What is Kim Pegula's Net Worth?
Kim Pegula is a businesswoman who has a net worth of $8 billion. That is a combined net worth with her husband of several decades, Terry Pegula.
Kim Pegula served as the president and CEO of the now-defunct Pegula Sports and Entertainment, a holding company that owned and managed various sports teams and entertainment assets, mostly in Western New York. Among its holdings were the NFL's Buffalo Bills and the NHL's Buffalo Sabres, as well as the mixed-use development LECOM Harborcenter. In the summer of 2023, Pegula Sports and Entertainment was dissolved. The Pegulas remain owners of both the Buffalo Sabres and Bills.
Kim Pegula is among the handful of female NFL owners, and is one of only three NFL team owners born outside the United States.
Early Life and Education
Kim Pegula was born on June 7, 1969 in Seoul, South Korea. She has no firsthand memory of her birth name and no record of her biological parents, who reportedly abandoned her on the streets of Seoul when she was five years old. At the end of 1974, Pegula was brought to the United States and adopted by Marilyn and Ralph Kerr. She was raised in Fairport, New York, and as a teenager was involved in her high school band and cheerleading squad. For her higher education, Pegula attended Houghton College, a private Christian liberal arts school in the eponymous New York town.
Business Career
While interviewing for a waitressing job at a restaurant in Belfast, New York in the early 1990s, Pegula met businessman and petroleum engineer Terry, who was dining at the restaurant. He ended up offering her a job at his oil and gas exploration and production company East Resources, and the couple married in 1993. Pegula worked at East Resources until the company's sale in 2010. Shortly after that, the Pegulas acquired the NHL team the Buffalo Sabres and its two affiliated teams, the NLL's Buffalo Bandits and the AHL's Rochester Americans. They subsequently founded the holding company Pegula Sports and Entertainment, with Kim becoming the president and CEO. In 2014, the Pegulas purchased the NFL's Buffalo Bills, beating out stiff competition with an NFL-record $1.4 billion all-cash bid. Pegula Sports and Entertainment went on to make several further acquisitions over the ensuing years. In 2017, the company purchased the Buffalo Beauts of the National Women's Hockey League, and in 2018 acquired the National Lacrosse League's Rochester Knighthawks.
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Among its media assets, Pegula Sports and Entertainment managed the independent country music label Black River Entertainment. It also had control of the regional sports network MSG Western New York, which broadcasts coverage of sports in the Western New York region. On the real estate front, Pegula Sports and Entertainment owned and operated LECOM Harborcenter, a hockey-themed mixed-use development in Buffalo featuring retail stores, restaurants, a hotel, and two hockey rinks. In 2018, the company took over management of the AHL Americans arena Blue Cross Arena in Rochester.
Later, in 2022, it was announced that the Pegulas were contributing to a new 62,000-seat stadium for the Bills in Orchard Park that would be owned by the State of New York. Beyond New York, Pegula Sports and Entertainment owned a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida called Terra Mare, as well as an athletic training facility in Boca Raton called IMPACT Performance Cycle & Yoga. In the summer of 2023, Pegula Sports and Entertainment was dissolved. The Pegulas remained owners of both the Buffalo Sabres and Bills.
Personal Life
Pegula has been married to her husband Terry since 1993. They have three children named Kelly, Matthew, and Jessica Pegula, the lattermost of whom is a professional tennis player. Kim Pegula also has two stepchildren, Michael and Laura, from her husband's past marriage. The family has homes in East Aurora, New York and Boca Raton, Florida.
In mid-2022, Pegula was hospitalized in an ICU in Boca Raton for undisclosed reasons. Her daughter Jessica later revealed that the hospitalization was due to cardiac arrest and a resulting brain injury. Having recovered over a year later, Pegula attended a training camp practice for the Buffalo Bills in the summer of 2023.
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