Jeffrey "Jeff" Vanderbeek (born 1958) is the former owner of the New Jersey Devils, a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

team in the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

. Vanderbeek, a New Jersey native and Devils season ticket holder since the late 1980s, bought a minority stake in the Devils when Puck Holdings, an affiliate of

YankeeNets Yankee Global Enterprises, LLC, formerly YankeeNets, LLC, is an American limited liability company (LLC) which owns the New York Yankees baseball team, along with a plurality stake in YES Network and a 20% and 10% stake in New York City FC and AC ...

, purchased the team in 2000. In 2004, he bought the team outright and resigned his position as an executive vice president of

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, a ...

, which he joined in 1984. Filed 2002-03-01. Retrieved on 2006-11-15. He was ranked the ninth highest paid executive of 2002 by '' Business Week'' with pay totaling over $29 million.

Owner of the New Jersey Devils

Vanderbeek has been a strong proponent of the

Prudential Center Prudential Center is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the central business district of Newark, New Jersey. Opened in 2007, it is the home of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the men's basketball program of Seton Hal ...

, which hosted its first New Jersey Devils hockey game on October 27, 2007. In 2012, Vanderbeek finalized a deal with the team's lenders that allowed him to retain the franchise for at least two years. In August 2013, a deal was reached where Josh Harris and David S. Blitzer of

Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment is an American sports and entertainment company headquartered in the Philadelphia metropolitan area that owns and operates the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association, the New Jersey Dev ...

bought controlling interest in the Devils and the Prudential Center for over $320 million. Vanderbeek remained as a minority owner after the sale.

Personal life

Raised in Somerville, New Jersey, Vanderbeek moved to Bridgewater Township as a child and graduated from Bridgewater-Raritan High School East in 1975. He resides in

Warren Township, New Jersey Warren Township is a township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. The township is a bedroom suburb of New York City in the much larger New York metropolitan area, located within the Raritan Valley region. As of the 2020 United State ...

, having previously resided in South Orange, New Jersey.Caldwell, Dave
"Hockey; Wall Street Executive To Purchase Devils"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', March 3, 2004. Accessed October 21, 2015. "Vanderbeek said he had been a Devils season-ticket holder for about 15 years. Before he moved to Warren, N.J., Vanderbeek lived in South Orange, not far from the team training complex in West Orange."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanderbeek, Jeffrey 1958 births Living people Bridgewater-Raritan High School alumni National Hockey League executives National Hockey League owners New Jersey Devils executives People from Bridgewater Township, New Jersey People from Somerville, New Jersey People from South Orange, New Jersey People from Warren Township, New Jersey