How Red Sox Could Be Affected By Fenway Sports Group Selling Penguins

The Boston Red Sox aren't necessarily affected by everything Fenway Sports Group does, but selling another franchise feels significant.

On Wednesday, NHL insider Frank Seravalli announced that FSG, headed up by founder and principal owner John Henry, was selling the Pittsburgh Penguins to the Hoffmann family, a Chicago-based investment group. Emily Kaplan of ESPN reported that the sale price was somewhere between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion.

Congratulations aside, because Henry and FSG bought the Penguins at the perfect time for hockey franchise valuations to explode, there's a chance the transaction could wind up meaning something to the Red Sox. Let's briefly explore that pathway.

How will FSG use money from Penguins sale?

The only guarantee from Wednesday's news is that Henry and his business partners got a nice infusion of cash. FSG bought the Penguins for $900 million in 2021, so even accounting for inflation, they made a great investment.

However, any time an investment group sells one of its holdings, there are a number of potential implications for those other holdings. And the Red Sox, which were once the only professional sports franchise in Henry's portfolio, still have to compete for resources with Liverpool FC, Boston Common Golf, and various arenas and concert venues, including, quite possibly, Fenway Park itself.

With FSG planning to build a gigantic office facility across Lansdowne Street from the ballpark, there's a chance that the Red Sox's payroll isn't affected at all by the sudden windfall of cash, but that Henry, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, and CEO Sam Kennedy all have very nice offices across the street sooner rather than later.

Still, all that being said, there's definitely a chance the cash windfall allows the Red Sox to spend ever-so-slightly more on payroll. Don't expect them to suddenly become the Los Angeles Dodgers or New York Mets, but within reason, a few million bucks here and there could be on the table.

For example, we know earlier this offseason, the Red Sox were fretting about the second luxury tax threshold of $264 million, per Sean McAdam of MassLive. Could that worry now be slightly diminished?

On the flip side, we've also heard for years that FSG has wanted to break into the NBA, the NFL, or both. Perhaps they're sensing that NBA expansion is coming, or that an NFL team they want will soon become available, and are trying to redirect resources in that direction.

It's even possible that Henry and his investors are just going to make a nice profit and move on.

At this juncture, it seems as though the news from Wednesday was more likely beneficial to the Red Sox than detrimental. But it could also mean a whole lot of nothing.

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