Kim Pegula likely isn’t coming back to her role as president of the Buffalo Bills and Sabres.
So how has that changed who runs the business side for the two teams owned by Terry and Kim Pegula?
In the short-term, not much.
Jessica Pegula revealed in a Players Tribune story on Tuesday that her 53-year-old mother has been unable to return to work since suffering cardiac arrest in June and is now dealing with “significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues,” making it at times difficult for her to communicate.
The teams have been able to cover for her with some slight maneuvering, some of which may even have been planned before Kim Pegula’s approximately eight-month absence from Pegula Sports & Entertainment, which handles the affairs of both professional organizations.
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Despite that, Jessica Pegula said that her mother’s absence has left a “massive void in the organizations.”
A spokesperson for Pegula Sports & Entertainment did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
“She was the shift in culture, positivity, and the heartbeat of many of the employees,” Jessica Pegula wrote. “She gave everyone so much of her time and effort. … Now we come to the realization that all of that is most likely gone. That she won’t be able to be that person anymore.”
Before the start of the NFL season in September, Ron Raccuia went from executive vice president of Pegula Sports & Entertainment to COO and executive vice president of the Bills, focusing solely on the football team. But given the time and effort going into planning for and closing the deal on the new Bills stadium, it seemed a natural evolution of Raccuia’s position.
In an essay published this morning on The Players’ Tribune website, Jessica Pegula revealed that her mother, the team president and co-owner of the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, suffered cardiac arrest last June.
Raccuia has been the team executive by Terry Pegula’s side during owners meetings and the one speaking on behalf of the team on most stadium matters since Kim Pegula fell ill.
In January, John Roth, a longtime friend of Terry Pegula, was named COO for the Sabres and Pegula Sports & Entertainment, filling a key executive leadership role for the hockey team. He reports directly to ownership and has assumed day-to-day leadership of the PSE offices and business side of the Sabres.
A spokesperson for the Sabres said after the announcement that the hire of Roth had “nothing to do” with Kim Pegula's health or her absence from PSE affairs.
Then there’s the expanded role that Terry Pegula has taken on.
According to his daughter Jessica Pegula’s piece, titled “I want to talk to you about my mom,” her father has assumed many of his wife’s responsibilities with the teams. There were “employees, fans, responsibilities, and many other details that needed to be dealt with” in the aftermath of Kim Pegula’s health scare, she said.
In a news release about Roth’s hire, Terry Pegula said he has been working with Sabres General Manager Kevyn Adams leading the hockey side of the organization.
Terry Pegula, 71, also has been pushing to broaden their family's investments and diversify their assets through his investment company East Resources Acquisition Co. Pegula, who’s made much of his multibillion-dollar fortune in oil and natural gas exploration and production, sold many of his assets in that space and turned his attention to entering other business ventures.
“Our family is involved in a lot – the sports teams, businesses, investments – and my mom liked to be very hands on with it all,” Jessica Pegula, 28, wrote. “Of course, what came first was that it was a family tragedy. Now add on top of that all her responsibilities and it became extremely overwhelming for everyone involved.”
What’s happened has even had Jessica Pegula, a professional tennis star who’s now ranked fourth in the world, thinking about her future and when and how she can be more involved with PSE and the sports organizations. She wrote that her mother always wanted her to learn and eventually take on her role with the teams.
“I would always press her to give me more responsibility, to let me be more involved, because I wanted to help,” Jessica Pegula said. “So now here I am, with my family, trapped in discussions about her care, caretakers, doctors, therapy and that which seemed like the least important, my tennis career.”
Kim Pegula continues to improve every day and can read, write and understand most of what is said to her, but she has trouble finding the words to respond and communicating with her can be difficult, Jessica Pegula wrote.
“My mom is working hard in her recovery, she is improving, but where she ends up is still unknown,” she said.
