Kim Pegula’s new role means more visibility, When NFL owners approved the Pegulas as the next Buffalo Bills’ owners last month, Terry Pegula stood alone at a lectern to deliver the statement.
Kim Pegula stood near the door and smiled.
Later that week, when the Bills held a news conference to introduce their new owners at the ADPRO Sports Training Center, it was Terry Pegula who addressed reporters. His wife watched from the gallery with their children.
Yet no one, not for a second, believes that Kim Pegula is going to remain on the sidelines when it comes to being a National Football League owner.
Kim Pegula has the opportunity to be an influential voice at a time when the NFL could use a woman’s perspective. She already has been added to the NFL Foundation Committee, a nonprofit organization that focuses on sports safety, youth football and community outreach. She intends to do more.
Wednesday at First Niagara Center, Terry and Kim Pegula sat down with The Buffalo News for her first face-to-face interview since the Bills were sold. They later spoke with the Associated Press and WGR.
She shared her thoughts on being an NFL co-owner, her leadership style and the responsibilities in representing Buffalo on such a big stage. Her husband chimed in a few times, too.
Buffalo News: How do you view your One Buffalo campaign as an engine to help a Western New York resurgence?
Kim Pegula: The purpose of One Buffalo was to bring together the fans, the community, the people to celebrate all things Buffalo. When we did our first Bills game as owners, that was an opportunity to start off our campaign. We’ve gotten such a great response from it. What we’re really trying to do is make it user-generated, so the people themselves are the ones that are really driving the campaign.
We want to celebrate the good things going on. As you know, Buffalo likes to talk about the bad things that we’ve missed out on or aren’t going right. We just want to switch it around.
BN: What does it feel like to have an immediate impact and see the pride well up in the people?
Terry Pegula: I just want to know if we’re going to have a family argument over who created the One Buffalo slogan.
KP: No, that was me.
TP: I think that was me. We can have this out right here, right now.
KP: I’m very proud of what’s going on because I like to get involved. I know how hard people have worked to get HarborCenter up. I know how hard it is to get a season started and how hard it is to learn about how the Bills operate in-season. I get very emotional and happy when I see things like the HarborCenter open. I was at the opening puck drop for Canisius, and to see all those people. … It was his dream – I’ll give him credit for that – when it was just an empty parking lot. To be a part of the whole process and then have it finally be here and putting smiles on people’s faces, that’s pretty great.
BN: Many of your employees speak about your family-oriented approach to business. Why is that such a priority?
KP: Terry and I always believed that we treat others as you want to be treated. It’s easy to do, by nature. We’re positive people, I think. It’s hard to change. This success has been as recent as when we sold (East Resources to Shell in 2010).
TP: I’ve never asked anybody in my life to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. At East Resources, a very successful oil and gas company, we didn’t have a big staff. But everybody was passionate about what they did, and we did it well.
KP: We’ve done other things a lot longer than we’ve had the Sabres or the Bills. So the way we treat people is just an extension of what we’ve been doing.
TP: I’m a firm believer you should never be afraid to say anything at a meeting. We did that for decades at East Resources. We had meetings – our land department, our geology department, our engineers – and they all knew what was going on.
Obviously, you can’t do that when you’re trying to sign players to a professional sports team, but you can use the same type of philosophy in everything else you’re doing.
BN: You clearly feel inclusiveness and communication are critical.
TP: Everybody needs to know what’s going on.
BN: How do you think your business philosophies can be applied on a leaguewide basis in the NFL?
KP: I just got asked to be on the NFL Foundation Committee. Besides our original league meeting, we have not gone to any other meetings to see what the culture is. But when we talked to (New England Patriots owner) Bob Kraft, he told us how important the owners were to the success of the league. He was adamant about that. We took that to heart. To hear that from Bob Kraft, I’m sure many owners in the league feel the same way. As we get more involved with the Bills, we will help in any way we can.
BN: The NFL has had female ownership before, but not relatively active in terms of involvement. How do you think your voice can make an impact in the NFL ownership room?
TP: Let me butt in. What’s the difference, you know? There shouldn’t be any difference. As a matter of fact, I go back to my previous remarks about communication.
If everybody in the organization knows as much as the next person and is well-rounded and educated, I consider that a succession plan. I’m 18 years older than her. I hope I die before her. There better be a succession plan in order, and part of that is we run the team together. The more everyone who’s involved in the top end of the management team – the owners and others – they should know as much as what’s going on as possible.
KP: I don’t know how much being a female will make an impact. Basically, what I want to be involved in and what’s going to happen after that will play out based on my strengths and my interests and how I can help, more so than whether I’m a female.
BN: To what degree then do you consider every voice equal versus the value of a diversity of perspectives?
KP: I do think that backgrounds – whether it’s male or female or where you came from or your birth order or your age – make it a better collaborative effort. I don’t think it hurts.
I don’t get involved in hockey or football operations not because I’m a woman, but because I don’t know much about it. But I do sit in on some meetings, and my contribution might be helping with their off-field or off-ice lives.
I do agree that diversity makes a team much better than not having diversity. But you can’t mandate that.
BN: How do you view team ownership as an opportunity to have influence within the league?
KP: I don’t measure how active we’ll be. We just take pride in that we are representing Buffalo’s name, and Buffalo’s reputation within the league will depend on what we do. Just like HarborCenter has impacted our perception in the NHL. We’re getting the combine, the draft, the referees combine. That enhances Buffalo’s standing.
Terry and I haven’t been to every meeting. We haven’t been on every committee. But ownership involvement is a responsibility. How we go about that? We’ll see.
BN: Not too long ago for you and Terry, the idea of owning an NHL team, let alone setting an NFL record for a team sale, had to seem otherworldly. What has the journey been like from that point to where we’re sitting now?
TP: The day before we made our deal with Shell, I was worth as much money in assets. I just didn’t have the actual money. So the purchase of the Sabres and the Bills came from our good fortune with East Resources.
BN: What about from when you guys first met? This had to be way beyond your imaginations.
TP: That’s right. I can’t think of anybody in sports where it was this (clicks fingers).
KP: It has happened quickly. Before we had all of this, we were doing the same things we’re doing now, treating people the same way, acting the same way.
It’s been a gradual climb from when I first met Terry. He was drilling nine wells at, like, what, $12 a barrel?
TP: $8.
KP: So as far as turning that into the Bills and the Sabres, I mean. …
TP: When it was at $8, I was asking, “Where’s a cliff to jump off?”
BN: Kim, you didn’t have much presence at the NFL ownership meeting when your Bills purchase was approved or at the news conference later that week. Why was that?
TP: Tell her about it! I told her, “Hey, get out here.”
KP: For the press conference, I just thought to keep things a lot simpler … two people, a lot of questions we weren’t ready to answer yet. So we wanted to make it a lot easier.
I am planning to slowly evolve into becoming more public. I’m actually speaking at (today’s HarborCenter VIP grand opening). It’s something I’m not comfortable doing, but I’m slowly trying to increase it.
BN: Terry, would you prefer her to be the face of the team?
TP: No, I’m not saying that. I rib her all the time.
KP: It’s been like this the whole time. I’m a behind-the-scenes type person, you know? It was his idea for HarborCenter, but I look for ways to get involved behind the scenes.
TP: We always crack on each other. We look for ways, look for somebody to make a mistake. Then it’s an all-out attack. There was the day she came into the hockey game and it was the end of the second period, and the Sabres were losing, 1-0. She said, “Why aren’t they pulling the goalie?”
KP: No!
TP: She thought it was the end of the game. We’ll never let her live that down. You can’t pull a goalie at the end of the second period.
BN: Terry, since she’s sitting here next to you, and you guys seem to like to take a run at each other every now and then, how would you describe what kind of leader Kim is?
TP: The people that work for us, I think they love her. She’s always thinking of others and wants them to feel good. I mean, the parties. …
