Earlier in the season there were rumblings about the Fenway Sports Group selling the Pittsburgh Penguins. Things on that front went quiet for a while, until now.
It appears the Penguins are in the process to being sold to Hoffmann family based out of Chicago.
It took a long time for the Hoffmann Family to make the money work with FSG.. But a real has finally been struck. Read about it here: https://t.co/qxR5bLOQhv
Fenway Sports Group, which took control of the Penguins from Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle in 2021, has an agreement in place to sell the franchise to the Chicago-based Hoffmann family, a league source said.
The sale price is expected to be in the range of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, the source said. The deal must be approved by the NHL Board of Governors — the other 31 team owners or their appointed representatives — before it can become official.
Anytime there are ownership changes there is potential for big changes, not always good. Nothing has been said about what the Hoffmann family’s plans are for the Penguins and if there will actually be any changes to the organizational structure.
Fenway Sports Group tenure
When Fenway Sports Group bought the team from Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle it was at an interesting point in the franchise’s timeline. The Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin era had already peaked and was clearly winding down. Right away they were between a rock and a hard place with how to proceed.
Out were Ron Hextall and Brian Burke and in was Kyle Dubas. I thought at the time it was a really good hire and I still feel that way even though Dubas did a very poor job of spending the cap money they had in his first year on the job. Dubas has built up the Penguins hockey operations and has shifted focus to the future. He has traded for a lot of draft picks by taking on bad veteran contracts and the early returns on some of his draft picks (Ben Kindel, Will Horcoff, Harrison Brunicke) have been very positive. He has the Penguins on the right track.
This happened because FSG were hands off with the hockey operations department. They provided Dubas the resources to build things how he wanted and have stepped back to allow Dubas to execute things how he wants with those resources.
Even though FSG is a soulless corporation type of owner I thought they did a good job as owners of the Penguins. Aside from allowing hockey people to do the hockey things they reinvested in PPG Paints Arena with a new scoreboard along with other improvements. To me, that is a pretty ideal situation with ownership. Provide the money and step back.
So while, it was a very impersonal style of ownership, I thought it was a successful one.
Why sell?
One might ask if things were going well with the retool/rebuild then why sell? At the end of the day they are a soulless corporation and motivations are pretty clear, money. FSG bought the Penguins in 2021 for 900M. They are going to sell to the Hoffmann family for 1.7-1.8 billion dollars. They are clearing at least three-quarters of a billion dollars in four years of ownership. To them, it is a great return on investment.
Additionally, there are other investments that I believe FSG finds more lucrative long term. The NBA is currently deliberating whether or not they should expand. One of the markets is likely to be Las Vegas.
Adam Silver says NBA expansion decision coming in 2026, with Las Vegas and Seattle the focus. After years of ‘teasing’ the league is gonna decide whether to go to 32 teams. https://t.co/v33lGCkU1C
By selling the Penguins for a big profit FSG now has more liquid cash to make a serious bid to become the owners of a new Las Vegas expansion team. Remember, Lebron James is a part owner in FSG. They are positioning themselves to market a brand new team with Lebron as one of the owners. The amount of money and attention this investment will draw dwarfs whatever the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to be up to.
The planets aligned and FSG is taking their money and moving on to the next project
What now for the Penguins?
We don’t know much about the Hoffmann’s other than they previously have experience owning a hockey team with the ECHL’s Florida Everglades and that they are pretty rich.
Fenway Sports Group has agreed in principle to sell the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Chicago-based Hoffmann family, first reported by Hockey Insider Frank Seravalli, confirmed by @emilymkaplan.
However, there is a passage from the ESPN article that makes me shudder.
The Hoffmann Family of Companies is a multi-generational family-owned private equity firm, whose CEO is billionaire David Hoffmann. Their broad portfolio includes more than 100 brands in real estate, manufacturing, media and agriculture among other sectors.
The group also owns the ECHL Florida Everblades, and David Hoffmann said publicly in recent years he wishes to own either an NHL or NBA franchise.
The Hoffmann’s wealth comes from a private equity firm. Those three words have caused much damage and enshittification to everything we like and need in modern times. For me, it is a huge red flag. The lion’s share of these people are ghouls and will ruin the things you like in life so they can squeeze just a little more money out of normal people and put it in their Scrooge McDuck pool of gold coins.
The best thing Penguins fans can hope for is that this is a passion project for the Hoffmann family. They come in, they pay the bills, and they leave Kyle Dubas and the hockey operation alone, just like Fenway Sports Group did. That is a best case scenario.
Of course, there is the not so great timeline where they come in and try to get their hands on everything. They meddle like the Pegula family has done with the Buffalo Sabres. When Pegula bought the team in 2011 he claimed Buffalo would be “Hockey Heaven”. His involvement in the team has led to the Sabres missing the playoffs every single year of his ownership in a league where half the teams make the playoffs.
Terry Pegula is a fraud and ruined my favorite team. Destroyed hockey in one of the best hockey markets in the world. A total failure. pic.twitter.com/1ZhwZsBDF4
I don’t want to pour cold water on this situation before anything tangible is said or done, but we have countless examples of rich people buying teams and being too involved to a fault. Just because you did well in another facet of business doesn’t mean you automatically have expertise in hockey or running a franchise.
I’m hoping for the status quo and fearing the Penguins version of the Pegula family. It might turn out that the soulless Fenway Sports Group wasn’t so bad after all.
