was very high on our priority list,” Verni said. “We’re taste-testing different doughs and recipes for sauce, cheese and cup and char (pepperoni), and we feel really good about what we have now for this season. It’s a little bit more of a traditional pizzeria slice. It’s bigger than last year, and, I think, has the textures that correlate with the pizza that they like in their hometown.”

Verni said he got good feedback from fans at the Bills home preseason game on Aug. 12, and a similar starting-over process was used to improve the beef on weck the Sabres will serve.

“We ended up with a product where we’re roasting the top round from scratch, using fresh kümmelweck rolls from Wegmans, fresh horseradish with the pickle spear,” he said. “We want it to be super authentic. We’re confident we’ve got the best ingredients and Delaware North will execute and create a great outcome.”

Verni said the Sabres and Delaware North want to be acting on comments they receive and the company will be instituting a “Fan Culinary Council” of up to 1,000 fans to participate in food tastings and feedback sessions on the products and the operation.

The Sabres want fans in their seats watching the game and not standing in concession lines, and will have some self-checkouts in place to speed the process. They will be using Mashgin, a Silicon Valley company that specializes in contactless scanning and reads what items a customer has placed on the scanner box.

“The evolution to this new system is just going to be huge,” Verni said. “You’re talking 10 times faster, everything’s scannable with all of the updated technologies with QR codes. Our fans haven’t seen this unless they’ve been to other arenas where it’s used. You put your food items on the basket, it’s scanned, the camera calculates the cost and you pay and go.”

The Mashgin technology will be connected to the Sabres’ ticketing system, so season-ticket members receive their concession discounts that are part of their membership.

“It’s a much more seamless type of process for them that should speed up the transactions at the kiosks at the concession stand,” said Frank Batres-Landaeta, vice president of ticket sales and service. “The members will be getting their discount that they’re used to, but the connectivity between that system and the ticketing system should help alleviate some headaches we’ve seen over the past couple of years.”

“From a user standpoint, the connectivity of the season ticket members is going to be the biggest piece,” Verni added. “It’s a game changer for us.”Verni added that the Sabres also will institute in-seat ordering in the 200 level through a phone QR code, so fans don’t have to flag down roving servers to take an order.

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