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A day after the Washington Chiefs announced that Daniel and Tanya Snyder are considering selling the team, speculation about a possible buyer has been rife, with at least one prominent name confirmed to be interested: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos .
Bezos is interested in bidding for the NFL team, according to a person familiar with the situation, and his bid could include music mogul Jay-Z as an investor. The person spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because the potential sale of the franchise is in its early stages.
“I don’t know if they’re going to partner,” this person said, adding that each is “interested.”
Daniel Snyder considers selling the Washington Commanders
Bezos owns The Washington Post. Amazon carries the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” bundle.
News of Bezos’ interest was first reported by People.
Some inside the league have said for several years that Bezos was interested in buying an NFL franchise at some point. But he was apparently not involved in the bid for the Denver Broncos, which were sold by the Pat Bowlen Trust in June for $4.65 billion to a group led by Walmart heir Rob Walton. NFL owners officially ratified the sale in August. It was the record sale price for an NFL franchise and made Walton, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $59.2 billion, the richest current owner in the league.
Bezos has an estimated net worth of $113.2 billion, according to Forbes, ranking him as the fourth-richest individual in the world.
The Commanders said Wednesday that Daniel and Tanya Snyder, his wife and co-CEO of the franchise, had hired an investment bank to “consider possible transactions” related to the Commanders. The team did not specify whether the Snyders intend to sell the entire franchise or a minority stake. A spokesman for the commanders said Wednesday: “We are exploring all options.”
Forbes estimated in August that the commanders are worth $5.6 billion. The day after the Commanders’ announcement, those in and around the NFL began considering a list of potential buyers that could include some of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
Media entrepreneur Byron Allen, who previously bid for the Broncos, is also preparing a bid for the Chiefs, according to a person familiar with the situation who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the early stage of the process Allen, if successful, would become the NFL’s first black owner of a major league team after owners passed a resolution in March supporting diversity in franchise ownership.
“Roger Goodell and Bob Kraft had wooed Byron Allen to take a good look at the Denver Broncos because they wanted to do everything they could to make history and have the first black owner of an NFL team,” the person said, making it clear Allen. would not join any group as a minority investor. “All Byron Allen would be interested in is controlling the property.”
The group mentioned by industry analysts and other observers includes Bezos and Jay-Z; Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX; Washington Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and his partner in the Washington Nationals bid, Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein; and Clearlake Capital co-founders Behdad Eghbali and Jose E. Feliciano, along with other former Broncos bidders.
“Having an NFL team is the ultimate trophy,” Jack Evans, a former D.C. Council member, said in a phone interview Thursday. “More than a baseball team, more than anything else for those with that kind of money. It limits the field of who can buy it, though. The leagues want a person. They don’t want a group.”
Evans, as head of the council’s finance committee, orchestrated deals that brought the new Convention Center, Capital One Arena and Nationals Park to the city. He said he believes there is “no turning back” for Snyder and that he needs to sell the entire team. The price tag could reach $7 billion, Evans estimated.
Musk, who just completed a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, is the richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $200.7 billion. There has been no indication to this point that he is interested in buying the Commanders or any other NFL team. Neither he nor his representatives responded to requests for comment.
Leonsis, Rubenstein, Eghbali and Feliciano declined to comment through spokesmen. Eghbali and Feliciano made an offer for the Broncos after Snyder rejected an earlier effort to buy a minority stake in the Commanders.
Brewer: Daniel Snyder is stuck, and now Washington fans can dare to dream
The Post reported in November 2020 that Snyder’s former limited partners Dwight Schar, Fred Smith and Robert Rothman had received a $900 million offer from Eghbali, Feliciano and Feliciano’s wife, Kwanza Jones. The sale was blocked, people familiar with the situation said at the time, because Snyder was trying to exercise his right of first refusal by matching the offers made to Smith and Rothman, but not the offer made to Schar. This led to a dispute over whether Snyder had the right to selectively exercise those rights.
NFL owners ratified a resolution in March 2021 granting Snyder a $450 million debt waiver that allowed him to buy, for $875 million, Schar, Smith and Rothman’s stakes, which had totaled about 40 percent of the franchise.
Other NFL owners in the past have expressed a strong desire for Bezos to buy a team.
Amazon became the exclusive national carrier for the Thursday Night Pack as part of the NFL’s new broadcast deals announced last year. The deal with Amazon is reportedly worth around $1 billion a year.
Bezos attended Thursday night’s season opener carried by Amazon — the Chiefs-Chargers game on Sept. 15 in Kansas City, Mo. — and sat next to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for at least a part of the game.
“I’m sure eventually it would be in everyone’s best interest to have someone as community-minded as him get involved in the Seattle situation,” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said in a 2019 interview with The Post.
The Seattle Seahawks will likely be sold in the next few years by the trust of late owner Paul Allen, the former co-founder of Microsoft.
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, formed a partnership with the NFL in 2019 to make his Roc Nation agency a co-producer of the Super Bowl halftime show. He is a former owner of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and has an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion, according to Forbes. Another person familiar with his thinking left open the possibility of a bid for the team, but added that Jay-Z would not pursue a minority stake in the franchise if Snyder remains the majority owner.
The consideration of a sale comes with Daniel Snyder and commanders under investigation by the NFL, the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the DC and Virginia attorneys general. Investigators with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia have interviewed witnesses regarding allegations of financial improprieties involving the team, multiple people familiar with the situation said Wednesday. The team has denied any financial wrongdoing