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Sabres oust Ted Black, name Russ Brandon team president

Kevin Oklobzija @kevinoDandC
In  this file photo, Buffalo Bills president Russ Brandon shares a laugh during the press conference introducing Terry Pegula as the club's new owner.
  • Russ Brandon will now oversee business operations for the Sabres as well as the Bills
  • Brandon said he will follow the Bills’ blueprint when it comes to regionalizing the Sabres
  • Ted Black had been Sabres president since Terry Pegula bought the franchise in 2011

Russ Brandon need only look at his own life timeline to realize just how well he truly knows his job.

He was raised in Syracuse, educated at St. John Fisher College in Rochester and, for the past 18 years, has been a resident of Buffalo as an executive with the Buffalo Bills.

“I’m the definition of regionalization,” the Bills president said Monday, not long after he took on added responsibilities within Pegula Sports and Entertainment as president of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres.

Brandon replaces Ted Black at the top of the Sabres’ management food chain. The team and Black mutually agreed to part ways, according to the news release from the Sabres. It’s believed Black didn’t have much of a choice, however.

“Since we purchased the Buffalo Bills last October, we have been highly impressed with the business acumen that Russ has shown,” Terry and Kim Pegula said in a team statement. “Now is an appropriate time to give him additional responsibilities with the Sabres.”

Brandon returned to Western New York in 1997, taking over business and marketing operations for the Bills. He was elevated to chief executive officer in 2010 and became Bills president in 2013.

The Pegulas said in the news release that Brandon will continue to work to “extend the reach of the Bills and Sabres brands throughout the region, especially in Rochester and Southern Ontario.”

Regionalization has been vital to the Bills’ business success. Those efforts included bringing training camp to St. John Fisher in 2000.

Having spent time at Amerks games as a fan while in college in the late 1980s — and for a brief time in 1992-93 on the team payroll as director of promotions — Rochester’s American Hockey League team will be part of the organization’s overall marketing strategy.

“Everyone knows what Rochester means to the Bills, but it also means a great deal to the Sabres,” Brandon said. “There’s a great brand in the Rochester Americans. I spent a lot of time at Rochester Americans games in the past and I look forward to regionalizing the brand as well.

“That is the critical, really lynchpin, to how we built our business over the last 18 years and we will follow a similar format to that.”

Brandon said he gladly will leave hockey operations to general manager Tim Murray. “I couldn’t be more hands off,” he said.

Black came to the Sabres from Fox Sports Pittsburgh via the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins when Terry Pegula purchased the Sabres franchise from Tom Golisano in 2011. Black headed the group that provided guidance to Pegula during the franchise purchase.

His most famous quote still lives in infamy. When deflecting criticism after the unveiling of the Sabres “third jersey” in 2013, Black said on WGR radio in Buffalo, “If it doesn’t sell, it won’t really mean anything to our bottom line. It’s a third jersey. If it’s a turdburger, I’ll have to put it on a bun and eat it.”

For Brandon, the dual president role means juggling duties for two sports and two teams, but it has been done, and is being done, elsewhere on the sporting landscape.

Current Los Angeles Dodgers part owner and president Stan Kasten served as president of the baseball’s Atlanta Braves, the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers and NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Scott O’Neil is president of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. Mickey Loomis has similar duties in New Orleans with the NFL Saints and NBA Pelicans.

KEVINO@DemocratandChronicle.com

Buffalo Sabres President Ted Black speaks during an end-of-season NHL hockey news conference, Monday, April 29, 2013, in Buffalo.
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