Steelers for sale?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the Pittsburght Steelers may be up for sale at some point. Goldman-Sachs valued the team as being worth $800 million to 1.2 billion. The team has always been owned by the Rooney family. Dan Rooney runs the team, but it is owned by him and his four brothers. Interesting reading. I didn't know the Rooney also owned Yonkers Raceway and it casino. New owner? Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire chairman of Pittsburgh’s Duquesne Capital Management.

In a report by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the team will not be relocated. In the story, Darren Rovell, a reporter with CNBC said: "There is zero-percent chance the Steelers will move out of Pittsburgh if they get new owners. I will drink six bottles of Heinz ketchup, back to back, in 10 minutes, if I'm wrong on that." Also according to the story: "The Steelers were valued at $929 million by Forbes Magazine in September."

A nice critique of the Steelers possible sale by the Sporting News' Albert Breer, who just joined the magazine. He talks about winning the Rooney way. He writes: "The Steelers play in a seven-year-old stadium and boast a relatively small amount of debt. They were beacons for fiscal responsibility and long-range planning way before other NFL teams realized that a fleet of Brinks trucks couldn't buy championships in the era of free agency. Rooney hired young coaches and executives and let them grow, and Mike Tomlin is the team's third head coach since the Nixon administration. Because of "The Rooney Way," the Steelers have won. And won. And won."

CNBC's Darren Rovell reports that one person who will not be interested in the Steelers is Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who, by the way, is a Pittsburgh native. Rovell writes: "Cuban told me this morning that he didn’t think small markets could excel in the current cap based system the NFL has." He also says that if the team is sold under a Barack Obama administration, there could be higher capital gains taxes. This is interesting because I thought Dan Rooney was backing Obama.