The Graeme Roustan Show: Jeremy Jacobs

The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 hockey business annual is available at THN.com/free, featuring the annual 100 people of power and influence list.

W. Graeme Roustan, owner and publisher of The Hockey News, sat down with special guests for peer-to-peer conversations also featured in the issue, including Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs.

Here's their full conversation in The Graeme Roustan Show:

(Don't see the video? Click here.)

Read along with an excerpt from their discussion:

W. GRAEME ROUSTAN: I would like to start, if you don’t mind, let’s go back to 1975. In 1975, you decided to buy the Boston Bruins.

JJ: There’s a tale, in that you just don’t decide to buy a hockey team. If you might recall, I think it was ’73 or ’74, that Buffalo was awarded an expansion franchise.

WGR: 1974-75.

JJ: Yeah. I was deeply involved with them, not as an owner, but in producing the arena with them. I was working with them every day and really enjoyed them. (Robert) Swados was the lawyer, and the Knoxes were the up-front part of the franchise, but there was a whole sea of hockey lovers that were involved in getting behind the team. Dave Foreman was the up-front guy. Dave, insofar as the day-to-day guy, he was the one who showed up and put it all together. I think he did a great job with it. He was fun to be with, and they were fun people.

I was a young guy. I was 32 or 33 back then. I was working with him, and they eventually produced a very viable team with a very attractive relationship with the community. They had a lot of people come to their games back then. I worked with them on a day to-day basis, so that when the opportunity came to buy the Bruins, I was getting it for less than they paid for an expansion franchise. The guy who brought the transaction to me was an attorney in Fort Lauderdale that we had used in Florida. I remember saying to him, “Are you just an attorney, or do you do other things?” He said, “I’m on the board of companies, one of which is Storer Broadcasting (which owned the Bruins).”

I said, “Who are they?” He told me who they were, and I said, “If they ever want to sell that, I’d be interested.” He called me and said, “They’re interested in selling it. They want to sell it and now. They don’t want to negotiate. This is what they want.” I said, “You got a deal.” And he did. It turned out to be just a tremendous opportunity for me. You can’t replicate things like that. It was just one of those moments you were just happy you said yes. I wound up with the Garden and the Bruins. I didn’t know what I was doing, really, except I knew enough to say yes. It’s one thing to be watching from the third row, and it’s another thing to be in the front seat. I was very much in the front seat from there on. I was blessed with a GM in Harry Sinden that I couldn’t replicate.

WGR: Did you like the entrepreneurial part of owning an NHL team early on? Did you like being the entrepreneur on-site owning that team?

JJ: I was very proud to own it. It was something that definitely embellished my personality. But the truth is, I thought that’s the way it should be. I think the family needs to own this. This is a different kind of asset. I can’t think of a franchise that isn’t identified with the owner as opposed to the corporation.

WGR: You’ve been the face of the Boston Bruins for 50 years. When this article appears in The Hockey News, it’ll be January 2025, your 50th year. Looking back to 1975, did you ever have any thought whatsoever that you’d be doing this 50 years later?

JJ: It’s been a tremendous property for me and for my family. I remember the playoffs in Vancouver. I’m out in Vancouver, and I see all of my children and grandchildren there. I thought, “Wow, I couldn’t get them together on a Christmas or my funeral, much less.” It’s one of those great properties that they’re all proud to say, “We own this.” Hopefully, they’ll go on and feel that way about it. It’s a very special property and, hopefully, something that’ll stick.

WGR: You have a family business. Your father and his brothers started the family business, and now, your boys are very involved in the business. This business. It’s now in its third generation. What you were just talking about, about the children and grandchildren enjoying the playoff run and being all together, it seems to me that this is going to be a generational business that would pass down multiple generations. Is that your design?

JJ: You give them the opportunity, but you really can’t manage these things from the grave. You just have to hope that they’re inspired. My dad and his brothers never went to college or anything. Well, my dad went for a few days or something.

My sons are very well-educated in the business world and know their way around very well. Charlie’s done a great job in developing that property. They’re so proud of it. If they continue to be proud of it and they continue to love it as they seem to now, I think it could survive generations. You’re right, and it’s not a bad identity. It’s a rather good one. I like what it does for us.

WGR: Owning a professional sports franchise actually works with your overall plan for your business, doesn’t it?

JJ: Yes, it does. It flatters it. It gives you some insight into problems that so few service companies have an opportunity to understand, the problems of their proprietors or the owners. It gives you insight that we wouldn’t enjoy if we were at an arm’s length in all these things.

WGR: It also gives a certain amount of credibility when you’re going in to bid on a contract for an NHL team, an NBA team or any team around the world. They look at your bid and say, “OK, well, they own the Garden, they own the Boston Bruins, so they really know what we’re talking about here.” Does that give you a leg up on the competition?

JJ: I sure hope so, but in the meantime, I really like owning that team.

WGR: Sometime around 1995, during the strike, Gary (Bettman) started this executive committee in the board of governors. You were on that original committee. A few years later, in 2007, you became the chair of the board of governors, and you’re on the committee. That committee drives decision-making, thought processes and vision for the future as well as working with Gary and management. Do you see it as a typical board of directors in a corporation, advising management?

JJ: I think, in a lot of ways, I say yes. In a lot of ways, I’d say it’s different. You’re talking about a sports team versus a corporation. I think that even though a sports team may be a corporation at a time, it deals with personalities. It deals with a lot of emotions. It deals with a lot more emotions than one considers because you’re looking at a community the size of Boston that is absolutely crazy about the sport of hockey. It has been for the 50 years I’ve been there. They’re very credible. It’s a tremendously strong economic engine that runs that whole sports environment down there in Boston. I think that Gary’s done a tremendous job. I wanted to get close to it. He needed help. It was a good situation.

WGR: With 32 teams now, some do very well, some don’t do as well as the top 10.

JJ: You’re fortunate to be in the top 10, but you’re cursed to be in the top 10. You have to help support the rest. You’re part of a league. You can’t think of yourself individually. You have to think about, “This might work for me, but it sure won’t work for 20 others.” It’s whether it works or it doesn’t. Having it work is important, that it works for 32 teams or as close as you can get. There have been a number of teams that have been very successful, and others that have not. I remember when the California teams were very successful, and then, they hit a downturn. I remember when Buffalo was very successful, and it’s gone through some hard times.

WGR: Being that you’ve been around for 50 years, you’ve seen a lot. You’ve seen really strong ownership groups that have been proven over time, and you’ve seen some real disasters that had to be fixed. Gary was brought in in 1993, and he got to work fixing problem franchises. Today, we’re all celebrating a terrific league. It’s strong. Everything is firing on every cylinder. How important was that period of time in the ’90s?

JJ: Gary’s good at it. Really good at it. He enjoys it, and we got real lucky when we hired him. He’s been a terrific asset, and he’s seen this league through some long times and very successful times. I don’t think we could have done better than him, no matter how long we waited. I don’t see a commissioner out there who is equal to the tasks he’s undertaken. He does it, he engages in it and he gets it done right. The great part about these commissioners, all of them, is that they’re really sitting in everybody’s shoes. They have responsibility for so many things, and they assume responsibility very well. I think he’s done a great job. I really do.

WGR: How important is it for you, as the chairman of the board of the NHL, to set the tone or to be the person that everybody can go to? How important is the role of the person in that chair?

JJ: I think it is important, but I think what is unique is that there’s a tremendous comfort level with 32 teams to talk to the CEO. Gary maintains constant communication with all the members of the league. He’s talking to all of us, almost all the time. You usually get a call once a week or every two weeks from him to see how things are going. He tells you what he’s doing and what’s going on in the league. He does a good job of it, and you don’t see much disaffection there that you could see. I think that’s probably true of most commissioners. I do talk to the members when there’s a reason to, but they take care of their own business pretty much with the commissioner. If they need some help, I’m more than happy to play a role.

For more of the text Q&A with Jacobs, more interviews and a deep look into the world of the hockey business, check out The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 issue, available at THN.com/free.