The Washington Commanders, an NFL staff with a heritage of success however a more moderen historical past of unchecked scandal and mismanagement, has been bought to an investor group for $6 billion.
The transaction, which was first reported by Deadline sister publication Sportico and later by different media shops, units a brand new file for a sports activities franchise. Surging NFL TV rankings have boosted the worth of franchises throughout the league, with the earlier file being set simply final 12 months with the $4.6 billion paid for the Denver Broncos. (Soccer’s Manchester United in England’s Premier League, has been rumored to be fetching bids within the $6 billion vary.)
Dan Snyder, who has owned the Washington staff for greater than twenty years however has did not return it to glory amid a continuous torrent of dysfunction and controversy, had been beneath stress to promote the membership.
Magic Johnson, who’s already a part-owner of baseball’s LA Dodgers, is a part of the funding group shopping for the Commanders. Led by Philadelphia 76ers co-owner Josh Harris, the brand new group additionally contains billionaire Mitchell Rales. Months in the past, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had explored a possible bid, however was rebuffed by Snyder given the tech mogul’s possession of the Washington Post, which has revealed various damning investigations into misdeeds by Snyder and the entrance workplace.
The catalog of offenses, which have been probed by the NFL however by no means resulted in any formal self-discipline, included sexual harassment, racial discrimination and the creation of a piece surroundings generally known as one of the noxious in skilled sports activities or company America. Congress and different authorities our bodies have been wanting into Snyder’s management of the staff in addition to its funds.
Snyder purchased the staff, then generally known as the Redskins, for $800 million in 1999. As different front-office dramas have been taking part in out, Snyder was additionally mounting fierce resistance to altering the staff’s title regardless of mounting criticism of it as racist. After the previous proprietor lastly bent to stress from company sponsors and agreeing to a shift, the staff performed for a time frame as merely The Washington Football Team till it performed a fan ballot to reach at Commanders.
On the sector, Snyder’s troops have additionally carried out poorly. Amid a marked decline from three Super Bowl wins in the course of the Nineteen Eighties and ’90s, the staff has now gone 18 years since its final playoff win, amassing a file beneath Snyder of 164-220-2.
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