Sources within the Pittsburgh Penguins organization on Monday confirmed an ESPN report that Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Penguins, is looking to add an investor to its ownership group.
Fenway Sports Group has served as the Penguins' primary owner since 2021 and also owns other high profile professional teams, including the Boston Red Sox of MLB and Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League.
A source in the Penguins' organization confirmed that Fenway intends to retain the majority ownership stake of the Penguins and emphasized that there are no concerns about FSG's interest in the Penguins moving forward. The source compared it to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are primarily owned by the Rooney family, and their relationship with billionaire businessman Thomas Tull, who owns a portion of the team.
FSG is essentially looking for its version of Tull.
This is hardly uncommon in professional sports and, in fact, FSG did something similar in 2023 with Liverpool when it sold a minority stake in the team to Dynasty Equity.
FSG takes a relatively hands off approach to its ownership with the Penguins. John Henry and Tom Werner, the co-founders of FSG, occasionally attend games in Pittsburgh and speak on behalf of the team, but in general aren't fixtures. Teddy Werner has assumed an alternate governor role with the Penguins, replacing Dave Beeston, who recently departed FSG.
FSG purchased the team from former majority owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle in 2021 for $950 million. Lemieux and Burkle retained an extremely small portion of the team.