Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, New York Getting Completely New Name

It cost $50 million for a donation, but that is how you get a hospital to change its name, apparently.

John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo is going to get a name change after former Buffalo Sabres owner, Tom Golisano donated 50 million dollars to the hospital. Golisano already has the Hospital in Rochester, New York named after him.

When are they going to change Oishei Children’s Hospital's name to Golisano?

You might still hear people using Oishei Children's Hospital name for a little bit longer and that is because the contract says that the name change will not happen until the beginning of next year on January 1, 2026. When Children's Hospital was first being built they were looking for some support and they found that within the The John R. Oishei Foundation, hence why they had the naming rights. The Foundation got the naming rights for $10 million, which is significantly less than the donation that Golisano is giving to the hospital for the naming rights in 2026. To put it into perspective, the Buffalo Bills were looking for 6 million dollars a year for the naming rights for the stadium in 2021. Highmark Stadium ended up with the naming rights although they did not pay 6 million dollars.

How much is Tom Golisano worth?

As of this year, he is worth about 6 billion dollars. He at one point owned the Buffalo Sabres. He owned the Sabres and Bandits until he sold it to the Pegulas in 2011. Golisano got his money from owning Paychex and the Greenlight Network among other business ventures. Last year, he pledged to give away a lot of his fortune citing that he 'cannot bring it with him'.