Former CEO Marie Ganty answers: Is Black Bear a hockey monopoly?
Former Black Bear Sports CEO Marie Ganti took a limited number of questions via video from reporter Kenny Jacoby. Is the Black Bear a hockey monopoly?
Over the past decade, a private investment firm has consolidated much of youth hockey, turning what was once a community-based activity into a revenue vehicle for wealthy investors.
USA TODAY spent nine months investigating Black Bear Sports Group, which owns or operates 47 ice rinks in 11 states and hundreds of their youth teams. The leagues, tournaments, and showcases they participate in. Even live streaming services that parents use to watch their children play.
The news organization’s reporting, based on interviews with more than 80 parents, players, coaches, rink operators, current and former employees, and thousands of pages of records, revealed that Black Bear’s business model restructures youth hockey from a community-based nonprofit network to a vertically integrated, for-profit system with fewer checks on the flow of money.
Here are four takeaways from the survey:
Black Bear ousts long-standing community nonprofit
The Pittsburgh Vipers, the oldest youth hockey team in Western Pennsylvania, rented ice from the Pittsburgh Ice Arena for many years. And in 2021, Black Bear purchased the link.
In 2022, Black Bear made an offer to buy the nonprofit’s youth team for $1. When the association’s parent-run board of directors refused to sell, the Black Bears kicked most of their teams out of the rink.
With no other place to play, the nonprofit’s board of directors voted in February 2024 to disband the Vipers after 60 years.
Murry Gunty, Black Bear’s founder and former CEO, described Vipers as a failing organization that “didn’t want to work with us.” Black Bear spokesman Evan Nierman said the company ousted the Vipers because the club’s attendance was declining and the rink needed a growing team to survive.
Black Bear founder has a pattern of unethical behavior
Long before he started Black Bear, Gunty had developed a reputation in the financial world for using unethical practices to get ahead.
In 1992, while a graduate student at Harvard Business School, Ganti was caught by his classmates tampering with votes to be elected president of a prestigious student club.
In 2008, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission publicly criticized SFCA, a company owned by Mr. Ganti’s private equity firm, for refusing to cooperate with a government recall of dangerous bassinet cars linked to multiple infant deaths.
An unrelated Securities and Exchange Commission investigation in 2016 found that Mr. Ganti was responsible for misleading investors in private equity funds through conflicts of interest, self-dealing and fraudulent expenses. Ganti’s company agreed to pay a fine to resolve the issue.
Ganti declined to discuss the dispute between Harvard and the SEC. Nearman said SFCA fully cooperated with the bassinet recall.
‘obvious conflict of interest‘
Ganti used a private investment firm to turn his son’s nonprofit youth hockey club, Team Maryland, into a college recruiting vehicle and business revenue stream.
While Ganti’s son was on the team, the Black Bears purchased a rink from which some of Team Maryland’s teams rented ice. Tax records later revealed that during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, Team Maryland paid more than $1.2 million to commercial companies owned or co-owned by Ganti. Robert Weiss, president of the nonprofit organization; And the president’s son, Michael Weiss, told USA TODAY that a nonprofit expert called it a “clear conflict of interest.”
“I’m very happy with what I’m doing with Team Maryland,” Ganti said. Nearman said the transaction was legal under Maryland law because it was “fair and reasonable” and properly disclosed.
Legal experts express concern over Black Bear’s abuse of monopoly power
Black Bear rapidly consolidated ice rinks and hockey teams in the Northeast and Midwest, using its control to steer families into its own ecosystem of leagues, tournaments, and fees.
Some parents said they spend nearly $5,000 a year to get their 8- and 9-year-olds on the Black Bear team, and hundreds more on hotels, travel, equipment, uniforms, tryout fees and Black Bear TV, the Black Bear’s own streaming service. Antitrust experts have raised concerns that Black Bear is using its dominance in the links industry to gain unfair advantages in other markets critical to sports infrastructure.
How one father built a profitable youth hockey system
A USA TODAY investigation found parents are raising concerns about rising costs associated with Marie Ganty’s hockey empire.
Amid the USA TODAY report, multiple news outlets in Michigan reported that the Michigan attorney general had launched an investigation into anti-competitive business practices in youth hockey, focusing on the Black Bears.
Nearman cited state research, including Black Bear’s ownership of less than 10 percent of Michigan’s rinks, ice rental agreements with third parties, and increased participation as evidence that families have a choice and are choosing Black Bear. Ganti told USA TODAY that Black Bear is “not a monopoly.”
Click here to read the full study.
Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY, uncovering issues in sports, higher education and law enforcement. Email kjacoby@usatoday.com.
