We know the Fenway Sports Group is willing to entertain offers for the sale of the Pittsburgh Penguins. We know Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle want back in, but only if they are the primary owners, and we know they probably don’t have the capital to make that happen due to the current rumored sale price.
This is 850M more than what the Lemieux/Burkle group sold the Penguins for a mere four years ago. This is a tall ask for Lemieux/Burkle and likely does not make them a front runner for any potential sale. In my opinion, that might not be such a bad thing given where the team is in the rebuild.
They are also not the only entity interested in the Penguins from a hockey background. Enter the Hoffman family from Chicago
The Chicago-based Hoffmann family, owners of the ECHL’s Florida Everblades, has emerged as a serious contender to purchase the NHL team from Fenway Sports Group.
David Hoffmann, founder and chairman of the Hoffmann Family of Companies, bought the Everblades from former Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos in 2019. He told the Naples Daily News at the time that he’d looked into buying both NHL and NBA teams.
Any development like this is going to slam the door on Lemieux/Burkle’s prospects of buying the team. This is because any noteworthy rumored buyer is going to be able to put up the 1.75 billion that Fenway Sports Group is looking for. Considering the Hoffman family is looking into buying both NHL and NBA teams, they are not playing around and have serious money to throw at a professional franchise.
For Fenway Sports Group, an 850M profit in only four years is a decent piece of business considering the team has had absolutely no success under their guidance. With the team mired in a rebuild, taking the money and running is probably a prudent move.
