Pierre LeBrun this off-season dropped a nuclear bomb of a news article about the old Penguins ownership featuring Mario Lemieux and Co. trying to buy back the team from Fenway Sports Group. Since then we know the Mario group sent in an offer of around $1 to $1.1 billion dollars to buy back the entirety of the team and bring this team back to winning ways like it used to be, especially with Sidney Crosby at 37 years old firing on all cylinders.
Since then, every Penguins fan has been wondering. Will Mario have the team back and will it be full ownership? The answer to that question is NO. As a new family-owned sports group named the Hoffmann Family has swooped in and became the clear-cut group to buy full ownership share of the Pittsburgh Penguins from Fenway Sports Group.
The Chicago-based Hoffmann Family has made an offer and is soon to be accepted by FSG. The estimated value of the purchase will come in at $1.75 billion dollars. The Hoffmann Family group is owners of the ECHL's Florida Everblades who won three straight Kelly Cup's from 2021-22 season to 2024 season.
Frank Seravalli: Re Penguins sale: Sources indicate that the Fenway Sports group is closing in on a sale to the Hoffman Family; that sale is on track to close; the expected valuation...$1.75 billion dollars - Bleacher Report (8/26)
— NHL Rumour Report (@NHLRumourReport) August 27, 2025
Fenway Sports Group since buying the Penguins on December 31, 2021, have made some investments into the team, just not the investments everyone thought they would or should have made. FSG's main focus has been on spending money to buy players for another one of there owned clubs in Liverpool Football Club over in England. Fenway's main investments for the Penguins have been mainly building improvements to PPG Paints Arena and letting the team have little success over the four year period since purchasing the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Last season Fenway's main focus was not team success but more running a nostalgia tour that would attempt to put butts in seats to make them money. That was an epic fail as they team suffered and lost games by large margins, fans were not coming to games or leaving early and missed the playoffs for the third consecutive season.
FSG's main player investments went at the expense of acquiring Erik Karlsson and spending prime assets to acquire a then Norris Trophy winning defenceman that is now soon to be on his way out, Tristan Jarry who has been little more then a disaster, Ryan Graves who has done not very much in the good department at such a high cap hit, keeping a played out Mike Sullivan and crippled the team's future in the process of doing so.
With the rumours coming out that Fenway forced Ron Hextall to bring the band back together after the 2022 round one playoff defeat to the New York Rangers was never the right decision. Hextall had a contract ready to go with now Rangers forward Vincent Trocheck. Fenway's best decisions were firing Mike Sullivan, firing Ron Hextall and hiring Kyle Dubas, plain and simple.
With the Hoffmann family group soon to be owners of the Penguins and their clear desires of a winning pedigree, we could see the Penguins rebuild very quickly soon turn into forcing Kyle Dubas to create last attempts to contend with Sidney Crosby's window to win one last time is winding down, with the window being almost shut on his historic career and fazing into the new era of Pittsburgh Penguins hockey.