Pittsburgh Penguins Rank No. 3 Among Smartest Financial Franchises In Sports

The Penguins might not be frugal spenders, as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin can attest. But a ranking by Bloomberg Business Week purports that Pittsburgh is one of the smartest teams in sports at spending money, putting the Penguins at No. 3 out of the 122 franchises in the Big Four sports leagues.

The methodology of the ranking began with seeing many games a team won, then adding "weighted wins" for wins above .500, playoff wins and championships. Finally, Bloomberg calculated how much each team spent per weighted win compared to the league average. By that metric, the Penguins are the third-smartest team in professional sports and No. 2 in the NHL, coming in behind the Tampa Bay Rays and Detroit Red Wings.

It's easy to maintain fiscal responsibility in a league with a hard cap, but nobody will deny that the Penguins have done a good job of rewarding their star players and getting the most out of what they have. That said, fiscal responsibility won't mean much in a lockout.

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