One of the NHL’s most historic franchises could be under new ownership soon. According to Sportico, Fenway Sports Group will purchase a controlling stake in the Pittsburgh Penguins, pending approval from FSG board members and the NHL.
The deal’s terms have yet to be disclosed, but the Penguins — who’ve made 15 straight playoff appearances, won three Stanley Cups since 2009 and owned the highest local ratings share of any NHL team last season — were valued at $845 million as recently as October. Fourteen NHL teams are more valuable.
FSG, led by billionaire John Henry, will assume ownership from Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle, but Lemieux could reportedly retain a small portion of his equity. A Hall of Famer who played each of his 17 NHL seasons with the Penguins, Lemieux joined Burkle to purchase the team out of bankruptcy in 1999. Lemieux is the only person in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup as both a player (1991, 1992) and owner (2009, 2016, 2017).
If the deal is approved, the Penguins would join the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, Liverpool FC and Roush Fenway Racing in FSG’s portfolio. FSG was valued at $7.35 billion after RedBird Capital and Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James invested earlier this year.
TSN reported the deal could be done as soon as this week, an unsurprising development given FSG’s recent foreshadowing.
“We look at FSG very much as a platform for sports, entertainment, real estate, content, media, and the like,” Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy told the Sporticast podcast last month. “We are very interested in growing our company and acquiring new businesses in those lines of business. So teams, venues, content, media, real estate is where we’re looking and we’ve got a lot going on right now.”
Pittsburgh (5-5-4), which is currently second to last in the Metropolitan Division and last in goal differential (-7), returns to its home ice Tuesday to play the Buffalo Sabres.
