Paul Snyder, a longtime Buffalo business owner with influence across a wide array of ventures, passed away Monday. He was 94.
The news was shared by his daughter, longtime Buffalo radio personality Janet Snyder.
His business portfolio was expansive, including Freezer Queen frozen foods, the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Buffalo, and developing Darien Lake into a popular amusement park.
The latter began when Snyder bought 500 acres of land in Genesee County in 1964. Over time he grew the property into campgrounds and the amusement park. He sold Darien Lake in 1983.
Snyder may be best known in Buffalo for his ownership of the former Buffalo Braves pro basketball franchise for most of its existence. The team entered the National Basketball Association in 1970 as an expansion team. In very short time its original owners, a hedge fund group from New York City, ran into problems and the league assumed control of the franchise. Snyder, who had recently sold off his ownership of Freezer Queen, stepped in and bought the Braves.
Pete Weber, now the play-by-play voice for the National Hockey League's Nashville Predators, worked in Buffalo radio sports for many years, first arriving at the former WEBR in 1976. He remembers Snyder as a fiery owner.
“I mean, how many times did he threaten to move the team or to totally get rid of some of his better players, such as Bob McAdoo," Weber recalled. "I'll never forget the press conference he had talking about Bob McAdoo's agent and what he was concerned with, and he just blatantly said, 'Well, I told his agent to just go to hell.' And next thing we know, John Gianelli is no longer a New York Knick. He's a Buffalo Brave. The trade was made.”
The Braves, though popular, struggled to secure prime game dates and times while sharing Memorial Auditorium with the National Hockey League's Buffalo Sabres and local college basketball. The Braves were third in the pecking order, behind the Sabres and Canisius College. Snyder blamed Canisius for much of his scheduling woes, but Weber suggests that's not fair.
"I think it's a misunderstanding of the facts when people think that he was burned by Canisius," he said. "Canisius had, I think, eight dates on the weekends, which left many more on the calendar that the Buffalo Braves could have had. So I believe that, and I'm not trying to paint Paul Snyder as a total black hat in this story, but I think he has done a little bit of what we know now from politicians trying to paint a pretty picture about his ownership, his time with the Buffalo Braves."
Snyder sold the team to John Y. Brown in 1978. Brown, in turn, agreed to an odd exchange of franchises with Ira Lewin, who owned the Boston Celtics. Brown took over the Celtics, while Lewin assumed control of the Braves. But Lewin then relocated the team to San Diego, where they were renamed the Clippers. The team later moved again to become the current Los Angeles Clippers.
In the 1980s, Snyder developed the Hyatt Regency and opened E.B. Green's Steakhouse inside. It was also home to Olympic Management and SunPark International, which became among the nation's largest off-site airport parking companies.
In the early 2000s, Snyder was part of the group which developed the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort.
Snyder shifted control of his business interests to his son, Paul Snyder III. For all of the late Paul Snyder's business holdings, Weber considers Janet his biggest legacy, calling the retired radio personality a "tremendous performer" for the community.
BTPM asked Weber if, under those circumstances, whether he would consider the Snyder family a Buffalo dynasty.
"Yes, I would. I absolutely would," he answered.
