With news spreading that Commanders owner Dan Snyder is considering a potential sale of the team, speculation about who could possibly purchase the franchise has run rampant. Obvious names of some of the world and country’s richest people have surfaced, such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis, and Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein. Former comedian and head of Entertainment Studios Byron Allen and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were named by a source with knowledge of the situation as individuals who have expressed interest in bidding for the team, according to Mark Maske, Nicki Jhabvala, and Liz Clarke of The Washington Post. 
Allen was one of the bidders for the Broncos and strives to become the NFL’s first Black principal team owner. He was courted quite a bit by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Patriots owner Robert Kraft during the Broncos’ sale in a concerted effort to help make that a reality. The league has a special interest in helping Allen after the owners “approved a resolution in March endorsing diversity in franchise ownership.”
What makes this difficult to accomplish for Allen is the league guideline that essentially requires a purchaser to have 30% of the final sales price liquid and available at the time of the purchase. With the Broncos selling at $4.65BB, the Commanders are largely expected to surpass $5BB. Forbes “estimated in August that the Commanders are worth $5.6BB,” and Jack Evans, a former D.C. council member, estimated that the team could sell for as much as $7BB. This requires the available amount to be upwards of $1.50-2.10BB.
An outrageous down payment like that makes it extremely difficult for someone like Allen to make the purchase alone, and Allen has made it clear that he would not like to join any groups as a minority investor. It sounds like, in order to make that happen, the league would have to revise the rules or make an exception to them, which could potentially happen if the league truly wants to encourage diversity in franchise ownership. It’s not likely that this will take precedence over bid price, though.
Bezos, on the other hand, being the fourth-richest person in the world, is in a much better position to cover the required initial amount with an estimated net worth of $113.2BB. The source who named Bezos claims that the Amazon executive might be interested in a group bid including music mogul Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z.
Bezos has ties to both D.C. and the NFL in his business experience. He owns The Washington Post and Amazon carries the NFL’s current “Thursday Night Football” package. Bezos has spent plenty of time with Goodell, attending a game with him earlier this year, and Kraft has advocated for Bezos to be involved in Seattle, where the Seahawks may soon find themselves for sale by the trust of late owner Paul Allen.
Carter also has ties to the NFL through the partnership his Roc Nation agency has with the NFL that makes it a co-producer of the Super Bowl halftime show. He also has experience with franchise ownership as a former part-owner of the Nets. The biggest strike against Bezos and Carter is that it is presumed that the NFL would prefer an individual buyer over a group.
It was made known, though, that Carter would not have interest in pursuing a minority stake in the franchise if Snyder remains the majority owner, which brings up an interesting point: Snyder has not divulged whether he is considering a full or partial sale of the team. In the recent past, Snyder attempted “to exercise his right of first refusal” to match offers made to former limited partners, effectively blocking the sale of partial ownership shares. The buyers who were blocked by Snyder, Clearlake Capital co-founders Behdad Eghbali and Jose E. Feliciano, reportedly went on to bid on the Broncos and could be considered candidates to buy the Commanders once again.
There is plenty that still needs to unfold before we see the conclusion of this story. Wrinkles need to be ironed out about how much of the franchise is for sale. Real bids need to be placed. The league will need to decide how serious it is about promoting diversity in ownership as well as how it feels about group ownership. We’ll likely see lots of similarities to the Broncos’ sale, and this sale could lay the groundwork for an eventual sale of the Seahawks. Plenty remains to be seen in the months to come.
It’s so wild to me that the Comics Unleashed guy is a billionaire and owns The Weather Channel and Bally Sports (with Sinclair). Dude made garbage, filler TV for like 1 AM time slots and made a billion dollars off of it somehow. Good for him.
I recently read that 75% of Americans have an ongoing battle with insomnia so this guy was smart enough to take advantage of that.
Curious when the NFL starts pushing for minorities on teams for DBs. When do we see teams start to be mandated to hold workouts for at least one white DB before offering a contract to someone? Or draft pucks if your team rosters a white DB?
See how wild these sorts of diversity things sound when you flip them?
Idiotic comment. There are no tryouts to be a billionaire.
You can tryout at TradingView for free.
See, you say that but the object of selling something, especially something of rare quality or high value is typically to get the most you can for it.
So, why would we bring in race, regardless of whatever race it is, to a bidding war when the only real thing that really matters is money?
I am pretty sure if Bezos bids and owns a team that he will have the financial strength to continue operating the team no issues.
Race shouldn’t be involved here because it doesn’t matter. People will come I’m and say “the NFL is 80% non-white but ownership is 100% white” as if a non white owner would be better to own a team of non white people based on what, a shared color of skin?
Break race based thinking in the NFL beyond its “feel good” headlines and it always sounds silly. Reverse racism exists. Imagine saying the NFL had interest in Bezos as an owner because he’s white. Don’t say what you can’t about one race about another.
Jason Sehorn the last I’ve seen
Troy Apke , was on the WFT ,but I get the point
Bezos declared war on Snyder via the Washington Post in order to steal his team. Regardless of what the other owners think about Snyder they should nix any Bezos ownership – or they could be next.
Oh please. Snyder is a creep. Whatever happens to him is his own fault. Bezos has nothing to do with him losing it. It rightfully pointed out his flaws. I seriously doubt Bezos has any time to be the head and dictate any of the actions of his companies. Plus Bezos has his own skeletons in the closest so he probably isn’t going to get it. Plus other networks take every shot at his issues too.
Snyder sucks. Just like 99% of billionaires out there.
Snyder sucking and Bezos being underhanded are not mutually exclusive.
Agreed. They each have their own unique ways of showing what complete a$$hats they both are.
Bezoar just needs to wait for a few years and buy the Seahawks. He might be able to buy out some minor owners to get involved. Would be good to have a hometown guy owner again.
Highaltitude not sure how he declared war against Snyder and do not care. He would be a welcome owner here.
Jeff Bozos will make a strong push for them, especially now that he’s building Amazon HQ2 nearby.
Musk or Bezos should not even be considered. The Circus either would bring the NFL and it’s fans just don’t need.
Bozos should not be able to own a team and control TV rights for the league. I don’t think that changing the rules for ownership is a good look either. Leonsis is the obvious choice in my opinion.
Agreed
Whoever buys them, one could only hope they’ll fix the mistake of a team name and uniform created by the previous owner.
I hope they do. Washington Football Team is better than Commanders. Commanaders is worse than Cleveland Guardians. Both new team names suck. Should’ve been the Spiders.
And WFT is awful as well, so generic and a copy of all these soccer teams. Commanders is bad, Commanaders even worse. WTF is more appropriate.
Soccer/football is fine. They at least abbreviate the Football Club part. Like Arsenal F.C. When I googled tbe other names there was a few that were better. Like Red Hogs or Defenders(not great but better than Commanders. They past on WarHogs too. Red Wolves. They seemed to have taken the worst 10 names and picked one out of a hat.
Washington Football Club was always the temp play and OFC Dan was too stupid to do that.
Isn’t leonis trying to buy the nationals ?
In a dramatic turn of events, the new owner becomes worse than Snyder.
Two for one special maybe.
So, at what point does Amazon and/or its affiliates owning stakes in every aspect of society become troublesome?
Never.. Just ask Google about Disney .. see what I did there
Amazon becomes troublesome if Bezo is somehow hiding a Chinese heritage.
If a new owner gets the team can the change the awful name?
They almost succeeded in finding a worse name than the Columbus Panhandlers (1920-22).
If Bezos buys the team they can change the name to the Washington Jokers and then they can add the Amazon Smile on each side of the helmet.
Washington Generals since that’s the role they play anyway, just there to provide an opponent for the team people are trying to watch.
So, the NFL could consider changing the rules, regarding the purchase of a franchise, to accommodate someone, based solely on the color of their skin. The definition of racism continues to elude me.
Bryon, if you don’t have the cash too bad, team up or peace out…..
Depending on the source Allen’s net worth is anywhere from 350 to 800 million dollars . Cold hard facts are that he just doesn’t have the money to be a majority owner of a NFL team .