No. 192 The retired star who bought his own hockey team

On September 1, 1999, the NHL approved Mario Lemieux's application to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins. The odd part was the buyer: Lemieux had already been the Penguins' defining player, and he had retired from the NHL two years earlier. The former franchise star was about to become the person responsible for owning the franchise. 12

The Penguins were in bankruptcy after carrying more than $90 million in debt. Relocation was becoming a real possibility, which gave Lemieux's bid a very different shape from a celebrity buying a stake in a team. The purchase was also a plan to keep Pittsburgh's NHL club in Pittsburgh. 2

Lemieux had a personal financial reason to care. During his first retirement, the Penguins owed him $32.5 million in deferred salary, making him the team's largest creditor. The proposed solution turned that unpaid hockey salary into part of the rescue package. 2

Lemieux put $20 million of the deferred salary into an ownership stake, directed another $5 million toward operating expenses, and deferred the remaining $7.5 million. Investor Ron Burkle joined the group, and the pair bought the Penguins from Howard Baldwin and Morris Belzberg for $107 million, according to The Hockey News. 2

That arrangement made the transaction unusually circular. A team that owed its retired star money gave the star a route to become its owner. Lemieux's hockey history supplied the personal connection; the bankruptcy supplied the leverage; the ownership group supplied a way to keep the club from leaving town. The facts make the joke feel almost backwards: the employee became the employer because the employer still owed the employee millions.

September 1 was the NHL approval date. The bankruptcy court gave final approval to Lemieux's reorganization plan two days later, after his group reached agreements involving the Penguins' television broadcaster and the operator of the Civic Arena. The distinction matters because league approval and legal control were separate steps in the rescue. 34

The ownership milestone itself was historic. Sports Illustrated's hockey-history entry describes the NHL approval as the first time in major North American sports that a team was owned by one of its former players. The Pittsburgh Penguins' own later account calls Lemieux the first player-owner in NHL history. Those descriptions refer to the same unusual boundary: the person who had worn the jersey now held the franchise's controlling interest. 34

The story became even stranger when Lemieux returned to the ice for Pittsburgh in December 2000. He was no longer just a former player who owned his old club. He became the owner who played for his own team, a role Sports Illustrated identifies as another first. 4

Lemieux's comeback lasted until 2006, and his ownership group later celebrated Stanley Cup wins in 2009, 2016, and 2017. The Pittsburgh Penguins' official account also records the short overlap between Lemieux and Sidney Crosby during Crosby's rookie season, when the club's past and future icons shared the ice while Lemieux was in ownership. 3

On September 1, 1999, a retired hockey star did not merely buy a team he loved. He used money the team owed him to help keep it alive, then eventually played for the club he owned. Few sports facts manage to make the player, creditor, owner, and teammate the same person.