Sabres Ticket Revenue

It's been a couple of months since we had a chance to interview Sabres Owner Tom Golisano in Rochester about the team, and the future of hockey in Buffalo. One point he made that resonated was his insistence that the Sabres not lose money. He said it's not imperative that he make money on the hockey franchise, but he would not tolerate a money-losing proposition.
That came to mind today, when I looked over a list of NHL ticket revnue published by the Toronto Star.
Here's the link:

http://www3.thestar.com/static/PDF/080530_nhl_tickets_revenue.pdf

The fact is, despite all their success on the ice and at the box office in recent years, the Sabres still just barely make the top two-thirds of the league, when it comes to ticket revenue. They take in $750,000 per game, less than half of what the Maple Leafs and Canadiens earn per game. This, of course, is due to ticket prices in Buffalo remaining very low, compared to other NHL markets.
The important point is that the Sabres do operate on a very tight budget. They can sell out the season and still earn less than $31-million dollars for the season from ticket revenue. That leaves them short of the $35-million or so they spent on salaries last year. Of course they get more revenue from merchandising, radio and TV rights, etc. but ticket revenue is the primary source of income for NHL teams.
It's no wonder Golisano and the Sabres downplay expectations of the team becoming big-money players when the free agent market opens in July.