MSG Western New York will basically function like the old Empire Sports, but only for the teams under the Pegula umbrella.
A few days ago, we openly speculated whether the Pegulas were gearing up to launch their own regional sports network, something like the old Empire Sports that would focus on Western New York teams and allow Pegula Sports & Entertainment to get much more homegrown content on the air.
Yesterday, PS&E along with MSG announced something that...almost sounds exactly like that.
The announcement was twofold: the first half announced that MSG will be the exclusive rights holder of the Buffalo Sabres for a very long time - sources for The Buffalo News said the deal goes beyond a decade - and that the rights fee has doubled from its current figure of $9.