The Pittsburgh Penguins are about to have their third owner in five years.
Earlier this week, the Hoffmann Family, who was linked to the Penguins this summer when the team’s current owners, Fenway Sports Group, was looking to sell, came one step closer to closing the deal.
On Friday, the family put out an official press release through the Penguins, in which they officially announced a formal agreement to buy a controlling interest in the team from FSG.
The Hoffmann Family is reported to be buying the team for $1.7 billion, which is nearly double the $900M price tag FSG bought it for just a few years ago.
Though the sale still needs to be approved by the NHL’s Board of Governors, there’s no reason to think it won’t pass.
So, with another owner getting ready to take hold of a franchise that so many in Pittsburgh hold dear, I thought it would be interesting to pen a few questions I would have for the new ownership team.
In no particular order, here’s my list.
1: Is Money A Bigger Concern For The Penguins Now?
FSG could be criticized for a lot of things: their lack of true community involvement or roots in the Pittsburgh area, their mostly corporate attitude, and that their presence meant less of Mario Lemieux.
But one obvious benefit to having FSG as an owner was their deep pockets.
Being part of a sports family that included the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C. had its obvious perks, drawing in enormous revenues for the group to spread around. Hockey and the Penguins, in comparison to big market teams in MLB and European football, is a pretty low-cost effort.
Essentially, any money the Penguins needed, they got. It worked when they first were a team spending right to the salary cap and still going for the playoffs, and it worked when the team wanted to utilize their cap space to take on bad contracts for assets.
Now, the Penguins are shifting to a different financial realm. Per Forbes, David Hoffmann, the founder and current chairman of the Hoffmann Family of Companies, has a net worth of around $2 billion. They own an abundance of businesses and dealings, but how much of that money is going to be invested into the Penguins?
With the NHL’s cap exploding over the next few seasons, having extra money ready to spend is paramount for a lot of teams. And although the current long-term trajectory the Penguins are on doesn’t require them to be a cap-strapped team, eventually they will want to be.
Are the Hoffmanns willing and able to give them all the financial resources they need?Sports was pretty much FSG’s whole thing. Sport is just one of many things to the Hoffmann family.
2: Can Their Hockey Background Help In Taking Over The Penguins?
The Hoffmann Family of Companies has many scattered business interests. According to their own website, the group has acquired over 200 brands in over 400 locations, and those companies stretch from property ownership like golf courses, to boating and water activities, to newspapers and media outlets scattered across the country.
These people truly do it all. You can find a full list of the companies they own here.
However, unlike FSG, they do have a hockey background. In 2019, Hoffmann bought the Florida Everblades (and their building, Hertz Arena) of the East Coast Hockey League, which is one rung below the American Hockey League.
Under Hoffmann’s ownership, the Everblades have turned into one of the most successful franchises in the ECHL. The team won three straight Kelly Cups in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and made it to the Conference Finals last season before falling to Trois-Rivières.
In addition to the on-ice product, Hoffmann and his team invested in the arena and the fan experience, buying a new $2 million jumbotron for the building and upgrading additional areas.
The NHL is obviously a whole new level for them, but they do know hockey. So, how does their background in ice help them now they are about to own the Penguins? Can they lean on their ECHL experience and success to have a feel for what needs to happen in Pittsburgh? And perhaps more importantly, will fans feel more at ease knowing the Hoffmanns have a background in hockey?
3: Will The Hoffmanns Be More Involved In The Community?
The distance that FSG had between their main business and the Penguins was part of what turned some fans away from their ownership. To some fans, FSG was this distant group of suits who bought a hockey team and didn’t really know what to do with it.
It wasn’t that they were bad people or anything like that, or that they didn’t invest some money into local causes and charities within the area, but they had no prior ties to hockey or Pittsburgh. They were Boston billionaires who had closer ties to their other sports dealings. No one could really blame them either. The Red Sox were in their family before the Penguins got there, and they will be there when the Penguins leave.
The Hoffmanns is pretty involved in their main community now, Naples and South Florida. Over the years, David and his wife have invested locally in places like the Boys & Girls Club of Collier County and the Everglades Foundation. In addition to that, the family has created and invested in Type 1 Timer Hockey, the only nonprofit hockey camp in North America dedicated to supporting young athletes with type one diabetes.
Will that translate up north as they now hold a major asset in western Pennsylvania? They do have some great charitable interests, and a big way top say they are here to stay in Pittsburgh is to bring that charitable attitude up here.
Can the Hoffmann team find a way to be more involved in the community, and make it feel like they have a true, vested interest here?
4: What Does This Mean For Mario Lemieux?
When Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle sold controlling interest in the Penguins to FSG, that was the end of seeing Mario regularly at home games for the team.
Though he still held a minority stake in the team, he was no longer the face of ownership that he once was. He was a staple of the crowd at PPG Paints Arena for years, but over the last four or so, he’s rarely been in attendance. Rumors of a bit of a riff between the two sides lingered, and Lemieux tried to stage an effort to buy the team back earlier this summer as FSG was looking for investors or to flip the asset.
However, even though FSG opted to sell to the Hoffmanns, that doesn’t mean Lemieux can’t have a bigger role under new ownership.
Of course, it’s up to him how involved he wants to be for an organization he no longer has control over, but the easiest and best way to get fans on the Hoffmanns side real quick is to get Mario involved again, in any capacity they can.
If you are anyone from the Hoffmann team who is involved in this Penguins sale, you call Mario as soon as possible and see if he’s interested in showing his face more.
5: Is There Any Change To The Plan Kyle Dubas Has?
In their press release, Geoff Hoffmann, the CEO of Hoffmann Family of Companies, said all the right things. Among them was a commitment to Penguins general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas.
“Our goal is to support Kyle Dubas with everything he needs to bring the Penguins back to the pinnacle of the NHL,” Hoffmann said as part of the release.
There’s no reason to not believe that. However, once the sale officially takes place and the Hoffmanns get in the door, will Dubas and the owners see eye-to-eye on what he needs to get the Penguins back to winning?
And, how involved will the group want to be in overseeing that mission? Fans don’t want someone who is going to try and control every asset of the business and be in on every trade, signing, or decision the club makes. Ask fans in Vancouver and Buffalo how they feel about that.
With all the ups and downs of this season, it still looks like Dubas hasn’t strayed much from his long-term goals and building blueprints for the team. Does any of that change, or get accelerated, now that the Hoffmanns are here?
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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