John Durbin

Director of Marketing
Pegula Sports & Entertainment



John Durbin began working at Pegula Sports and Entertainment (PSE) in the summer of 2015, moving into the role after a successful stint as the Director of Marketing for the Buffalo Sabres. He currently oversees the marketing efforts for the Sabres, Buffalo Bandits of the NLL, Rochester Americans of the AHL, My One Buffalo mobile fan engagement program, MSG Western New York, and all the brands that reside within the mix-use facility HARBORCENTER including (716) Food and Sport, Academy of Hockey, IMPACT Sport Performance, and The Rinks. In addition to those brands, he is also the lead copywriter for PSE. He began his career as a media buyer and planner for Starcom Media in Chicago where he worked on such clients as the US Army, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Kellogg’s kid’s brands. He then moved into a creative role with the Publicis-owned Denuo; a consulting agency that specialized in the white spaces of marketing. In his time there he worked on projects around gamification, social, mobile, gaming, and loyalty/rewards programs among other emerging trends. Most notably, he played a lead role in the development of the Mercedes-Benz Tweet Race in February 2011. The project was shortlisted for four Cannes Lions and helped shepherd Mercedes-Benz into the social space. Prior to moving to Buffalo he obtained his MBA from the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon and holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Boston College.