DANA POINT, Calif. -- Hall of Fame wide receiver John Stallworth is among the three new partners in the Steelers who were approved yesterday by NFL owners.

Mr. Stallworth, the president and CEO of Genesis II; Bruce V. Rauner, chairman of GTCR Golder Rauner, LLC; and the Varischetti family of Brockway, Jefferson County, bring to six the new partners the NFL has approved under the realignment of Steelers ownership under Dan and Art Rooney II.

Mr. Rauner, Mr. Stallworth and the Varischetti family join James Haslam III, the Paul family and Thomas Tull as new partners to help maintain the Rooney family ownership of the Steelers.

The agreement among the Rooney family for closing the transaction was originally set to take place before March 31, but with the addition of new investors the closing will be postponed until May.

Two or three more partners could be added by then, team president Art Rooney II has said.

The Steelers did not disclose the ownership interest of any of the investors.

The latest deal will bring one of the members of the legendary 1970s Steelers teams back into the fold. Mr. Stallworth, 56, played for the Steelers for 14 years and in the Steelers' first four Super Bowl championships.

He was president and CEO of Madison Research Corp., an engineering and information technology company based in Huntsville, Ala., before selling the company in 2006. He told Inc. magazine in 2006. He and a retired Army engineer he had met at his son's soccer game founded the company in 1986, and it grew into an operation valued at $62 million with 470 employees. Clients included the Army, Air Force and NASA.

The Varischetti family has substantial involvement in many businesses, including Guardian Elder Care Holdings Inc., which has 23 nursing facilities mostly in Pennsylvania, and Varischetti and Sons Inc., which owns and manages commercial real estate in Pennsylvania and New York, according to a statement from the Steelers. The family's business history dates to the 1960s, when the late Frank Varischetti built his sanitation business into one of the largest independently-owned sanitation companies in the state, the statement said.

"We've always been huge Steelers fans, so when this opportunity presented itself, it seemed like a dream come true," Peter Varischetti, 39, said last night on behalf of his family. "There was an opportunity to be able to do something, and it made sense for our family. It was a good fit for the Rooneys and the Varischettis."

Mr. Varischetti declined to say how much his family has invested in the team.

Mr. Rauner, 53, is a native of Chicago and chairman of GTCR Golder Rauner, a venture capital and private equity firm. He told Crain's Chicago Business magazine in 2006 that he was interested in buying the Chicago Cubs, but the Tribune Co. is in the midst of negotiations with another bidder who offered $900 million for the Cubs in January. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Dartmouth College and holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University.

His $5 million gift to Dartmouth College transformed Webster Hall, an antiquated theater with much history and tradition, into a modern special-collections library, where original Robert Frost and J.J. Audubon manuscripts are housed.

The restructuring of the ownership has been in the works for a couple of years, since the NFL raised concerns about the franchise being out of accord with NFL rules on majority control and its prohibitions against gambling even as commissioner Roger Goodell let it be known he wanted the Rooneys to retain control of the Steelers.

The NFL bans owners from being involved in gambling, even those forms sanctioned by government, and the family-owned tracks had expanded to include video game slots and/or poker rooms.

Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr., a storied horse player who kept the franchise going in the Great Depression with his racetrack winnings, bought the Palm Beach Kennel Club in 1970 and purchased the Yonkers harness track in 1971.

Each of the five Rooney brothers inherited a 16 percent stake in the Steelers when the Chief, who founded the franchise in 1933 for $2,500, died in 1988. The remaining 20 percent is owned by the McGinley family.

But NFL rules require a controlling interest of at least 30 percent by one entity, in this case, Dan and his son.

Twin brothers Timothy and Patrick Rooney will each sell their 16 percent ownership in the Steelers while staying in control of Empire City Gaming at Yonkers Raceway and the Palm Beach Kennel Club, one of the most successful greyhound tracks in the country. Art Jr. and John Rooney will sell parts of their stakes in the Steelers. After the sale price was set at $800 million in December, a 16 percent share works out to $128 million.