A Pittsburgh Steelers reorganization plan that makes Dan Rooney and his son Art II the principal partners with a 30 percent stake was backed by other National Football League owners.
Three new investors were also approved by a league meeting yesterday in Dallas.
“Today’s vote ensures that the Rooney family will be associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the NFL for a very long time,” Dan Rooney said in a statement.
The agreement, which calls for a closing date before March 31, brings the Steelers into conformity with an NFL rule that requires a controlling stake of at least 30 percent by one owner. All remaining owners will divest their gambling interests to overcome league concerns that some of the brothers had shares in harness racetracks that added video gambling.
Previously, Dan Rooney and his four brothers each owned 16 percent of the franchise. Descendents of Jack McGinley, who died in October 2006, held the remainder.
The three new partners are James Haslam III, the 54-year- old president of Pilot Travel Centers, the nation’s largest owner of retail travel centers and truck stops; 38-year-old Thomas Tull, the chairman and chief executive officer of film production company Legendary Pictures; and the Paul family, whose businesses include Ampco-Pittsburgh Corp., a metal fabricator.
The team didn’t say how much of the team each will own.
Financing
Dan Rooney and Art II, the team’s president, obtained financing from Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and organized the group of investors to buy the shares from the four brothers.
The agreement “provides for transfer of the shares of Dan Rooney’s brothers,” the team statement said, without specifying whether any of the siblings will remain minority owners.
Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that PNC financed $250 million of the agreement and holds the team as collateral. It also holds between $212 million and $262 million in Steelers stock that will be assigned to potential partners, the newspaper said.
The agreement, reached about three months after Duquesne Capital Management LLC Chairman Stanley Druckenmiller dropped his bid for the team, had to be approved by 24 of the NFL’s 32 owners. It passed with a vote of 31-0 with one abstention, the Associated Press said.
Five Super Bowls
The franchise, founded in 1933 by Art Rooney Sr. who died in 1988, is one of the oldest and most storied in the league.
Pittsburgh has won five Super Bowls, with players including Pro Football Hall of Fame members Franco Harris, Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann. Its most recent title came after the 2005 season, when it beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 in the championship game.
This season, Pittsburgh leads the American Football Conference’s North Division with an 11-3 record, two games ahead of the Baltimore Ravens at 9-5.
Dan Rooney, 76, was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2000. He joined the Steelers in 1955 and was named president 20 years later, holding that role until passing it to Art II in 2002.
Druckenmiller, 55, had negotiated to buy the team for five months, then opted out in September after the Rooney brothers rejected his offer. The family had approached Druckenmiller seven months earlier after years of trying to resolve issues with estate planning and league ownership rules.
The Rooneys own racetracks in New York and Florida that have added gambling methods that are inconsistent with NFL policies, the team said in July. Some of Dan Rooney’s brothers plan to focus on the tracks and other businesses.
(Source: Bloomberg)
