By By Mike Petro News Business Reporter,Michael Petro

Copyright buffalonews

The Buffalo Sabres haven’t made the NHL playoffs in 14 years.

They play in one of the older and more antiquated arenas in the league at KeyBank Center.

Yet, the valuation of the team continues to go up.

The value of the Sabres increased by 20% from last season and is now estimated to be $1.36 billion, according to a report released Wednesday by sports business website Sportico.

But even with the increase of about $230 million from last season’s rankings, the Sabres remain close to the bottom of the 32-team league, ranked at No. 29. That’s a move up by one spot for the team, which was ranked 30th last season.

It is the result of the value of sports teams steadily climbing throughout all major sports, including the NHL. The collective worth of the league’s teams is up to $67.1 billion, or an average of $2.1 billion. That is up $5 billion from last season – a number that continues to increase each season.

Sportico determines the value of each team according to “the sum of the enterprise value of an NHL franchise, combined with the value of team-related businesses and real estate holdings.”

The Toronto Maple Leafs ranked first at an estimated valuation of $4.25 billion, while the Columbus Blue Jackets rank last at $1.3 billion.

Last year, the value of the Sabres, who start their 2025-26 regular season next week, was estimated to be $1.13 billion – a number that has more than doubled since 2021, according to Sportico.

Every team in the league last season reached more than $1 billion in value, and the Sabres were one of 10 teams that jumped from less than $1 billion to over that mark since the prior year’s rankings.

As an asset, the value of Buffalo’s teams has skyrocketed.

The Sabres have significantly climbed in value from their estimated $530 million valuation of four years ago. They were valued at $900 million in 2023, according to Sportico.

Owner Terry Pegula, who also owns the Buffalo Bills, purchased the hockey team from Tom Golisano in 2011 for $189 million. He has also seen the value of his football team climb from $1.4 billion when he bought the Bills in 2014 to an estimated nearly $6 billion.

The Sabres recently extended their lease under the current terms at KeyBank Center for five more years, providing more of a cushion for the team to negotiate a longer-term deal that could include public funding for needed renovations to their nearly 30-year-old arena.

Since buying the Sabres in 2011, Pegula has spent millions on improving the fan experience in the arena, but he may require some financial support from the county, and possibly the state, for what is ahead.

The building is in dire need of additional renovations that have been completed at other 1990s-era NHL arenas such as those in Boston; Chicago; Tampa, Fla.; Montreal; Washington; Los Angeles; Nashville, Tenn.; St. Louis; Philadelphia; and Raleigh, N.C.

The team is supposed to be responsible for upgrades to the building, and took on the costs of a new roof and new video scoreboard before the start of last season. That price tag was around $10 million. Before the start of this season, the Sabres installed a multimillion-dollar audio system to pair with the video board.

But there are numerous additional needs inside the arena, including in the seats and concourses, which have gone virtually untouched since the arena opened three decades ago, as well as potentially improving the inside infrastructure and look of the antiquated building from the outside.

Architectural firm, Populous, which designed the Bills’ more than $2 billion new stadium, was brought in earlier this year to do a study on the building that will help form a plan for some of the next steps.

A big part of the early conversation with Populous has centered on improvements to the fan experience, needed technology advancements and what may be necessary to make the arena more of a multipurpose venue.

The team has been keen on bringing even more events to the arena and making it a catalyst for downtown growth. The arena hosted 140 events in the last calendar year, bringing 1.3 million people through the building, and KeyBank Center is expected to host closer to 200 events per year.

Inside the arena, there’s more progress to be made on the season ticket and individual game sales front. The Sabres said last month they were around 9,000 in season ticket sales, which is still far from the team’s heyday where the arena was routinely filled to capacity. The team has ranked near the bottom of the league every year in average attendance since the pandemic.