NHL
PITTSBURGH — Mario Lemieux will always be one of one to Penguins fans. But in terms of business, he might have some company.
There isn’t a “for sale” sign sitting atop the roof of PPG Paints Arena, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that Fenway Sports Group is considering selling the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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Or, at the very least, multiple groups in the business world believe the Penguins are available.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Monday that the Hoffmann Family, a Chicago-based group that owns the ECHL’s Florida Everblades, is emerging as a contender to purchase the Penguins. This comes on the heels of numerous reports by The Athletic in June and July that a group including Mario Lemieux, Ron Burkle and David Morehouse was interested in taking control of the Penguins after selling them to Fenway Sports Group in 2021.
Friedman’s article stated that a potential buyer would need to spend around $1.75 billion to purchase the Penguins.
FSG bought the Penguins for $900 million in 2021. Attendance figures have dropped for the Penguins ever since, primarily because of the rebuilding on-ice product. (NHL teams make nearly half of their business, on average, from ticket sales.) Despite this, the presumed asking price is nearly twice what the Penguins were purchased for, in large part because of the NHL’s impending expansion. There is a strong likelihood that the NHL is going to expand by two teams within the next couple of years, and this will flood the NHL with hundreds of millions of dollars, considerably enhancing the value of all NHL teams.
An FSG source confirmed they believe a sale is coming at some point, but also that it’s not necessarily imminent.
“I would say there will probably be a sale if that price is met,” the source, who requested anonymity, said on Monday afternoon.
The source said FSG boasts other business ventures that are more profitable than the Penguins, namely Liverpool Football Club and the Boston Red Sox. Should an offer in the neighborhood of $1.75 billion be thrown at FSG, the source believes a deal could be struck.
According to Forbes, David Hoffmann, the founder and CEO of Hoffmann Family of Companies, is worth $2 billion.
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Hoffmann is on record saying that he has been interested in purchasing an NHL or NBA team.
FSG announced in January that it was looking for a minority ownership partner. Since that point, the Boston-based group has maintained that the Penguins are not for sale, but rather, a space was available to join the ownership group on a minority level. Sources close to the Lemieux group interpreted the January call for minority help as FSG being willing to put the Penguins up for sale because of declining attendance. The Penguins played before 91 percent capacity crowds during the 2024-25 season, only a few seasons removed from a 15-year sellout streak that ended largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sources close to the Lemieux group have maintained that Lemieux, Burkle, and Morehouse intend to buy the Penguins outright, rather than being a minority partner with FSG. It’s believed the Hoffmann Family would also be interested in a controlling interest in the franchise.
Friedman’s report said a deal isn’t imminent and that there is “work to do” if a sale to the Hoffmann Family is to be completed.
FSG does not appear to be in a rush to hand over controlling interest of the Penguins, but there is a growing crowd of groups interested in the hockey franchise that has called Pittsburgh its home since its inception in 1967.
In other news: Mike Rupp, a former Penguins winger who has been a part-time contributor for SportsNet Pittsburgh broadcasts as a color commentator, told The Athletic on Monday that he will not be involved with the team’s broadcasts moving forward. Rupp shared TV color commentating duties during the past two seasons with former Penguins Phil Bourque and Colby Armstrong.
(Photo: Justin Berl / Getty Images)
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Josh Yohe is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. Josh joined The Athletic in 2017 after covering the Penguins for a decade, first for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and then for DKPittsburghSports.com. Follow Josh on Twitter @JoshYohe_PGH
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