I think you're mixing up the difference between deferred compensation employee contracts and physical assets. The Sabres players are employees under a deferred compensation contract. They're not valued assets.

As a point of example, I direct you to the leaked MLB team balance sheets. In the assets area, there is no reference to anything to do with players as being an asset. In the liability section, there are entries for Accrued bonuses and Player Salaries. This makes sense; the organization must pay the players, so they are in fact liability from that regard.

Players are again listed in the operating statement, under operating expenses. Later in the notes, it is again clarified that player salary is deferred compensation.

I stand behind my statement that from an accounting perspective, players are financial liabilities, not assets.