The hierarchy of the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres has seen its third major change in the last three months, as chief operating officer and executive vice president John Roth was fired on Wednesday, along with Bills general counsel Kathryn D’Angelo.
According to a report in The Athletic and the Associated Press, Roth was let go due to being involved in a relationship with D’Angelo and since he was her direct superior, the relationship was considered professionally unethical.
Roth was hired as COO of Pegula Sports and Entertainment and Sabres chief operating officer in January and took over from Bills COO Ron Ruccuia in July after he was fired by owner Terry Pegula. Pegula appointed Roth, D’Angelo, and Josh Dziurlikowski (the new interim COO) as a three-person committee to run the football club and report directly to him.
PS & E was dissolved in August, making the NFL and NHL clubs separate entities, but Roth remained the COO of both clubs. Sabres GM Kevyn Adams indicated on Thursday that the changes would not impact the operations of the club.
“For me personally, nothing changes in terms of reporting structure,” Adams said. “There's a lot of excitement in our organization right now. There's a lot of really good people on the business side that have been doing this awhile that understand what their day-to-day job (is) and (they)are aligned. I sit and talk all the time with different members of our organization in different departments and there's a lot of excitement and I'm excited about what we have, so it really doesn't change from day to day.”