There is growing speculation that the Hoffman family is putting together a legitimate bid to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins from the Fenway Sports Group.
The Fenway Sports Group, which purchased the team for $900M in 2021, would be eyeing a sale price in the neighborhood of $1.75 billion. In only four years, that would be quite the profit margin, and it would be understandable why FSG would take the money and move on. The Penguins are currently in a rebuild that will take a few years and will start to lose the star power that has driven the Penguins popularity. Evgeni Malkin is likely in his last season, and Sidney Crosby, while still awesome, is still nearing 40 years of age.
Another potential motivating factor to sell could be that FSG just spent over 400M on players for Liverpool in the recent transfer window. This is probably not a main factor, considering Liverpool has plenty of money rolling in via sponsorships and increased capacity at Anfield, but 400M is no small investment.
Then there’s potential NBA expansion. Lebron James is part of FSG, and he is heavily rumored to be the face of a bid for any new Vegas team. Picking up $1.7B in the sale of a hockey team could be used to win the Vegas bid, which would ultimately make them way more money than a hockey team in Pittsburgh ever would.
The point being, it would be easy to walk away from this tall task of rebuilding and take hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.
This is the business end of things, rich people and entities shifting capital around. What matters to most people is how any sale is going to impact the on-ice product of the Pittsburgh Penguins?
Stay The Course
My hope would be that nothing major changes to the current team-building process. Having new ownership come in and make significant changes to the process already started would not be prudent and could trigger an era where the Penguins stay mired in mediocrity. When a professional franchise commits to the rebuild route, you need to stick with the program as long as the foundation is solid. I believe Dubas has laid the groundwork for a functional rebuild and deserves to continue his work. Fortunately, it is being speculated that Dubas will be able to continue his work regardless of what happens at the ownership level
If this holds true it will make any transition to a new ownership team smoother with minimal impact on what has already been put in place. This process is going to take a number of years to get right, and it doesn’t matter who owns the team; the process isn’t going to be significantly sped up by a change of strategy or direction, outside of winning the lottery for Gavin McKenna. The odds are low on that outcome, so slow and steady is the best path towards winning the race for the Penguins. Stay the course.
Yep, they have to stay the course. There’s no shortcuts for this team. I suppose you could hope McDavid decides he wants out of Edmonton, but I highly doubt Pittsburgh would be on his destination list considering they aren’t anywhere close to being a contender. It was always going to be a slow painful process. I hate to see Sid stuck in purgatory.