Expected Links and FAQ: Rochester Knighthawks Purchased By The Seneca Nation

The Rochester Knighthawks are staying put.

Despite the uncertainty that emerged earlier in the summer when a statement from Bills and Sabres COO Pete Guelli announced that the Pegulas would be relinquishing ownership, news emerged Monday Night that the Seneca Nation would be taking over ownership of the Rochester Knighthawks, announced officially with a press conference this morning. The terms of the ownership transfer were not disclosed. The team announced that their newest arena lease with VenuWorks will be for 5 years, in line with the lease signed by the Amerks back in June.

As the video embedded above shows, speakers included Commissioner Brett Frood, Rochester Mayor Malik Evans, GM and President of the team Dan Carey, and J. Conrad Seneca, the 70th president of the Seneca Nation. Reigning NLL MVP Connor Fields, who was among the handful of players in attendance for the celebratory press conference, presented JC with a Knighthawks jersey, with #70 on the back.

Several media outlets were on hand to record the announcement, so let’s give them their clicks and then focus our contribution to the content machine on answering some FAQs:

FAQs

What caused the ownership change?

In an exclusive interview with Sal Maiorana and the Rochester D+C, Guelli alluded to a re-arranged portfolio

[With] everything we have going on relative to the Bills and the new stadium, the Sabres and our long-term vision for Key Bank Center, where we’re at with the Bandits, the (Bills) training camp, the Amerks, it just didn’t really fit into that equation. You only have so much bandwidth to operate all these different teams, and there’s just priority projects that we need to stay focused on.

–Pete Guelli to D+C, June 23, 2025

While the Pegulas operated the Blue Cross Arena up until this past May, business operations for both the Amerks and Knighthawks were performed by the same staff. The Amerks staff will continue to aide with the transition on the sales, marketing, and business sides as the calendar progresses into 2026.

It always seemed weird that they owned two teams, no? Wouldn’t that have been a conflict of interest?

Yes and no. First hand I can tell you that there was no overlap with the operations of the two teams, and the rivalry was as strong as ever between the two organizations. The biggest reason there were a lot of trades between the teams (as with Albany, Toronto, etc.) is that it fits in with a large portion of the player pool living in Southern Ontario, and playing locally fits with their full time job schedules. I guess another difference would be that while Sabres operations and sales staff would assist for Bandits work, the Amerks staff was that for the Knighthawks. The San Diego Seals and Las Vegas Desert Dogs, both owned by Joe Tsai, operate similarly.

Where did the teal and purple go?

If you haven’t paid as close attention to the NLL post-COVID, this is certainly a reasonable question to ask. As part of Curt Styres relocating the original Knighthawks to Halifax ahead of the 2019-20 season and the Knighthawks started anew as an expansion team, the team debuted their current black and dark green scheme that established themselves as a new franchise while also aligning with the Amerks red, white, and blue sets and nod to playing at the Rochester War Memorial. The understanding at the time is that everything, including the championships, moved with the team, marking another reason for the branding change. While this was never confirmed, the teal did return for a 90s night usage in January, with the current Knighthawks taking on the Halifax Thunderbirds in a fauxback black and teal uniform with purple accents that paid a nod to the late-90s/early-2000s era (before Styres owned the team).

The Knighthawks cannot change colors this season with the ownership change, as uniforms are finalized for the next season during the current one usually, as we saw with the Calgary Roughnecks announcing the return of red to their color scheme in April. However, between the friendly relationship between Seneca and Styres and an allusion during today’s festivities that a review of the branding will likely come alongside the transition.

Can they bring back the teal?

So, they can’t change colors this season since uniforms are fina–hey wait a second!

Was putting an FAQ in this post an excuse to make that teal joke?

Yes. Please stop asking me about the teal.

Is there an update on the CBA since they moved free agency to August 15?

Not that I have seen, no.

Do you have a recommendation on a platform that covers the Knighthawks? Even the Bandits? And some recaps of games around the league every week?

Right here, new friends! We even folderize the content to review everything we’ve posted about both the Bandits and Knighthawks

(Photo Credit: Micheline Veluvolu)