Sheffield Wednesday went into administration four weeks ago, bringing an end to Dejphon Chansiri's ownership of the club.
Fans, who had been boycotting matches, have returned in their numbers since to help the Owls' financial situation.
The administrators said earlier in the week that 12 parties had shown proof of funds to take on the club.
Eighteen points adrift of safety and with the potential for more points to be deducted, their relegation to League One is already all-but confirmed.
The home fans stuck with the team for much of today's game despite having little to shout about. They will be needed for the hard winter months and matches to come.
They travel to Millwall on Wednesday while United host Portsmouth the same evening.
Sheffield Wednesday manager Henrik Pedersen told BBC Radio Sheffield:
"It was not the performance we hoped to give all the fantastic fans in Hillsborough today – we lost to a better team.
"We struggled a bit with belief to move the ball quickly enough, and I think from the defensive perspective we were not as dominant as we often are with our pressing.
"We had the ball I think 64% in the second half, but we had it from our own goal to the last 20 metres of the opponents' half and we struggled to find the last pass.
"How do we break the defensive line of the opponent? It's a theme of the season – the purpose of having the ball is to create chances, but I promise we'll work a lot on this to be better."
Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder told BBC Radio Sheffield:
"It's been a tough period for both clubs, for different reasons, and we always knew it was going to be a tough afternoon. We were going to have to overcome an honest group of players, which we eventually did.
"I went up to Barry Bannan and Liam Palmer at the end of the game. I think the way they've handled the situation and conducted themselves is absolute credit to them, not just as professionals but humans really, in terms of what they've had to deal with and galvanise their group.
"I thought we looked particularly threatening in terms of when we created and the possession we had. We defended well, we had a desire to keep another clean sheet, and we got after them on the press.
"We were good out of possession and forced them to go long – any little periods of sustained pressure they had, we saw them out."