New York Americans

Lore & Background

The Americans were awarded to Canadian sports promoter Thomas Duggan and bootlegger Bill Dwyer in April 1925. Dwyer bought the rights to the suspended Hamilton Tigers' players for $75,000, giving them raises. The team's original jerseys were covered with stars and stripes, patterned after the American flag. They played their first home game at Madison Square Garden, losing 3–1 to the Montreal Canadiens before 17,000 people. Despite icing essentially the same team that finished first the previous year, they finished fifth overall in their first season with a 12–22–4 record.

The Americans were placed in the Canadian Division despite being based in New York, resulting in many train trips to Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. In 1928–29, goaltender Roy Worters led them to a 19–13–12 record and a 1.21 goals against average, becoming the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy. The team made the playoffs for the first time that season but lost to the Rangers. Financial difficulties plagued the franchise after Prohibition ended; Dwyer abandoned the team, and the NHL took control. The team became a ward of the league for its last six years. In 1941–42, the team was renamed the Brooklyn Americans, though they continued to play home games at Madison Square Garden while practicing in Brooklyn.

Reader's Guide

The New York Americans hold a unique place in NHL history as the league's first team in New York City and the third expansion franchise overall. Their arrival paved the way for the New York Rangers, which was created when Madison Square Garden exercised a lease clause requiring the Amerks to support the Garden's bid for its own team. The Americans never won the Stanley Cup, but their presence helped establish professional hockey in the United States. The team's financial struggles, exacerbated by the end of Prohibition and the onset of World War II, led to its suspension after the 1941–42 season. The demise of the club marked the beginning of the NHL's Original Six era from 1942 to 1967, though the franchise was not formally canceled until 1946. The Americans' legacy includes the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy (Roy Worters) and the catalyst for the NHL's eventual icing rule, after a game in which the Americans iced the puck 61 times against the Boston Bruins. The team's overall regular season record was 255–402–127.

Did You Know?

• The New York Americans were colloquially known as the Amerks.
• Goaltender Roy Worters became the first goaltender to win the Hart Trophy while playing for the Americans in 1928–29.
• The team played as the Brooklyn Americans during the 1941–42 season before suspending operations.
• The Americans' lease with Madison Square Garden required them to support the Garden's bid for its own NHL franchise, which became the Rangers.

The Road to a Buffalo-First Channel

After the collapse of Empire Sports Network and its parent company Adelphia, the Buffalo Sabres' television rights became a contested asset. In 2006, MSG secured a ten-year agreement to carry Sabres games, but the arrangement was heavily structured around team control. The Sabres retained authority over telecast production, advertising sales, and the simulcast of Rick Jeanneret's commentary across both radio and television—conditions they had insisted on since the Empire era. MSG organized its statewide coverage into regional zones, with Buffalo and Rochester falling into Zone 3 and the rest of the state (minus New York City) into Zone 2, where Sabres games shared airtime with the Devils, Islanders, and Rangers. Despite the structural complexity, the Sabres' regional ratings remained among the NHL's strongest. In the 2015–16 season, the arrival of star prospect Jack Eichel propelled the team to the highest average regional viewership of any NHL franchise for the first time since 2008–09, posting a 6.55 share even amid a poor overall record.

The Pegula–MSG Partnership

When Terry Pegula's group acquired the Sabres, Bills, Rochester Americans, and Buffalo Bandits, speculation swirled that he would launch a team-owned regional sports network once his existing television contract lapsed. Bob Koshinski, who had managed Empire for most of its run, confirmed in 2020 that Pegula had seriously weighed reviving that brand. Instead, MSG offered eighteen million dollars in guaranteed annual money to retain the relationship—a sum Pegula found too substantial to refuse. Ultimately, the two parties chose a middle path: on June 20, 2016, they announced a joint venture creating MSG Western New York. Under the deal, MSG pays nineteen to twenty million dollars per year in rights fees—nearly double the prior Sabres arrangement—while Pegula controls all team programming, production through PicSix Creative, and advertising revenue. MSG collects the retransmission consent fee and provides distribution infrastructure. Mark Preisler, Pegula's executive vice president of media and content, framed the partnership as a practical alternative to building a network from scratch, allowing the company to leverage MSG's existing carriage relationships rather than negotiating them independently.

Launch, Identity, and Audience Reach

The channel's first promotional spots aired during a Bills preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts on August 13, 2016, teasing its upcoming football coverage. The full launch came on September 10, 2016, at 8:00 p.m., opening with a Western New York-specific cut of The Rex Ryan Show's 2016 debut, followed by a behind-the-scenes special titled Rex and Rob Reunited. A continuous daily feed began on October 3. Structurally, MSG WNY operates as a sub-feed of the main MSG Network, carrying selected programming from the parent channel while dedicating additional airtime to Bills and Sabres content produced locally. The market was notably expanded to include all of Rochester, not just the former Zone 3 territory. While the channel is available on cable providers throughout Western New York, most of its programming also reaches a national audience via DirecTV satellite. The network has at times been credited as Pegula Sports Network or MSG Buffalo, reflecting its dual corporate identity.

Corporate Shifts and the RSN Landscape

MSG Western New York has existed amid significant corporate turbulence. In April 2017, reports surfaced that James L. Dolan, MSG's controlling owner, was exploring the sale of his regional sports networks, including his stake in the Buffalo sub-feed. The broader RSN industry has since faced mounting financial and regulatory pressure. On August 28, 2023, Pegula Sports and Entertainment was formally dissolved, splitting the Bills and Hockey Western New York LLC—the holding company for the Sabres, Americans, and Bandits—into separate business entities, with Terry Pegula assuming the presidency of the Sabres organization. More recently, on August 28, 2024, MSG Networks and the YES Network announced a combined streaming platform called the Gotham Sports App for their respective teams, though existing television rights arrangements remain unaffected. These shifts underscore how the Buffalo channel, born from a pragmatic partnership, continues to navigate an industry in constant flux.