A few weeks back the Pittsburgh Penguins were in the news for the wrong off-ice reasons when accusations about their former minor league coach came out regarding sexual assault.
This weekend there is a story about the Penguins being the only team out of 123 in the four major sports to take and keep a loan from the United States federal government under the CARES act.
Slapshots. PPP and the Pittsburgh Penguins; Chaos to be expected in ‘20-21; Plus, on sponsorships and tag lines. https://t.co/sCWt6p0wOw
— Larry Brooks (@NYP_Brooksie) December 27, 2020
There are 123 teams among the Big Four North American Men’s Sports Leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL).Only one of them received a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program. That team is the Pittsburgh Penguins, who received a loan of $4.82 million through the program authorized by the CARES Act.
According to the Small Business Administration’s website, “The Paycheck Protection Program is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll.…
When you are the only team out of 123 to keep this money it is sketchy on the surface. When you think about all the small businesses and their employees around the Pittsburgh area (and everywhere else) who desperately need help right now due to the COVID restrictions it paints an even sketchier picture. The Penguins didn’t even use the funds to pay their employees. They put those people on furlough. They used it to pay rent.
“Accordingly, we borrowed $4.8M under the CARES Act program in mid-August and applied the funds to our $6.1M September rent payment to the SEA, which was used by the public agency to make its required bond payment.“The SEA indicated it is facing similar financial difficulties due to the closure of the SEA-owned Convention Center, and we are pleased these funds were used to support an important public agency during these challenging times.…
The Penguins are worth 650M and their billionaire owner, Ron Burkle, just spent 22M buying Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch this week.
Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California has found a new owner in billionaire businessman Ron Burkle https://t.co/xtYHToEw4X pic.twitter.com/3BMhZTKF8v
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 26, 2020
This is a terrible look and the Penguins deserve all the criticism they get for it. Their billionaire owner is buying famous real estate for tens of millions of dollars. Taking federal money intended to help small businesses and not even giving it to their employees who were furloughed. The Penguins love to paint themselves as a caring organization. They pay basic lip service to other causes in the most generic ways possible.
The Penguins need to do the same thing the Los Angeles Lakers did. Give the money back.
The Lakers have returned approximately $4.6 million that they received from a federal government program.
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 27, 2020
The program was intended to help small businesses weather the economic burden caused by the coronavirus pandemic.https://t.co/iPePuma58u
The Lakers were just as wrong to apply for this small business loan as the Penguins, but they ultimately made the right choice. Not sure the Penguins will. They are more interested in appearing to be an organization than actually being one.
Thanks for reading!