Jeff Bezos interested in bidding on Commanders, possibly with Jay-Z
“I don’t know if they will partner on it,” that person said, adding that each is “interested.”
Bezos owns The Washington Post. Amazon carries the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” package.
The news of Bezos’s interest was first reported by People.
Some within the league have said for several years that Bezos was interested in purchasing an NFL franchise at some point. But he apparently did not enter the bidding for the Denver Broncos, who 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 it made Walton, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $59.2 billion, the league’s richest current owner.
Bezos has an estimated net worth of $113.2 billion, according to Forbes, which currently ranks him as the world’s fourth-richest individual.
The Commanders said Wednesday Daniel and Tanya Snyder, his wife and the franchise’s co-CEO, had hired an investment bank to “consider potential transactions” related to the Commanders. The team did not specify whether the Snyders intend to sell all of the franchise or a minority share. A Commanders spokesperson said Wednesday: “We are exploring all options.”
Forbes estimated in August that the Commanders are worth $5.6 billion. On the day after the Commanders’ announcement, those in and around the NFL began to consider a list of potential buyers that could include some of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
Media entrepreneur Byron Allen, who previously bid on the Broncos, also is preparing a bid for the Commanders, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the early stage of the process. Allen, if successful, would become the NFL’s first Black principal team owner after the owners approved a resolution in March endorsing diversity in franchise ownership.
“Roger Goodell and Bob Kraft had courted 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,” said the person, who made clear Allen would not join any groups as a minority investor. “The only thing that Byron Allen would be interested in is controlling ownership.”
The group being mentioned by industry analysts and other observers includes Bezos and Jay-Z; Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk; Washington Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and his partner in bidding on the…
Read More: Jeff Bezos interested in bidding on Commanders, possibly with Jay-Z