Sunday February 8, 2004
In todays Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the Penguins are claiming that even if the league were to shut down for the entire 2004-05 season due to labor strife, they would not cease operations, despite what some public reports have stated recently.
Team president Ken Sawyer, who met yesterday with the rest of the league's Board of Governors for an informational session, is not permitted to comment on specific Collective Bargaining Agreement issues, as per commissioner Gary Bettman's order. But he did make clear that the Penguins are financially braced to shut down indefinitely.
"From the day we bought the team, we said our original goal was to do whatever we can to make sure this team can stay where it is forever, so we've been acting very fiscally sound, prudently," Sawyer said. "And while we have a loss this year, in comparative terms or overall terms, it's manageable in the short term. We're well prepared to withstand whatever we have to in order to get to a new labor agreement and a new economic structure in the league that works for the Penguins."
The Penguins project a loss of $5 million this season after breaking even over Mario Lemieux's first four years as owner. They also have an overall debt of $35 million, which one team official described as "not actual losses but common carrying debt for a professional sports team" and a manageable amount when weighed against its $71 million in equity. Sawyer said the team has the means to maintain its debt payments through a work stoppage.
For more on this visit the link to the article above.
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