The Buffalo Bills welcomed a new limited ownership group this past year, including two women.
In December, the Buffalo Bills sold limited partnerships in their organization to groups of investors. Included in that group were high-profile former NBA players Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady along with professional soccer player Jozy Altidore.
In addition to those three professional athletes, owners Kim and Terry Pegula welcomed two women to the ownership group, a goal of the Pegulas when they began looking at the possibility of adding investors to the ownership mix.
Since the Pegulas purchased the team in 2014, the Bills have had female ownership in one form or another, with Kim taking on a huge role, but that was severely altered in 2022.
Kim Pegula’s ownership of the Buffalo Bills is in a trust
Kim Pegula was team president of the Bills in addition to being the owner, spearheading the plans for the new stadium among other major projects, before suffering a debilitating medical event in June 2022. Following a cardiac arrest event in her home, she experienced “significant expressive aphasia and memory issues” according to her daughter, Jessica, and didn’t make another public appearance until Bills training camp in July 2024.
“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,” wrote Jessica Pegula in The Players Tribune in February 2023.
Following that post, a court-appointed panel ruled Kim was incapacitated and placed her assets into a trust that March, including her 50% stake in the Buffalo Bills. Her husband was installed as co-trustee alongside their business partner Bob Long.
“Kim is not coming back,” a source told Tim Graham of The Athletic at the time.
In addition to her business acumen, Terry said Kim brought a caring touch to her work within their various organizations.
“We all miss her, especially I do,” Terry Pegula said in December. “She was always the personal part of it, sending out Christmas cards, making cookies for the coaches. She’d be up at 3 o’clock in the morning every Sunday when we played making cookies for the coaches. We all miss that.”
This week, both Kim and Terry were on hand to honor Buffalo Sabres personality Rob Ray as he was inducted into the Buffalo Sabres Hall of Fame. The Pegulas own the Sabres in addition to the Bills as part of a huge portfolio of sports teams and business holdings. The couple watched the ceremony from their private box.
Laura Pegula steps into the role of Bills owner
Almost immediately after the court’s ruling, Terry Pegula transferred a portion of the team’s ownership to his daughter from his first marriage, per The Athletic. Laura Pegula had been involved in the Pegula business previously, but never the sports teams, and since 2023 has been sitting in at NFL league meetings as the team builds a succession plan for the 73-year-old Terry. With Kim almost 20 years younger, that wasn’t a point of necessity prior to her medical event.
It had long been speculated that Jessica, herself an accomplished professional tennis player, would eventually take over in a front-facing ownership role for the team. In 2023, her husband, Taylor Gahagen, was removed from his position within the organization, where he had worked since 2014. It’s unclear why or if the pair will play a role in the future following Jessica’s playing career.
New women join the Bills’ ownership group in 2024
In December, the league approved several limited partners for the Buffalo Bills. Essentially, these people pay for small shares of the Bills’ franchise but don’t get voting power in the day-to-day operations of the franchise nor the league itself. Some minority owners have more influence than others around the NFL, most notably with Las Vegas Raiders limited owner Tom Brady being a central advisor to majority own Mark Davis and helping with hiring key personnel. Most of the time, they get really good suites in the stadium and a return on their investment as franchise values climb. The majority owners — the Pegulas — turn around and use that money for operating the team and building a new stadium.
Two women joined the ranks of Bills ownership with the moves announced in December; Sue McCollum and Theresia Gouw.
“One of the things I wanted to accomplish also was to bring in some women,” Terry Pegula said from the NFL owners meetings in Irving, Texas, in December. “We’ve got two female ambassadors who are very successful business people. You know I’ve got three daughters who are involved in the team and hopefully more so in the future, and I think that’s a good thing for them to learn some business acumen and have some female input, because when Kim went down that was a big loss of influence on my daughters as far as the business side goes. She’s unable to be involved now.”
McCollum is a lifelong Bills fan and CEO and owner of Eagle Brands Sales and Double Eagle Distributing, two beer distributors based out of Florida. She attended American University and Washington University School of Law after graduating from Amherst High School, a suburb of Buffalo. Her family owned season tickets all the way back to the 1970s.
Gouw is the founding partner of venture firm Acrew Capital. A self-made billionaire, Gouw is a first-generation immigrant who also grew up a Bills fan. She has 20 years in the tech industry as an investor and entrepreneur and as a first-generation immigrant, she actively supports diversity in the tech industry. Her family lived north of Buffalo in Middleport, and were season ticket holders in the 1980s.
Here is a full list of the Bills’ limited partners in the order in which they are listed on the team’s official website alongside their titles outside the organization:
- Arctos, a private investment firm that provides bespoke growth and liquidity solutions, differentiated thought partnership and value creation services to sports franchises
- Rob Palumbo, Co-managing partner of Accel-KKR, technology-focused private equity firm
- Sue McCollum, CEO and owner of beverage distribution companies Eagle Brand Sales and Double Eagle Distributing
- Theresia Gouw, Co-founder and managing partner of the venture capital firm Acrew Capital
- Rob Ward, Co-founder, general partner of venture capital firm Meritech Capital
- Mike Joo, COO, Global Corporate & Investment Banking and Head of North America Corporate & Investment Banking at Bank of America
- Tom Burger, Co-founder and managing partner of the investment firm Gridiron Capital
- Vince Carter, Former NBA player; member of Basketball Hall of Fame
- Tracy McGrady, Former NBA player; member of Basketball Hall of Fame
- Jozy Altidore, Former US National Team Soccer Player and MLS Champion